Japan’s Ichiriki Ryo 7p won the 1st GLOBIS Cup World Go U-20, defeating Kyo Kagen 2p (aka Xu Jiayuan by his Chinese name) on May 11, 2014.

Ichiriki Ryo 7 dan plays Kyo Kagen 2 dan at the 1st GLOBIS Cup.

The finals of this new, under 20, international tournament were played at the Graduate School of Management, at GLOBIS University, Tokyo, Japan.

The runner up, Kyo Kagen, was born in Taiwan, but turned pro with, and plays for, the Nihon Kiin (Japanese Go Association).

China’s Lian Xiao 4p defeated his countryman Xia Chenkun 2p in the playoff for third place.

A new hope for Japanese Go

In a hopeful sign for Japan’s Go fans, Ichiriki Ryo and Kyo Kagen defeated Lian Xiao and Xia Chenkun respectively – achieving an overall 2-0 score for Japan vs China in this tournament.

Ichriki Ryo 7 dan defeated Lian Xiao 4 dan

It’s worth noting that, even though this event is only open to players younger than 20, Lian Xiao and Xia Chenkun are hardly pushovers. Both players have performed well other recent tournaments.

Because of this, the results from this new tournament have been a topic of some sensation in Asia.

The last time two players from the Nihon Kiin were in the final of an international tournament together was the 10th Fujitsu Cup – between Kobayashi Koichi 9p and O Rissei 9p. That was about 17 years ago.

A new international tournament in Japan

It was very unfortunate when Japanese sponsored tournaments disappeared from the international Go scene after the 24th and final Fujitsu Cup in 2011, so it’s excellent to see this brand new tournament appear with a Japanese sponsor.

Asked about the new tournament, Hori Yoshito, the Chairman of GLOBIS Corporation, said, “I wish to see young, talented Japanese players competing on the international stage again in 20 or 30 years, so we sponsored this tournament.”

The talented Ichiriki Ryo

Ichiriki Ryo was born in 1997 and turned pro in 2010. A few days ago, on May 16, he also won the 5th Okage Cup (under 30 tournament), against Seto Taiki 7p.

Ichiriki’s other achievements include winning the 4th Okage Cup, against Anzai Nobuaki 9p, in 2013, and fighting his way into the 39th Kisei League (2014).

From left: Lian Xiao, Ichiriki Ryo and Kyo Kagen receive their prizes at the 1st GLOBIS Cup.

The GLOBIS Cup

The GLOBIS Cup World Go U-20 is an international lightning tournament for 16 players aged 20 years and younger.

The players initially go through a group stage, similar to the Samsung Cup, or the FIFA World Cup. It uses a double elimination format, with 2 players progressing through each group.

The remaining 8 players compete in a simple knockout tournament (single elimination) to decide the winner.

The winner takes home 3 million Yen (about $30,000 USD at the time of writing) and the runner up receives 500,000 Yen.

The tournament is sponsored by GLOBIS University.

1st GLOBIS Cup Participants

This year, the participants were as follows:

Japan: Ida Atsushi 8p, Ichiriki Ryo 7p, Kyo Kagen 2p, Sun Zhe 2p, Tsuruta Kazushi 2p and Koyama Kuya 1p.

China: Lian Xiao 4p, Xia Chenkun 2p and Li Qincheng 1p.

Europe: Lukas Podpera (winner of the European Youth Championship).

Korea: Na Hyun 4p, Choi Jung 4p and Shin Jinseo 2p.

North America: Shi Gansheng 1p (aka Gansheng Shi).

Oceania: Joanne Missingham 6p (aka Hei Jiajia).

Taiwan: Lin Junyen 6p.

More 1st GLOBIS Cup photos

Game records

Ichiriki Ryo vs Kyo Kagen

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Ichiriki Ryo vs Lian Xiao

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Kyo Kagen vs Xia Chenkun

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This is game 4 of the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango, between Lee Sedol 9p and Gu Li 9p.

A turning point in the match

Gu Li 9 dan (pictured) is on a roll against Lee Sedol 9 dan in the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango.

The mood of the series changed when Gu Li defeated Lee Sedol in three consecutive games, including in game 3 of this match, but the overall score for the Jubango was still 2-1 in Lee’s favor.

However, since Gu was in an upswing, it was important for Lee to win this game and put an early stop to Gu’s run.

This game was held on Jeung Island, in Shinan County – near Lee Sedol’s hometown – and it was the first and only game scheduled in Korea.

