This year the World Amateur Go Championship takes place in Tokyo. For the past few years it has been touring the world, as is befitting of a world championship. Ranka is going to be providing coverage of the event http://www.ranka.intergofed.org/?p=14422 which seems to be sponsored by Gurunavi. The first day of competition is Friday 4th May.
Contestant list is here http://www.ranka.intergofed.org/?p=14183

The obvious question is who will win? As South Korea have sent an 18 year old, I am going to guess it will be them.
Norway clearly has the most impressive beard. Philippines seems likely to win the best female award.

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North Lecale

Chen Wang 7d for China is one of their 4 titans of amateur go so a formidable opponent. On the other hand Bai and Ma (Chen and Hu didn't attend) did badly at the 2016 Gold cup with the Korean 7ds sweeping it, so depends what caliber this Korean 7d is. Chen came 2nd in the 2010 WAGC, losing to Hong Songhuk who was one of the Koreans at the Gold cup. He played in the 2014 EGC, losing to only Yulin Tong 4p: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Pl ... y=15025956.

It seems to be on youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlyu_hWhqns

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North Lecale

Results at https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/event/amaki ... esult.html

L19's very own dhu (to whom I generously lost the British championship to allow him to attend the WAGC ) lost his first game against Dmitry Surin 6d of Russia but won the second against a 5d from Mexico. Also Carlo Metta, the Italian accused and convicted of cheating with Leela in the pandanet league, beat current French champion Ben DG 6d so that's more evidence he has improved significantly.

P.S. a bunch of games per round are broadcast on wbaduk Japan server.

Round 3:
- Carlo died pretty quickly against the Korean 7d: did early 3-3 and then then dubious captured a few more stones to give even more thickness, invaded, died.
- dhu beat Croatian 3d

Round 4.
- dhu playing Polish Stanislaw 6d. Ran a stone out a ladder before playing breaker, giving tortoise. Does he think he is Elf OpenGo?

It seems Carlo had a walkover in this case, but we can speculate about his other results

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North Lecale

Here's the game played by Carlo Metta against the Korean player. Did white really need to invade with 64?


Edit. Discovered after replaying it from WBaduk that all sgf are available on the tournament website...
https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/event/amaki ... cords.html

I think playing that attachment against the corner on move 46 would have been better: game 46 only added <10 points to an already alive group. Maybe Carlo expect Kim to fight like a feisty but foolish European, but Kim wisely sacrificed a few stones for outside thickness even though it was gote (the r11 stone makes invading right harder). In fact I don't much like Carlo's shimari but prefer finishing the new joseki with knight move.

1) its a bit hard to say who si the best between Benjamin,Tanguy,Thomas.
2) Seems Benjamin jsut the miss the first round,so they didn't play.

Ah, that's a shame. I did the same 2 years ago. I know you could say it's the player's responsibility, but I think the organisers could help by banging on doors or at least telling players to arrange a telephone wake up call. Funnily enough Ben might play Carlo in the next round of the PGETC.

Azerbaijan vs Slovakia in round 4 was a nice example that's there's no need to resist your opponent's plans if they are bad ones (Azerbaijan made the centre territory he wanted and lost by 40).

According to information from the German discussion board (via Benjamin Teuber, the German participant) Metta won by forfeit because BDG failed to appear at the tournament site in time. After 20 minutes late the game will be automatically lost by forfeit.

Anyone else notice this:

Mon 7
9:30 ~ 12:30 Round 7
13:30 ~ 16:30 Round 8
17:30 ~ 18:30 Closing Ceremony
Photo Session
18:30 Doping Test

makes me think what the Doping Test could entail...
how much sake one can stomach?

Ah, thanks! The sequence after 46 certainly doesn't make invading easier...

A good day for Chan YiTien 7d of Taiwan, who won the WAGC on SOS a few years ago and said he hoped to win outright this time: he beat China by half a point in the morning and Korea by resign in the afternoon. So in a good position to win the event. Japan lost to China and Korea.

P.S. Carlo beat young Spanish talent Oscar Vazquez 5d by resign using his double 3-3 opening.

I wasn't watching the game relay, but I figured it was a signal when the Korean took off his jacket and started flapping his shirt to cool off.

In my opinion could say is putting it rather too mildly, it is the player's responsibility.

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North Lecale

Mexico having 6 wins caught my eye. I wonder if that's a first for them.

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Occupy Babel!

Yes, first top 10 for Mexico I believe. He did benefit from losing early though (like me 2 years ago) which meant he got easier opponents than those who won early. So he finished 8th with 6d- 4d-(dhu) 2d+ 2d+ 1d+ 3d+ 4d+ 5d+. Cristian Pop on the other hand had a poor tournament this time ending with 4 wins in 23rd, but faced considerably tougher opposition and a bad last day: 5d+ 7d- 6d- 4d+ 7d+ 6d+ 6d- 6d-.

dhu finished 26th with 4 wins: 6d-(Surin) 5d+(Mexico) 3d+ 6d-(Frejlak) 1d+ 6d-(Kuronen) 5d+ 4d-. So on paper worse than me but actually I think he did better given opposition (I got 21st with 5 wins: 6d- "1k"+ 3d-(forfeit) 1d+ 3d- 5k+ 1d+ 5d+).

Also big well done to Stanislaw Frejlak 6d of Poland who finished 4th with 6 wins, ahead of Japan! ("6d"+ 7d- 6d+ 4d+ 6d+ 5d+ 6d+ 7d-)

Yes, I agree it is the player's responsibility, but my point is the organisers could anticipate that some will fail in this and take steps to mitigate it. I see that more as a service to my opponent, who I felt bad for having travelled half way round the world only to get one fewer game than he should, than me.

Aside, I also saw players getting byes at this WAGC, I think it would be better to get some local Japanese player(s) as a ghost so everyone gets a game, surely not hard at the Nihon Ki-in. At the 2016 WAGC they had a ghost local (low dan) Chinese, but then when one player didn't turn up rather than dropping out the ghost to make an even number of participants they left her in the draw and gave out byes!

That 2016 WAGC was my first international tournament so I suffered from inexperience. For the KPMC I will likely attend later this year I have learnt and plan to:
- Get there several days before to overcome jet lag (leave from work permitting)
- Arrange wake up call with reception rather than rely on alarm/phone clock
- Complain to hotel and change room if noises stop you sleeping

Saying "Make sure you get to your game on time, you will forfeit if 20 minutes late. We suggest arranging a wake up call with hotel reception." during the opening ceremony / intro would be a good idea IMO and only takes 10 seconds.

So Christian Pop did make it? I wonder if the post about him not making it was utter nonsense; or if it had a grain of truth.