CHANG WINS BATTLE OF THE DRAGONS
Chang Hao 9-dan has retained the Lebaishi Cup, literally. By winning it for its first three terms he gets to keep the trophy. His latest victim was Ma Xiaochun 9-dan. Resuming on 7 June 2000 in Game 4 after a long lay-off since February, the two met in Yinchuan in northern China, the stopping off point for trips to the Gobi Desert.
Ma, unusually for him, tried a Sideways Chinese opening, but it did not put Chang off his stroke, and he emerged a 3-1 winner. Below are the games of the final in downloadable sgf format.
*****
Older News From 21 April 2000:
BATTLE OF THE DRAGONS - WHERE WILL IT END?
Details of the 3rd Lebaishi Cup final are still sparse, but we have established that Chang moved into a 2-1 lead by winning Game 3 on 18 February. It is a best-of-five final. Apparently a gap was then planned (long title matches are difficult to run in a big country like China), but we have not heard when the resumption will be.
*****
Older News From 19 February 2000:
BATTLE OF THE DRAGONS
Dragon Year, and the two most famous dragons in Chinese go Chang Hao 9-dan and Ma Xiaochun 9-dan are battling out the five-game final of the 3rd Lebaishi Cup. Honours are even so far. Chang won Game 1 on 14 February 2000, and Ma came back to take Game 2 on 16 February.
For reasons that are still unclear to us, the Lebaishi Cup is not being reported as extensively as one might expect for such a major event and some results are missing. Be that as it may, Ma won the challengership by beating Yu Bin 9-dan. The only other result we have so far is that Yu Bin beat Liu Xiaoguang 9-dan in the final of a losers' section of the final knockout - which implies there have been some changes in format.
*****
Older News From 13 January 2000:
LEBAISHI CUP ON ITS MILKY WAY
The 3rd Lebaishi Cup is well under way, with Stages 1 and 2 completed. The 64 players who qualified for stage 2 played a three-round knockout in Hangzhou in August, and the eight who were left now join the 8- and 9-dans. As will be seen from the list, the cream does float to the top.
These eight qualifiers were: Ding Wei 7-dan, Hu Xiaoyu 6-dan, Yu Ping 6-dan, Huang Yizhong 4-dan, Ruan Yunseng 7-dan, Dong Yan 6-dan, Wu Xinyu 5-dan and Kong Jie 5-dan.
HOW DOES THE LEBAISHI TOURNAMENT WORK?
Lebaishi, the Chinese approximation to "robust", is the brand name of a company which is one of the new capitalist ventures in Zhongshan in southern China. It makes milk drinks.
By far the biggest prize money in China is on offer here: 128,000 yuan. Second prize is 32,000 yuan.
The main event is a knockout for 32 players to decide a challenger. This event replaced the Bawang (Monarch) tournament, which was previously the highest rated title.
The first stage of this was organised by four regions in July. In these, players of kyu grades up to 4-dan competed in a knockout. 16 players won the right to proceed to the next stage.
In Stage 2, they were joined by 5- to 7-dans, and two regional events comprising 64 players were held as a three-round knockout in August to give 8 players who could proceed to the main Stage 3 with the top ranked players in November and December.
This was also a knockout, designed to produce a challenger to the holder in a best-of-seven final, but was more complicated in that it incorporated a repechage system for losers, like the Judan in Japan.
Prize money in 1997 was 80,000 yuan for the winner and 20,000 yuan for the runner-up.
Komi has always been 2.75 in both events (Chinese rules).
BAWANG FINALISTS
| Year |
Term |
Winner |
Score |
Loser |
| 1995 |
1 |
Cao Dayuan 9d |
4-3 |
Yu Bin 9d |
| 1996 |
2 |
Ma Xiaochun 9d |
4-0 |
Cao Dayuan 9d |
| 1997 |
3 |
Wang Lei 6d |
4-2 |
Ma Xiaochun 9d |
Ends and replaced by the Lebaishi.
LEBAISHI FINALISTS
| Year |
Term |
Winner |
Score |
Loser |
| 1998 |
1 |
Chang Hao 8d |
3-0 |
Wang Lei 6d |
| 1999 |
2 |
Chang Hao 8d |
3-0 |
Yang Shihai 8d |
| 2000 |
3 |
Chang Hao 9d |
3-1 |
Ma Xiaochun 9d |
