THIRD TIME NOT LUCKY
World No. 1 Yi Ch'ang-ho of Korea won the Tianyuan/Chunweon match for the third time in August 1999, and won it again comprehensively with no luck needed against no less than Chang Hao 8-dan. These two have monopolised this annual match so far between the champions of Korea and China in tournaments modelled on the Japanese Tengen.
Playing amid Shanghai's skyscrapers in the Zijinshan Hotel, Yi won the first game with White by a comfortable 2.25 points (Chinese counting) on 18 August, then two days later Chang, facing a Yi almost invincible with Black, seemed demoralised as he capitulated in just 153 moves.
Here are the two games in sgf format. Click to downlaod.
An interesting feature of Game 2 is that Yi reverted to an old and simple line in the Sideways Chinese opening, apparently cocking a snook at all the new moves that have proliferated here.
HOW DOES THE TIANYUAN/CHUNWEON MATCH WORK?
The match is sponsored by the Sports Korea newspaper and the Shanghai-based Xinmin Wanbao evening paper, as well as the professional bodies of the respective countries. The winner's prize is $10,000, with $5,000 for the runner-up.
The two participants are the champions of Korea and China in a tournament whose title bears the same characters but is read differently in the two languages (the same as the Japanese Tengen). It is sometimes called the Korea-China Tengen, but to avoid injuring national pride we will call it by the names of the title in each language, giving priority to the Chinese Tianyuan as it is the older tournament.
The match is a best-of-three, games played at intervals of two days.
The rules of each game depend on who has Black. With Korean rules komi is 5.5 points, with Chinese it is 2.75.
Tianyuan, like the Korean Chunweon, is borrowed from the Japanese word Tengen (origin of Heaven) which, in its go sense of centre of the board, is attributed to the Imperial astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai (1639-1715; he was 7-dan in go).
TIANYUAN/CHUNWEON MATCH FINALISTS
| Year |
Term |
Winner |
Score |
Loser |
| 1997 |
1 |
Yi Ch'ang-ho 9d |
2-1 |
Chang Hao 8d |
| 1998 |
2 |
Yi Ch'ang-ho 9d |
2-0 |
Chang Hao 8d |
| 1999 |
3 |
Yi Ch'ang-ho 9d |
2-0 |
Chang Hao 8d |
