On September 21, 2013, Chen Yaoye 9p defeated Park Junghwan 9p by 14.5 points in a giant game of Go, in Fenghuang city, Hunan Province, China.
This was China’s second victory in this biennial exhibition match. The first was when Luo Xihe 9p defeated Lee Sedol 9p in 2007.
Chen Yaoye in excellent form
Chen Yaoye 9 dan (left) with Hua Xueming 7 dan (captain of China’s national Weiqi team).
Chen Yaoye is currently #1 in China and has been in excellent form this year.
His style is thick and solid, similar to Yoda Norimoto 9p and Kong Jie 9p.
Kong Jie, in particular, may have had an influence on Chen’s play, since they’re team mates in the Chinese A League.
White takes an early lead
The opening was better for white (Chen), and there were two big ko fights, on the left side and in the top right corner.
Black made a mistake on the right side, after the second ko, and white took the lead.
Human ‘Go stones’ demonstrate traditional martial arts at the 2013 Ancient City of the Phoenix Cup.
Park tried hard to catch up, but Chen’s counters were perfect and the game became even worse for black as a result.
Chen was winning by a big margin when the game ended, after 298 moves, but Park didn’t resign because it was a special exhibition match.
Park Junghwan 9 dan (left) and Chen Yaoye 9 dan nigiri (choose colors) at the start of the game.
The pressure of sudden death
The time limit for this game was 50 minutes sudden death.
That means that if a player uses more than 50 minutes, they immediately lose the game.
It seems like Park was nervous about running out of time, and he didn’t use his time properly.
Sometimes he played too quickly, in places where he should have spent more time. And he played too passively at times, when he should have fought back.
Feeling the heat? Being a human Go stone can be a tough gig.
The Ancient City of the Phoenix Cup
This ‘Ancient City of the Phoenix Cup’ started in 2003. It’s an exhibition match that takes place every two years in Fenghuang City, China, between a top player from China and Korea.
Fenghuang (凤凰) is the Chinese word for ‘phoenix’.
The winner’s prize is 400,000 RMB (about $65,000 USD at the time writing). The runner up takes home 280,000 RMB.
The head to head record so far is 3-1-2 in Korea’s favor (one draw because there was a quadruple ko between Chang Hao and Lee Changho in 2005).
During the game, 361 people (dressed in black and white outfits) demonstrate traditional martial arts, before taking a seat as a stone on a giant Go board.
A game of Go in progress in Fenghuang City, China.
The huge Go board is 31.7 m long, with an area 1005 square meters.
Many people come to watch these spectacular matches.
The board is situated in the world heritage listed area of China’s Southern Great Wall (different to the Great Wall of China), where one of the most beautiful castles in the world is.
The official name of the match translates literally to something like ‘Phoenix Ancient City World Go Champion of Champions’, so it’s not easy to translate it elegantly into English.
Because of this, Go Game Guru has decided to translate the name as ‘Ancient City of the Phoenix Cup’, which flows more naturally in English.
Previous results
- 2003: Cho Hunhyun 9p (white) defeated Chang Hao 9p by 10.5 points
- 2005: Lee Changho 9p and Chang Hao 9p drew, after a quadruple ko
- 2007: Luo Xihe 9p (white) defeated Lee Sedol 9p by resignation
- 2009: Lee Sedol 9p (black) defeated Gu Li 9p by 5.5 points
- 2011: Choi Cheolhan 9p (black) defeated Kong Jie 9p by 2.5 points
- 2013: Chen Yaoye 9p (white) defeated Park Junghwan 9p by 14.5 points.
More photos
Game record
Park Junghwan vs Chen Yaoye
[Embedded SGF File]
Is this the world’s biggest Go board?
Even though we have the dimensions of this huge Go board, we’re not sure if it’s bigger than the one at Lanke Mountain (because we don’t have the dimensions for that one at the moment).
What do you think? Have a look at the photos below and the photos of the Lanke Mountain Go board, and leave a comment below to let me know which one you think is bigger!
via Go Game Guru http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gogameguru/~3/DIGOL09Mu04/
Weiqi To Go 