Reviewing the game with other pros

At the time when this game was played, I was in Korea for my sister’s wedding. I really wanted to go to the venue, to watch and review the game live with other pros.

However, it was quite far away from Seoul (which was unexpected) and I didn’t have enough time to go there. That was unfortunate, but I was still able to review the game on the day, with other pros in a dojo in Seoul.

It was nice to be able to discuss this game, and the Jubango, with other pros. I rarely have such opportunities since leaving Korea. The commentary which follows is a combination of my own and that of other pros who reviewed the game with me.

We’re writing a book about this match

This commentary, and others, will form the basis for our Go book about Lee Sedol and Gu Li’s jubango.

The actual book will contain a more extensive commentary of this game, but you can regard what you see below as a draft (learn more).

Please help us to make our first Go book as good as possible. There are several ways you can help us to improve the commentary below:

1. Ask questions about the game – if anything is unclear, please let us know so we can explain it better!
2. Point out any mistakes, even minor typos – our first draft is below, because this is going to be a book, even small mistakes need to be fixed.
3. Tell your friends and ask them to help too.

The rules of the game

The time limit for these games is 3 hours and 55 minutes, with 1 minute x 5 times byo-yomi. It’s traditional to subtract 5 minutes from the 4 hour total, because of the 5 x 1 minute periods.

There’s no lunch break scheduled for these games, but food is provided and the players are free to get up and eat whenever they want, throughout the game.

Commented game record

Gu Li vs Lee Sedol – Game 4

[Embedded SGF File]

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Gu Li 9 dan (left) and Lee Sedol 9 dan at game 4 of their jubango.

Gu Li 9p won game 4 of the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango, drawing even with Lee Sedol 9p at two all for the match so far.

Game 4 was held on Jeungdo (Jeung Island) in Shinan County, near Lee Sedol’s hometown, and was the first and only game scheduled in Korea.

Before the game, the players paid their respects to the hundreds who died when a ferry tragically capsized on April 16.

The ferry incident occurred near the venue for this match.

Gu Li extends his streak to 4 in a row

Go fans who like to follow the Lee Sedol – Gu Li rivalry will already know that this is Gu’s fourth consecutive victory against Lee in the last two months.

“Do you see the light?” Gu Li (left) seems to have all the answers lately, chalking up four consecutive wins against Lee Sedol.

Lee will be wanting to dismiss these consecutive losses from his mind and focus all his energy on winning the next game, to stop Gu from making off like a runaway train.

However, anyone who’s played Go competively will know that this is easier said than done.

After losing his early advantage, Lee Sedol will be keen to put an end to Gu’s winning streak in the next game.

Game 5 will be held in Yunnan Province, China, and is shaping up to be a crucial turning point in the match.

An Younggil’s preliminary comments

Go Game Guru’s An Younggil 8p is in Korea at the moment, and reviewed the game live with other pros. Here are their preliminary comments, which Younggil kindly sent through for GGG readers:

(Note: you can download the game record or scroll down to view the game online and follow along with these comments)

Gu Li started the game with the Micro Chinese Opening.

Gu Li (right) plays his first move against Lee Sedol.

White’s approach from the side, at 8, has been getting more popular recently.

White 10 was unusual. Approaching at 14 is more common in this position, but Lee chose this move instead.

It looks like both players had researched this pattern before the game. The result up to 27 is playable for both.

Black 37 and 39 were good tesuji, and the game was still even up to Black 49.

Black 57 and 59 formed a nice combination, but White 58 and 60 were good responses.

White 66 was very sharp, and the result up to here was favorable for White.

White 72 and 74 were practical moves, and Lee might have thought that the game was good for White at this point.

White 76 was somewhat questionable, and the game became more or less even again here. White should have played at 87 instead.

White 82 was also a mistake. White should still have played at 87. Lee must felt that the game was still alright for him, but Black 83 was sharp, and Black 85 and 87 were very big. Those moves helped Black’s top group and also aimed to cut at M17.

White 88 doesn’t look good either. Black was happy to reinforce the corner territory with Black 89.

Black 113 was a brilliant move, and the game became slightly favorable for Black. The game was still very close, but Black was slightly better after Black 121.

Black 167 was the finishing blow, and the game was practically over here. If white connects at 173, Black will cut at 172, and he’ll be able to gain some more endgame points by squeezing.

Up to Black 179, Black was winning the game by around 2.5 points, so Lee Sedol resigned.

Gu Li (right) defeated Lee Sedol by resignation in 179 moves.

The MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango

Two of the world’s top Go players, Lee Sedol and Gu Li, will play a jubango throughout 2014, to decide which of them is the stronger player.

A jubango is a 10 game match between two players. The term originates from the Japanese language and has been imported into English language Go parlance. The first player to win six games wins the match.

The official name for this event is the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango. MLily is a mattress and bedding company that also sponsors the MLily Cup.

Go Game Guru is writing a book about this match and posting news and commentary about each game as it happens.

Game record

Gu Li vs Lee Sedol – Game 4

[Embedded SGF File]

David Ormerod, with Younggil An and Jingning Xue

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Just in case you’ve forgotten, a quick reminder that game 4 of the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango takes place tomorrow.

A pivotal game

Lee Sedol 9 dan (left) and Gu Li 9 dan will play game 4 of their 10 game match on Sunday, April 27, 2014.

Lee Sedol 9p currently leads the 10 game match 2-1, but Gu Li 9p is on a three game winning streak against Lee (including games from other events).

Both players will be fighting hard in what promises to be an exciting and pivotal game in the series.

Match time

Tomorrow’s game starts at 9:00 am Korea time, Sunday, April 27.

That means it starts one hour earlier than previous games did, because they were played in China.

For those of you living in other time zones, that’s:

• 12:00 am, Sunday morning, UTC
• 8:00 pm, Saturday evening, US Eastern Daylight Time
• 5:00 pm, Saturday evening, US Pacific Daylight Time
• 1:00 am, Sunday morning, British Summer Time
• 2:00 am, Sunday morning, Central European Summer Time, and
• 10:00 am, Sunday morning, Australian Eastern Standard Time.

An Younggil is in Korea

Coincidentally, An Younggil 8p is currently in Korea for a family event and will be able to attend the game live at the venue.

The good news is that this means he’ll be able to analyze the game in detail with other pros at the venue, and will report back on their thoughts as well as his own.

The bad news is that he can’t simultaneously translate the Baduk TV coverage at Go Game Guru, so there will be no live translation beyond that provided by other viewers this month.

We’re sorry about this and things will return to normal in May.

Baduk TV starts when the game does

Another point worth noting for Baduk TV subscribers is that the Baduk TV Live coverage will start at the same time as the actual game this month, and will finish at 7:00 pm Korea time.

That’s 10 hours of live coverage, which will likely be too much for all but the most hardcore Go fans.

I recommend that you tune in throughout the day at a time that’s minimally disruptive to your normal sleep pattern (we all have jobs).

The commentators will likely go back and review the overall game at various times, while the players are thinking deeply about their moves.

Enjoy the game!

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This is game 3 of the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango, between Lee Sedol 9p and Gu Li 9p.

Lee Sedol 9 dan (left) and Gu Li 9 dan discuss game 3 of their jubango shortly after the game.

Since Lee Sedol won the first two games, he should have had a psychological advantage going into this one.

However, the mood of the series changed shortly before this game took place.

The 4th Zhaoshang Cup

One week earlier, there was another game between Gu Li and Lee Sedol at the 4th Zhaoshang Cup and Gu Li won.

When I was watching that game, I felt that Lee was in poor form, and I thought that perhaps he was saving his energy and stamina for this jubango game.

When Lee isn’t in good form, he rushes and plays thin, territorial moves instead of solid moves that emphasize power. If you look at that game, you’ll feel that Lee’s play was different from these jubango games.

The Zhaoshang Cup is a team competition and neither player would have cared about the winning or losing as much as they usually do. However, there was another game shortly afterwards which changed the flow of this match.

The 16th Chunlan Cup

The Round of 16 at the 10th Chunlan Cup took place just two day before this game. Gu and Lee were paired to play together once again (based on drawing lots). And this game was different.

Both players did their best and you could feel their fighting spirit from the beginning until the very end of the game.

Gu Li took the lead, after making a big trade on the right side, and maintained it throughout most of the game. Lee Sedol caught up near the end, with his characteristic fierce and powerful moves, and almost reversed the game.

However, Gu managed to hold on to the smallest of leads amidst the chaos. Lee knew that he was losing by half a point, and that there was no way to catch up, so he resigned.

Gu Li restores his confidence

Winning those two games seemed to restore Gu Li’s confidence, and relieve the mental pressure he felt about playing Lee Sedol in this match.

On the other hand, Lee Sedol suffered some psychological damage in losing that game and the bad news for him was that he only had one day to recover and calm his mind before this game.

Some pundits said that Lee was only concentrating this jubango, and that if he won this game the earlier losses would soon be forgotten.

