'rigged' is probably a joke. But Park Junghwan certainly got very good luck, facing Yu Bin in the first round and Fan Yunruo in the second, in both case the opponents are the lowest ranked players according to goratings.

According to this article on Chinese website sina.com: http://sports.sina.com.cn/go/2016-10-07 ... 2137.shtml, what happened was that initially the organizers had Ke Jie and Tuo Jiaxi draw number 1 and 3, Fan Yunruo and Lee Sedol draw 2 and 4. Lee Sedol complained that this method made it impossible for him to match up with Fan. The organizers reconsidered and had all 4 players draw 1-4 the second time. But it turned out to be the same match up as the first draw.

Make me think that if the person complaining is not the great Lee Sedol, will the organizer consider redraw?

If the complaint is justified, shouldn't this critic be directed to the organizers rather than to Lee Sedol?

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La victoire est un hasard, la défaite une nécessité.

Reminder !!!!!!!

Semifinal: 3 games match

Lee Sedol vs. Ke Jie
Tuo Jiaxi vs. Fan Yunruo

10/31-2/11

I won't be posting international tournament result after this year. I am getting too old to stay up till the end of game. I hope someone to take over this work.

Thanks for the work these past few years!

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Occupy Babel!

Hear, hear! Thanks for all the reports trout, have a well-deserved rest.

Semifinal,
1st game:
Ke Jie defeated Lee Sedol by resign.
Tuo Jiaxi defeated Fan Yunruo by resign.

1/11, 2/11

It seems very hard for Lee sedol to win agaisnt Ke jie now . I had a strange feeling during this game, even when Lee sedol was successful locally it was still not enough. Like a gap between their levels.

Sometimes some players have opponent's they're really good/bad against. Like Chen Yaoye always loses against Zhou Ruiyang.

It seems to me that Ke has a mature style with excellent judgement that belies his youth. Lee Sedol likes to invade and make weak groups (like the top side this game) and if you get indignant at his cheek and try to punish it too much then Lee can unleash some severe counterattack with his deep reading and sharp shapes. But Ke seems to hold off just enough to safely confirm an advantage and Lee ends up with a bunch of crappy stones with no territory*.

* It wasn't so hopeless as there was the weak group to attack in the centre, but Ke made sabaki nicely enough.

I think the greatest strength of Ke Jie is his ability to make very clear positional judgement under complex situations. In this game, when his central group was under attack, he played B141 (an empty triangle move but brilliant in this case), and then gave up the three stones to create the second eye. He then calmly gave up another rather big tail at B149. At that moment almost everyone on the Chinese server watching felt sorry for him. But somehow he went through all these and still managed to have a few points lead.

For the other semi-final, why didn't Fan capture the single stone with 141? With the game continuation Fan ended up cutting on dame, had to connect home on dame with 151, had to to fight a ko at the lower right because he was trying to deny an eye and then white lived with profit in the end of all that. Nice rope-a-dope play from Tuo though...

Lee Sedol didn't make a glaring mistake in this game, but never really had a chance either. It has that same eerie feeling as their Samsung matches last year, and that's just tough on the player since you don't know what you can do to win.

Stop faffing about on the 2nd line in the opening?

Yeah, there were always moves that he could (and probably has) look back and say a different choice would've been better, but when those are not big mistakes and could sometimes attribute to stylistic or strategic choices, he may start feeling like he has to play a perfect game or somehow adjust his style outside his comfort zone, like against AlphaGo, and ends up in a negative feedback loop. Basically right now Ke Jie feels very comfortable playing against Lee, while Lee has a big mental block the other way, not a good combo.

However those kinds of things are simple to pros, as seen on pro commentaries. So that's not where Ke Jie shines, probably.

Perhaps it depends how complex the situation is. Pros of course have far superior positional judgment skills than us amateur, but maybe Ke Jie is a bit more skilled than the others. I also heard that his strength is based on the ability to keep good balance of the game, that's why he can keep his undefeated record with White in official games in 2015, until the MLILY final game when he was too confident and so Lee Sedol could teach him a lesson.

His style seems to be a natural enemy of Lee Sedol's style (and maybe other fighters like Shi Yue or Kim Jiseok), and I also wonder if Lee could be mentally weak against him, since this is the first time ever someone has such a dominated result against Lee.

Semifinal,
2nd game:
Lee Sedol defeated Ke Jie by resign.
What a game!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fan Yunruo defeated Tuo Jiaxi by resign.

Lee Sedol vs Ke Jie 1:1
Tuo Jiaxi vs Fan Yunruo 1:1

2/11

What a game! Such intensity and well-played at the highest level. Hats off to Lee, especially after falling behind early again.