In what can only be described as a very disappointing game for Gu Li 9P, Lee Sedol 9P (left) snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in the late endgame to win the second game of the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango by 1.5 points. Lee now has a 2-0 lead in the best-of-10 series, increasing the pressure on Gu in Game 3, which will be played in Chengdu on March 30. Game 2 was played on the outskirts of Shanghai on February 23.

Gu Li, playing black, started the game with nice opening and he took the lead up to black 45, but Lee reversed the game up to 78. The lead exchanged hands several times in the middle game but Gu regained the lead in the endgame and was still leading up to 189. Several subsequent mistakes by Gu, however, enabled Lee to turn a probable half-point loss into a 1.5 point win.
– based on the report by David Ormerod and An Younggil 8P on GoGameGuru. Check their Lee Sedol – Gu Li jubango page for more news and commentary.

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“Go Seigen is my favorite player!” comments Albert Yen on last week’s quiz, which asked who was the only player to defeat Go in a jubango match. Longtime quiz players may recall that your quizmaster considers him the greatest player of all time (though the same group may recall I have a different favorite player). A wonderful 43 of you responded. Six chose the razor-sharp Sakata Eio, perhaps confusing his breaking up the dominance of Takagawa Kaku, whose Honinbo dominance may have confused two of you and a solitary, unidentified responder chose a time-traveling TARDIS possessing Shusaku. An impressive 32 correctly chose Fujisawa Kuranosuke, although several shared Richard Jankowski’s concern that “I hope this person is the same as Fujisawa Hosai.” Putting aside existential questions about whether we really are the same person during different times of our lives, Fujisawa did not adopt the name “Hosai” until much later. However you want to refer to him, Fujisawa beat Go Seigen 6-4 in 1942 (right), although, as many pointed out, he took black in each of the no komi games, and he later lost two jubango to Go, also at handicap. Interestingly, Reinhold Burger suggested that this question would be difficult without special resources, while Roland Crowl felt it was “too easy to find online” While the number of correct responses give the nod to Mr. Crowl, I thought I would take a moment to comment on how we structure quiz question choices. Ideally, we first hope to be interesting and topical. After that, your quizmaster personally believes clever, difficult questions will always we appreciated by those interested in this clever and difficult game. However, even if folks easily get online and find an answer, then your interest has been sparked and hopefully you’ll have learned something. Congratulations to David Rohde of Carpentersville, IL this week’s winner, chosen at random from those answering correctly. photo courtesy Go’s Everywhere website.

THIS WEEK’S QUIZ: Let’s learn something about China’s Gu Li (left). While Gu benefitted from instruction by several teachers, one teacher nurtured him since he was a youngster. Is it Yang Yi 6P, Yang Yilun 7P, Song Xuelin 9P or Zhang Wendong 9P? Hint: He has attended the U.S. Go Congress several times. Click here to make your guess by close of business on Thursday.
– Keith Arnold, HKA & AGA Quizmaster

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“In response to the question about viewing the rest of the Iyama program (Your Move/Readers Write: Where’s the Rest of Iyama? 2/22/2013 EJ): it is possible but you must pay,” writes Todd Dahlquist. “Click this link and it will ask you to either pay the 210 yen ($2) for just watching this program or 945 ($9.22) for unlimited access for a month. Clicking those links brings you to another page to register. All of it is in Japanese though so it would be difficult for someone who does not know Japanese.”
Editor’s Note: Google Translate may help.

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“Just wondering if the NHK program on Iyama (Go Spotting: Iyama Yuta on NHK 2/15 EJ) is available online in its entirety,” wonders Brian Olive.
Perhaps one of our readers who reads Japanese can check out the NHK site and let us know. email journal@usgo.org

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Fan Hui 2P of France swept the Confucius Cup at the 2014 Irish Go Congress, posting a perfect 5-0 score. Fan (right) topped a field of 44 players over the February 15-16 weekend in a surprisingly sunny Dublin. Celebrating 25 years of go in Ireland, the main tournament, the third Confucius Cup, was well represented with a strong field of players. Csaba Mero 6d (Hungary) took second place, Antoine Fenech 5d (France) was third, and Ondrej Silt 6d (Czech Republic) was fourth, with Kim Ouweleen 4d (The Netherlands) fifth. In an interesting historical note, Professor Liming Wang, Director of the UCD Confucius Institute, played in both this Confucius Cup and the first Irish Open in 1989. 

Winning four games were Julia Bohle 19k (Austria), Josefa Kubitova 8k (Czech Republic) and Gabriel Aussibal 1k (France). The Rapid Tournament was won by Karol Janyst 2k (Poland), with 5 wins, followed by Marek Gutkowski 7k (Poland), who edged out four other players with four wins. Click here for full results, game records and photos by Tiberiu Gociu.
– adapted from a report by the Irish Go Association 

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In the manga Ashita No Joe — also known as Tomorrow’s Joe in America — the main character Joe Yabuki talks about fuseki. The manga isn’t about go at all — its about boxing — but here Joe is in the middle of a brutal match and in danger of losing. His coach wants to take him out of the match but Joe uses the concept of fuseki to explain his plan.
Thanks to Henry Hathaway for passing this along.

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The second round of the AGA City League is set for February 22. The first round concluded on February 10 with a win by Katy TX 1 defeating Syracuse to complete the round. “As always catch the action live on game day at 3PM EST on Pandanet using the new GoPanda2 software,” says TD Steve Colburn. Games will be played in the AGA City League room.

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