We’re writing a book about this match

This commentary, and others, will form the basis for our Go book about Lee Sedol and Gu Li’s jubango.

The actual book will contain a more extensive commentary of this game, but you can regard what you see below as a draft (learn more).

Please help us to make our first Go book as good as possible. There are several ways you can help us to improve the commentary below:

1. Ask questions about the game – if anything is unclear, please let us know so we can explain it better!
2. Point out any mistakes, even minor typos – our first draft is below, because this is going to be a book, even small mistakes need to be fixed.
3. Tell your friends and ask them to help too.

The rules of the game

The time limit for these games is 3 hours and 55 minutes, with 1 minute x 5 times byo-yomi. It’s traditional to subtract 5 minutes from the 4 hour total, because of the 5 x 1 minute periods.

There’s no lunch break scheduled for these games, but food is provided and the players are free to get up and eat whenever they want, throughout the game.

Anyway, let’s have a look at game 3 this 10 game match.

Commented game records

Lee Sedol vs Gu Li – Game 3

[Embedded SGF File]

via Go Game Guru http://ift.tt/1hXADUE

Gu Li 9p chalked up his first win in the MLily Gu vs Lee jubango, forcing Lee Sedol 9p to resign in game 3, on March 30, 2014.

Lee Sedol (left) and Gu Li, in Chengdu, China.

Lee and Gu faced one another in Chengdu – the capital city of Sichuan, China – having traveled straight there after their game at the 10th Chunlan Cup two days earlier.

The only game that mattered

After Lee won game 2 of this jubango in February, he led the 10 game match 2-0.

Since Gu lost game 2 in regrettable circumstances, many Go fans reasonably surmised that Lee would have the psychological advantage going into the third game today.

However, over the last week, Lee and Gu have played three games together. Not only is this very unusual, but it may have helped to restore Gu’s confidence.

Gu defeated Lee in the 4th Zhaoshang Cup (a China vs Korea team tournament) on March 23, and followed it up with another win at the 10th Chunlan Cup on the 28th.

Gu Li 9 dan (left) plays Lee Sedol 9 dan in the third game of their jubango.

Because of this, it’s hard to say who had the momentum going into today’s game. Some commentators argued that Lee was saving his energy for the jubango, but perhaps that’s because they were rooting for Lee.

We do know one thing for sure though; that today’s game was the only one that really mattered to both players. And Gu Li won.

Good news for Go fans

This is, of course, good news for all Go fans – except perhaps the most die hard Lee Sedol fans. A close score increases the likelihood that we’ll be able to enjoy all 10 games.

It also makes the series more exciting to follow.

An Younggil’s brief game analysis

Go Game Guru’s An Younggil 8p discussed the game live with Baduk TV Live subscribers. This is his initial brief commentary of the key points in the game:

Black 17 was an interesting attachment, and the first fight started there. The result up to 31 was a bit better for White (Gu Li), because he became very thick and powerful at the top.

White 36 was an unusual move, and a big fight began when Black responded at 37. It was very complicated, and the result up to 61 was playable for both.

Black 63 was a severe response to White’s attachment at 62 and the trade up to 71 looked playable for Black, but it was actually an even result.

White 78 and 82 were a nice combination, and the invasion at 86 was painful for Black, because White’s influence at the top was too strong.

Gu Li’s invasion at White 86 was painful for Lee Sedol.

Black 87 and 89 were questionable, and White 90 showed Gu Li’s nice sense of play. Black 91 was an another questionable move, and White executed a nice counter-attack with 92 and 94.

White established a solid lead with 102, but Lee started to catch up again with 113 and 115. White 116 and 124 were slack, and Lee caught up through to 144.

However, Black 147 was a big mistake, and the game became difficult for Black again. And when White played at 162, the game became desperate for Black.

White 178 was a big mistake too, but Gu stayed calm with 182 and maintained his lead.

Black 185 was the last losing move for Lee. It should have been played at 186 instead. Black couldn’t find any more chances to catch up after White 188 and Lee Sedol resigned soon afterwards.

Gu Li erred with White 178, but kept his cool and won by resignation.

It was a very interesting game to watch, but both players seemed to make more mistakes than they usually do. That could be because it was a very complicated game, but they also they seemed to lose focus at some points in the game.

Recently, both Lee and Gu have played quite a lot of games and they had very little time to rest before today’s game. I think they both seem exhausted and neither player is in their best form at the moment.

Both players will work hard to recover and get back into shape – physically and mentally – in time for game 4.

