The astonishing rise of Yi Se-tol continues. On 27 February 2001 he beat Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan again, in Game 2 of the 5th LG Cup, and so takes with him a 2-0 lead in the long wait up to Game 3 on 15 May (according to the tv schedule).
Se-tol again forced an early resignation, suggesting that he is having success at avoiding Ch'ang-ho's strongest feature, the endgame.
Mind you, even if Se-tol wins - by which time he will be 18 - Ch'ang-ho's previous achievements will still put him in the shade. He won his first world title at the age of 17, and by then he had almost a dozen other titles already under his belt.
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Older News From 26 February 2001: INVINCIBLE BEATS INVINCIBLE
What happens when the Invincible Teenager, on White, meets the Stone Buddha, known as Invincible with Black? If you can predict that, can we have your Lottery numbers?
The answer by the way was: Yi won. More precisely, 17-year-old Yi Se-tol 3-dan beat Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan in Game 1 of the 5th LG Cup on 26 February 2001 in Seoul. He did it in spectacular fashion, too, killing a big group.
This LG Cup - the international version - even this early in the year has all the makings of being the most fascinating match of 2001. Hot favourite on paper with 14 international titles already behind him (twice as many as anyone else) is Yi Ch'ang-ho, but Se-tol seems to be improving week by week. Moreover, the record between them so far in big games is 1-1.
Click here for Game 1. Ch'ang-ho began with a mini-Chinese, but with an early invasion Se-tol forced him into the sort of game where Ch'ang-ho just had to attack him. White 80, living in sente, was seen as especially skilful by Se-tol. It forced Ch'ang-ho into desperate but unsuccessful measures with 95.
Game 2 is on February 28. Then there will be a long gap. We have seen a different set of dates for the other games from the one we reported earlier. The latest schedule puts Game 3 on 7 May, Game 4 on 9 May and Game 5 on 10 May.
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Older News From 8 February 2001: INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT TURNS DOMESTIC
Despite retaining its full international flavour down to the semi-finals, the 5th LG Cup has at last turned into an all-Korean affair for the final.
In the semis, on 8 February 2001 in Korea, Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan took care of Japan and Taiwan's representative, O Rissei 9-dan, using once again his vaunted skill at assessing the centre in terms of the endgame after an equal opening and early middle game. He came out ahead by 2.5 points, while Yi Se-tol 3-dan forced Zhou Heyang 8-dan of China to resign - a big blow for the Chinese fans as they had high hopes of Zhou and a keenness to win international events that can only be envied.
According to Korean television, the dates for the best-of-five final will be:
Game 1: February 26
Game 2: February 28
Game 3: May 5 or 14
Game 4: May 16
Game 5: May 18
Given that these two Yis have by far the best claim to be called Mr Invincible in go, this is one series that may confidently be expected to go the full length. It is, though, the first major final for Yi Se-tol, who will be 18 in March.
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Older News From 15 November 2000: INTERNATIONAL FLAVOUR TO THE END
The 5th LG Cup went international in a bigger way than ever before by switching to Paris for the quarterfinals on 15 November 2000. With a Korean in every match there was strong potential for it to end up effectively as a domestic affair, but in the event it remained as international as ever: Korea goes in to the semi-finals with two players, China one and Japan/Taiwan with one.
The eight quarter-finalists met in the Hotel Lutetia, a four star monument to Art Deco near St Germain des Pres. The clean lines of the go board and stones easily slotted into place - the computers, monitors and trailing wires less so, but this event was a monument to the modern age of go: the live webcast. The Korean Baduk Association's new internet arm www.cyberkiwon.com ruled the roost.
Hotel Lutetia, Paris
Two games grabbed most of the attention. World No. 1 Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan renewed his recent rivalry with Ma Xiaochun 9-dan of China. Your correspondent bumped into Ma by chance the night before, and I can only hope he had got over the shock of a total stranger from the other side of the world recognising him and introducing himself. Ma did put up a somewhat lacklustre performance, but he perhaps still rusty after his break to recover from go fatigue - and he was facing a player with a current win-loss ratio of over 80 per cent. Yi duly won.
Yi Ch'ang-Ho
We can, incidentally, report a rare sighting - Yi was seen to smile, just once and briefly, and not because he won (it was while he was chatting to Rui Naiwei). The Chinese are relentless in referring to him by his nickname Stone Buddha, and it was easy to see why.
The Opening Ceremony
Across the room the other Yi prodigy, Yi Se-dol 3-dan, also had to renew a recent rivalry, with Rui Naiwei 9-dan, who was being classed as Korean by the LG organisers. Rui had got the better of their recent clashes, but this one went to Yi, who was, superficially at least, by far the most stressed player there - strange in one so young.
Yi Se-tol and Rui
Cho and O
Also extremely tense was O Rissei 9-dan, the Taiwan-born Nihon Ki-in professional, and he was playing the most relaxed player in the room, Cho Hun-hyeon 9-dan of Korea. Maybe Cho was too easy-going because he lost rather comfortably.
The final game saw China's Zhou Heyang 9-dan, a quite serene young man, score a convincing victory over Korean veteran Seo Pong-su 9-dan. Zhou now plays Yi Se-tol in the semi-finals on 8 February 2001, while Yi Ch'ang-ho faces O Rissei.