More commentary to follow soon

Reviewing the game in detail will take more time, but Younggil will be back soon with his full commentary of game 3.

While you’re waiting, you can review all our articles about the match so far on our Gu Li vs Lee Sedol Jubango page.

And don’t forget to subscribe to our free Go newsletter to get our weekly updates every Thursday!

Click here to join now (it’s free)

Game record

Lee Sedol vs Gu Li

[Embedded SGF File]

David Ormerod, with Younggil An and Jingning Xue

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The Chunlan Cup is an international tournament for 24 players.

The 10th Chunlan Cup kicked off on March 26, 2014, in Taezhou, China.

The Chunlan Cup is an invitational tournament for 24 top players from around the world.

In the first round, 16 unseeded players vied for a spot in the second round.

They were joined by the remaining 8 seeded players in round two, on March 28.

Round 1

North America and Europe

This year’s North American and European representatives – Jiang Mingjiu 7p and Fan Hui 2p – are certainly no strangers to the Western Go community.

Jiang Mingjiu 7 dan represented North America and Fan Hui 2 dan represented France.

Jiang teaches Go in the USA, while Fan is the official coach for the French Go Federation.

Unfortunately, they were knocked out in the first round by China’s Tuo Jiaxi 9p and Japan’s Cho U 9p respectively.

Taiwan and Japan

Taiwan’s representative, Wang Yuanjun 7p, was also knocked out in round one, by Japan’s Iyama Yuta 9p.

Wang, who’s currently regarded by many as Taiwan’s strongest player, gave Iyama a scare in a close game. However, Iyama was able to win by half a point after Wang made a mistake in the endgame.

Japan had two other players advance to the second round after Kono Rin 9p defeated Fan Tingyu 9p and Murakawa Daisuke 7p defeated Lian Xiao 7p.

The other winners from round one were Tang Weixing 9p, Mi Yuting 9p and Gu Li 9p.

Lots were drawn to determine which seeded player the winners of the first round would face in round two.

2014′s seeded players

This year, seeds were awarded to Chen Yaoye 9p, Jiang Weijie 9p, Zhou Ruiyang 9p, Shi Yue 9p, Lee Sedol 9p, Park Junghwan 9p, Kim Jiseok 9p, and Choi Cheolhan 9p.

As we mentioned yesterday, the universe seemed to be playing some sort of joke in once again pairing Gu Li against Lee Sedol. However, it’s worth noting that several international tournaments, including the Chunlan Cup, setup the draw to minimize intra-country clashes in the earlier rounds.

Gu Li 9 dan draws Lee Sedol 9 dan as his opponent in round two.

Round 1 results table

Here are the full results from round one:

Brief commentary on round 1

An Younggil 8p provided some brief commentary on selected games.

Murakawa Daisuke (B) vs Lian Xiao

The first fight began with White 52. Up to White 88, the game was even. White 92 was questionable, and Black 101 and 103 were a nice counter-attack.

Black took the lead up to 129, after establishing a large territory. Black 207 and 209 were very nice endgame tesuji to finish the game.

Kono Rin (B) vs Fan Tingyu

The opening was peaceful, and both players seemed to like that. Black 31 and 33 were a nice sequence and, up to 37, the opening was favorable for Black.

Black 71 was big, and the game was still good for Kono. White 94 and 96 were a nice combination and the game became very close. In the end, Kono was winning by half a point, and Fan resigned.

Iyama Yuta vs Wang Yuanjun

Black started with nice opening, and the game was favorable for Black up to 67. Black developed a large territory in the center up to move 91, but he should have exchanged F17 for G17.

The game became very close up to 110. Black 175 was the losing move, and White reversed the game with 176 and 180.

Round 2

Round two was played on March 28, 2014.

Gu Li and Lee Sedol – Game 40

The majority of attention was on the game between Gu Li and Lee Sedol. This happened to be their 40th encounter.

Gu managed to give himself another mental boost before Sunday’s Jubango, by defeating Lee in a close game.

Gu Li (left) plays Lee Sedol at the 10th Chunlan Cup

A disappointing round for Japan

After a great opening round, Japan made a disappointing showing in round two.

Zhou Ruiyang had a surprisingly straightforward win over Iyama Yuta. Meanwhile, Murakawa Daisuke and Kono Rin also failed to progress to the quarter finals, falling to China’s Shi Yue and Chen Yaoye.

However, Cho U had better luck than his compatriots, defeating China’s Jiang Weijie convincingly.

Chen Yaoye 9 dan (left) defeated Kono Rin 9 dan.

Round 2 results table

The full results from round two are as follows:

Brief commentary on round 2

Here’s Younggil’s quick review of the key points from round two:

Park Junghwan vs Tang Weixing

White had a nice start up to 60 and a big fight started with Black 63. A ko fight began at move 95, and the result up to 148 was still good for White.

Black 149 and 155 were a good combination, and the game became very complicated up to 177. White 188 and 194 were good moves and Park managed to save the game.

Gu Li (B) vs Lee Sedol

The opening up to 57 was successful for Black. There was a big ko fight and the trade up to 104 was good for Black.

White 116 was a very nice tesuji, and White 132 was typical of Lee Sedol, making the game complicated. Lee caught up by attacking Black’s left side group, and the game became very close up to 218.

White 250 was the losing move, and Gu won the game with 251 and 257. In the end, Lee was losing half a point, so he resigned.

Lee Sedol after the game.

Cho U vs Jiang Weijie

Cho U started the game with a joseki he invented, at White 6 and 8. Black 29 and 31 were questionable, and the opening up to 40 was favorable for White.

White 66 and 68 were sharp, and the result up to 86 was successful for White. White 94 was a very good move and Cho maintained a solid lead up to 104.

White 132 was a brilliant move and the game was practically over at that point. It was a great game by Cho U.

Jiang Weijie 9 dan (left) was defeated by Cho U 9 dan. Cho will be Japan’s only representative in the quarter finals.

Zhou Ruiyang (B) vs Iyama Yuta

Black 29 and 31 were a nice combination and Zhou got off to a good start. Black 43 and 45 were practical and severe, and Iyama was in trouble.

Up to 67, Black made a big territory, and the game was still good for him. Iyama started to attack with 68, but Zhou’s responses were perfect up to 85.

Black 119 and 121 were very sharp, and White’s eye shape was gone. After Black 127, Iyama couldn’t find any chances to catch up, and he resigned soon afterwards.

Quarter finals

The quarter finals and the semifinals will be played in late 2014 and the final will be played in 2015. As always, we’ll keep you updated on its progress.

The pairings for the quarter finals are as follows:

• Gu Li 9p vs Cho U 9p
• Chen Yaoye 9p vs Park Junghwan 9p
• Mi Yuting 9p vs Kim Jiseok 9p
• Shi Yue 9p vs Zhou Ruiyang 9p

10th Chunlan Cup Quarter Finalists (from left): Kim Jiseok, Gu Li, Cho U, Chen Yaoye, Zhou Ruiyang, Shi Yue, Mi Yuting and Park Junghwan.

Gu Li and Lee Sedol’s busy schedule

While everyone else heads home for the time being, Gu and Lee head straight to Chengdu for their match on Sunday. They both have one day to rest in between.

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan, a neighbouring province to Gu’s hometown, Chongqing.

The Chunlan Cup

The Chunlan Cup is an invitational Go tournament for 24 top players from around the world. In addition to players from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, a European and a North American representative are also invited.

The top 8 seeded players proceed directly to round two, while the remaining 16 play a single elimination round, knocking out 8 players. After the first round, the remaining 16 players compete in a knockout tournament, culminating in a best of three final.

The tournament is sponsored by Chunlan Group, a Chinese conglomerate with interests in the air conditioning, domestic appliance, automotive, finance and alternative energy industries.

The Chunlan Cup uses Chinese rules, with a komi of 7.5 points, and offers a prize of $150,000 USD to the winner.

10th Chunlan Cup photos

Game records

Click here to download a selection of other game records from rounds one and two.

Gu Li vs Lee Sedol

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Jiang Weijie vs Cho U

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Zhou Ruiyang vs Iyama Yuta

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Jingning Xue, with Younggil An and David Ormerod.

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One more quick update before we send out the weekly newsletter.

Don’t forget that game 3 of the Lee Sedol – Gu Li Jubango is on this weekend.

Join us for live coverage of the game

Live coverage with commentary of the match will start on Baduk TV three hours after the first move is played.

The commentators will replay and analyze the game from the beginning and Go Game Guru’s An Younggil 8p will translate and discuss the game with Baduk TV Live viewers (in English).

The coverage starts at 1:00 pm Korea time on Sunday, March 30, 2014.

Which is:

• 4:00 am, Sunday morning, UCT
• Midnight, Sunday morning, US Eastern Daylight Time
• 9:00 pm, Saturday night, US Pacific Daylight Time
• 5:00 am, Sunday morning, British Summer Time
• 6:00 am, Sunday morning, Central European Summer Time, and
• 3:00 pm, Sunday afternoon, Australian Eastern Daylight Time.