There was a third Yi there - Se-tol's brother Sang-hun 3-dan, a rather stern and forbidding presence, was one of three pros who gave simultaneous games for a selection of the over 100 French players who attended. The other two were perennial favourite Jiang Zhujiu 9-dan, Rui Naiwei's husband, and Mun Yong-chik 4-dan. Mun's name is always spoken in awe by Koreans, because he combines being a go pro with being a professor of politics and philosophy. With leather patches on his jacket elbows, he certainly looked the part.
Two other pros were in the party. Chang Su-yeong 9-dan, the stereotype of everyone's favourite uncle, led the commentary sessions, and Nam Ch'i-hyeong, who many Americans and Europeans will remember from her overseas stays, was doubling up as a reporter.
Nam Ch'i-hyeong
Here are the four quarter-finals games in downloadable sgf format.
Older News From 15 June 2000: SHORT BREAK, LONG HAUL
Scarcely has the 4th LG Cup ended than the long haul of the 5th term has begun. It is the longest of the international events, but we know already there will be a new holder.
Rounds 1 and 2 took place 13 and 15 June 2000 in Seoul. Surprise 1 was to see Cho Chikun 9-dan in an international event. But it was no surprise to see him dumped out in Round 2 by Korea's Cho Hun-hyeon 9-dan. Surprise 2 was a stunning victory by Korean Wunderkind Yi Se-tol 3-dan over China's Chang Hao in Round 2. Coming in on the back of a massive winning streak, young Yi has almost forgotten what it is like to lose.
Surprise 3, though a mild one, was holder Yu Bin (-dan (China) going down to Seo Pong-su 9-dan (Korea), also in Round 2 when the seeds come in. Last year's runner-up, Yu Ch'ang-hyeok 9-dan of Korea also couldn't make it past Round 2 - his nemesis was China's hard-to-budge Zhou Heyang 8-dan.
Full results are given below. The quarter-finals will be held in Paris on 14 November, and what we have to look forward to then includes yet another clash between Ma Xiaochun 9-dan and Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan, plus the first appearance of Rui Naiwei in Europe. The semi-finals will be in the latter half of February 2000 and the final in the early part of May 2000.
RESULTS:
Round 1 (13 June 2000)
Cho Chikun 9d 1-0 Kim Seong-ryong 6d Hikosaka Naoto 9d 1-0 Yi Sang-hun 6d Rui Naiwei 9d 1-0 Kobayashi Satoru 9d Yang Keon 5d 1-0 Yoda Norimoto 9d Seo Pong-su 9d 1-0 Michael Redmond 8d Yi Se-tol 3d 1-0 Catalin Taranu 3d Weon Seo-ho 2d 1-0 Zhou Junxun 9d Zhou Heyang 8d 1-0 Yun Seong-hyeon 6d
Round 2 (15 June 2000)
Zhou Heyang 1-0 Yu Ch'ang-hyeok 9d Ma Xiaochun 9d 1-0 Weon Seo-ho Rui Naiwei 1-0 Shao Weigang 9d Seo Pong-su 1-0 Yu Bin 9d Yi Se-tol 1-0 Chang Hao 9d O Rissei 9d 1-0 Yang Keon Cho Hun-hyeon 9d 1-0 Cho Chikun Yi Ch'ang-ho 9d 1-0 Hikosaka Naoto
Draw for Quarter-finals
Rissei - Cho Hun-hyeon
Ma Xiaochun - Yi Ch'ang-ho
Zhou Heyang - Seo Pong-su
Rui Naiwei - Yi Se-tol
Here is a selection of games in downloadable sgf format from the first two rounds.
The LG Cup, or more fully the LG Cup World Baduk Championship (and also given as LG Cup Kiwang Tournament), is sponsored by the vast LG Group in Korea which uses, apart from LG, the brand names Lucky and Goldstar.
The Cup is the international successor to the domestic Kiwang tournament. The games are also telecast by satellite on SkyPerfecTV Channel 320 and broadcast on the IGS go server.
Top prize: 200 million won, and the runner-up gets 50 million won. The total prize fund is 1 billion won.
Players are invited to a knockout. In Term 1 the make up was 32 players from Korea (14), Japan (8), China (6), Taiwan (2), USA (1) and Europe (1), but is now 24 from Korea (11), Japan (6), China (4), Taiwan (1), USA (1) and Europe (1).
The final, a best-of-five, is held from November onwards in Seoul but earlier games are also held in other capitals.
Time limits are 3 hours each. Komi was 5.5 points in Terms 1 to 2 but was increased in 1998 to 6.5 points.
The previous Kiwang (King of Go) tournament was sponsored by the Cho-seon Il-po (Korea Daily News).
The main tournament was an 8-man league (all-play-all once) to find a challenger to the holder. The bottom four in the league dropped out.
Komi was 5.5. Time limits were 5 hours each in the final and 4 hours elsewhere.
The final, a best of 5 (terms 7 to 14 a best of 7), took place originally November~December but latterly shifted forward to May-June so that the final took place in the year following the one given for the term in the table below.
The total prize money in 1996 was 130 million won (winner 12 million won).