You can join us for the game for as little as $2.70 with a Baduk TV Day Pass.

If you plan to watch the game from the very start, remember to subtract three hours from the times given above. Baduk TV starts the coverage three hours later because the games go for so long.

A busy week for Gu Li and Lee Sedol

A lot’s been happening this week and Lee Sedol 9p and Gu Li 9p will have played three new games together (in one week) by the end of Sunday.

Here’s a quick wrap up of recent news, with more detailed reports to follow…

The 4th Zhaoshang Cup

Korea just barely won the 4th Zhaoshang Cup on Sunday, March 23, as Younggil reported here.

One thing that was interesting about this tournament was that Lee Sedol and Gu Li were paired together in round 2. Gu Li won the game.

Park Junghwan 9p also ended his losing streak against Shi Yue 9p to win the tournament for Korea.

Gu Li 9 dan and Lee Sedol 9 dan play at the 4th Zhaoshang Cup.

The 10th Chunlan Cup

The 10th Chunlan Cup is also underway in China.

Round 1 took place on March 26, and the seeded players will join the tournament for round 2 tomorrow (Friday, March 28).

Once again, Lee and Gu have been paired to play together, which will be their second game this week. Perhaps the universe is having a joke at their expense?

The Chunlan Cup has also been interesting so far because Japan’s Iyama Yuta 9p, Kono Rin 9p and Murakawa Daisuke 7p have all progressed through the first round. They defeated Wang Yuanjun 7p (Taiwan), Fan Tingyu 9p (Ing Cup title holder) and Lian Xiao 7p respectively.

We’ll post a more detailed report on the Chunlan Cup after round 2 concludes tomorrow.

Gu Li draws his seed for round 2 of the 10th Chunlan Cup… and realizes he’s going to play Lee Sedol again.

MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango

As I said above, the third game of Lee and Gu’s jubango will take place this weekend, on Sunday March 30.

This will be their third game together in a week, and also the most important one for both players.

Lee Sedol currently leads the series 2-0, so the pressure will be on Gu Li to catch up. Hopefully his recent win in the Zhaoshang Cup will buoy his spirits.

All in all, a great week for fans of Gu Li and Lee Sedol!

We’ll be back over the weekend with more news and a commentary to follow later, of course.

In other news…

Big savings on international shipping

Based on your requests, we’ve just added a lot of new shipping options to the Go Game Guru Store.

These new shipping methods offer very big savings on international shipping for Go equipment.

Click here to see how we saved one customer $93 on a Go board

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If you live somewhere other than the US or Western Europe, you know how expensive international shipping can be, right?

Especially when you want to buy something as heavy, big and unusual as a Go board. It’s just hard to find them locally in most places.

And we all know the postal services keep increasing prices every year, so saving money is a challenge.

Go players want to save on shipping

Save money on international shipping at Go Game Guru.

We get so many emails from Go players around the world asking if we can help them to save on shipping – so many, in fact, that it was hard to keep up with it.

Our store already tries to calculate the best value shipping options it can find for you (based on geography), but today we expanded the range of shipping carriers we support and also added a new option to ship most Go equipment directly from the factory.

When shipping from the factory, you can take advantage of cheaper shipping rates and choose between seamail, aimail and express international shipping.

Now you can save time, with a better selection of instant shipping quotes, and we can save time too and spend more time talking about Go!

How much cheaper is shipping now?

Obviously, how much you can save depends on where you are and which shipping option you choose. Here are some examples of today’s best shipping rates based on a 2.4” agathis Go board – a popular board which has some weight to it (though we sell many heavier boards too):

• South Africa  – Before: $105.93 – Now: $25.70 – Savings: $80
• Brazil – Before: $78.34 – Now: $25.70 – Savings: $52
• Mexico – Before: $70.04 – Now: $25.70 – Savings: $44
• Canada – Before: $61.30 – Now: $22.30 – Savings: $39
• Finland – Before: $39.58 – Now: $22.30 – Savings: $17
• Singapore – Before: $32.37 – Now: $18.90 – Savings: $13.

The examples above are all in different regions (and in countries where we don’t already have a warehouse).

Here’s how you can can check the exact shipping rates for your country. Please be patient when checking shipping rates – they can take around 10 seconds to display because they’re calculated in real time.

The new, cheaper rates are available in many countries, based on where the shipping carriers can ship to. If it looks like they’re not available for your country, please let us know and we’ll look into whether there are other options we can add to the store.

Save another 5% with factory shipping

Another thing that’s great about shipping from the factory is that it saves us money too, we don’t have to ship the products twice!

Because of that, we can give you a further 5% discount on orders that ship from the factory, to help you further reduce the reduce the cost of your international order.

Ship directly from the factory showroom and save money.

This discount is now applied automatically at the checkout to all qualifying orders.

Save yet another 5% with bitcoin

Save money when you pay for your order with bitcoin.

And something else that can help some international customers to save money is paying for your order with bitcoin.

Bitcoin isn’t for everyone and currently requires you to be a bit tech savvy to use it properly, but you can save quite a bit of money by getting better currency conversion rates and avoiding international transaction fees if you know how.

Orders paid for with bitcoin also save us money. The payment processing fees are lower and we don’t have to worry about people using stolen credit cards at our store.

Every store has to build the above costs into its prices, but bitcoin helps to reduce those costs, so we pass the savings straight back to you as another automatic 5% discount.

If you don’t know what bitcoin is, or you don’t know how to use, you can learn about it first.

(Please no ultracrepidarian comments about bitcoin if you haven’t taken the time to properly research this technology.)

That’s $93 in total savings!

So, in this particular example, one customer was able to save over $80 on reduced shipping fees, plus another $13 in savings which we passed back to them.

That’s a total saving of $93.

While it’s true that not everyone will be able to save that much money (if you live somewhere where shipping is already cheap, you’re lucky), savings are available for all Go players and there are Go players all over the world.

Which products are included?

So which products qualify for the new shipping rates? The answer is, almost all Go equipment.

There were only two products for which we haven’t yet been able to get the cooperation of the factory. They are:

• The Dirt Cheap Go Set, and
• The Dirt Cheap Go Board.

If you live close to one of our warehouses, those two products are among the cheapest Go equipment you can buy.

However, for international orders, we always recommend the Featherweight Go Set and this Folding Go Board as better alternatives. They’re lighter and smaller to ship, so you can easily save enough on shipping to pay for the difference in price anyway – and you end up with a better quality product.

Books aren’t included

Books aren’t included, and can confuse our order routing logic because they only ship from our warehouses. If you’re trying to save money on Go equipment, please check the prices before adding books to your order.

If you want to ship books in the same package as Go equipment that’s fine, but be aware that it will reduce the number of shipping options available to you. In some cases, it can be cheaper to make two separate orders.

We’ll keep doing our best…

Since starting Go Game Guru, we’ve kept looking for ways to save money and provide better value for customers.

That’s why we ship from multiple locations around the world and that’s why we’ve taken the time to setup this direct factory shipping option for you today.

We’ll keep doing our best to keep make good quality, well made, safe Go equipment available worldwide.

Later this year, we hope to be able to add a new shipping location in Canada, and hopefully we can go local in more countries after that…

…as long you keep shopping with us

So next time you want to buy something Go related, please remember to have a look at the Go Game Guru Store (and thanks to everyone who already shops there!).

People often tell us that they didn’t even know we had a store, because we don’t advertise it aggressively. And we’d prefer it if we could keep the advertising low key.

However, the store is what helps us to keep providing all the free Go commentaries, news and more.

So, if you like what we do here, please tell your friends about our store and think of us next time you want to buy something.

And if you want your local brick and mortar games store to start selling Go sets, please tell them to get in touch with us and we’ll help them out.

In return, we’ll keep providing new and better services to the worldwide Go community – most of them for free.

Click here to have a look at our store

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Here are the weekly Go problems for week 115.

Black plays first in all problems and all solutions are labeled ‘correct’. Have fun!

Easy Go problem

Sometimes when a stone is in atari, it’s even less useful than if it weren’t on the board at all. Try to reduce White’s eyespace as much as you can.

[Embedded SGF File]

Intermediate Go problem

The opponent’s vital point is your own. How can you remove your own weaknesses while creating some in White’s shape?

[Embedded SGF File]

Hard Go problem

Normally Black’s corner group would be dead, but as we’ve seen many times, a stone is never truly dead until it’s been removed from the board.

[Embedded SGF File]

Still want more Go problems?

You can find Go books packed full of life and death problems, tesuji problems and other valuable Go knowledge at the Go Game Shop.

Discuss other possible moves

If you have any questions or want to discuss any of these problems, please leave a comment below at any time. You can use the coordinates on the problem images to discuss a move or sequence of moves.

You can also download the solutions as a PDF or SGF file by clicking the links below each problem.

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