32nd Samsung cup main tournament

[macelee]

Too much attention was on the semifinal between Lee Sedol and Ke Jie. In fact the three games between Shi Yue and Tang Weixing are much more interesting (technically).

Game 1 has a complex variation of the large avalanche joseki. It is one of the few rare occasions where such joseki isn't played at the very beginning of the game. The consequence of that is there are big ko threats in the opposite corner. So the game developed into a very interesting ko fight and then a big exchange.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/51063

Game 2 is so interesting that on Chinese media people say it can easily become a candidate for the 'Game of the year' award. Another interesting question: is W18 the losing move? An early invasion soon developed into a half-board life&death problem. This is Igo Hatsuyoron kind of L&D. We amateurs can only watch and enjoy it.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/51103

In Game 3, Tang Weixing made a huge sacrifice (W114 and following mvoes) in order to capture a dragon. Shi Yue manage to find the narrowest escape route and in the end captured Tang's dragon.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/51115

Enjoy these games!

[Uberdude]

I just checked Ke Jie's stats in go4go. This year he has won 57 out of 71 games or 80% (and that's against top international players).

Another interesting thing that I read in an article was that, in 2015, Ke Jie hasn't lost as white. In an interview, he noted that 7.5 komi was too high, and perhaps even 6.5 was too high.

That was true for half a year, but not now: 2 losses in go4go:

[2015-06-17] Year 2015 Baojiashi Cup, round 1
Black: Shin Minjun 3p
White: Ke Jie 9p
Result: B+R (6.5 komi)

[2015-07-17] Year 2015 Jinli Smartphone Cup, round 1
Black: Tang Weixing 9p
White: Ke Jie 9p
Result: B+1.5 (7.5 komi)

[Solomon]

Game 2 is so interesting that on Chinese media people say it can easily become a candidate for the 'Game of the year' award. Another interesting question: is W18 the losing move? An early invasion soon developed into a half-board life&death problem. This is Igo Hatsuyoron kind of L&D. We amateurs can only watch and enjoy it.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/51103

Amazing game, thanks for posting this!

[Uberdude]

I wonder if Shi Yue had studied that invasion beforehand, it's a common-enough opening shape he controls that it's plausible. There is a similar invasion in the Kobayashi opening which has been studied and I seem to recall the result was black could kill it but white gets a nice squeeze anyway so black fails. I don't know if that line is why pros don't do the Kobayashi much anymore.

[Kirby]

That was true for half a year, but not now: 2 losses in go4go:

[2015-06-17] Year 2015 Baojiashi Cup, round 1
Black: Shin Minjun 3p
White: Ke Jie 9p
Result: B+R (6.5 komi)

[2015-07-17] Year 2015 Jinli Smartphone Cup, round 1
Black: Tang Weixing 9p
White: Ke Jie 9p
Result: B+1.5 (7.5 komi)

Interesting. I was getting that from this article: http://www.tygem.com/news/news/viewpage ... &findword=

which seemed to suggest that he hadn't lost throughout 2015 as white.

I guess either:
1. I misunderstood the article.
2. The author didn't know about these losses.
3. The set of games the author was referring to didn't include the games you mentioned.

Either way, I think it doesn't take away from the fact that Ke Jie is doing great, which is really the point I was trying to support.

[MinjaeKim]

That was true for half a year, but not now: 2 losses in go4go:

[2015-06-17] Year 2015 Baojiashi Cup, round 1
Black: Shin Minjun 3p
White: Ke Jie 9p
Result: B+R (6.5 komi)

[2015-07-17] Year 2015 Jinli Smartphone Cup, round 1
Black: Tang Weixing 9p
White: Ke Jie 9p
Result: B+1.5 (7.5 komi)

Interesting. I was getting that from this article: http://www.tygem.com/news/news/viewpage ... &findword=

which seemed to suggest that he hadn't lost throughout 2015 as white.

I guess either:
1. I misunderstood the article.
2. The author didn't know about these losses.
3. The set of games the author was referring to didn't include the games you mentioned.

Either way, I think it doesn't take away from the fact that Ke Jie is doing great, which is really the point I was trying to support.

Let me translate the relevant part.

Ke Jie, who won the Qiwang cup on 1st of November, said something interesting in an interview. A Chinese reporter asked since Ke hasn't lost any game with white this year, whether he had some enlightenment about baduk in white. Ke replied, "The rules have a problem. Komi of 7.5 is too good for white. I think 6.5 point komi is still good for white."

(지난 1일 중국기왕전 우승을 차지한 커제는 인터뷰에서 재미있는 발언을 했다. 2015년 내내 백으로는 단 한 판도 진 적이 없는데, 백 바둑에 대한 어떤 깨달음이 있는 것이냐는 중국 기자의 질문을 받고, "규정에 문제가 있다. 7집반을 공제하는 것은 백이 너무 우세하다. 나는 덤이 6집반이어도 백이 좋다고 생각한다"는 의견을 피력했다.)

[Kirby]

[i]Ke Jie, who won the Qiwang cup on 1st of November, said something interesting in an interview. A Chinese reporter asked since Ke hasn't lost any game with white this year, whether he had some enlightenment about baduk in white. Ke replied, "The rules have a problem. Komi of 7.5 is too good for white. I think 6.5 point komi is still good for white."

Right. Because of the part in bold above, I thought that Ke Jie hadn't lost as white in 2015.

But apparently, this doesn't take into account the games that Uberdude referenced (where Ke Jie lost as white).

[Kirby]

By the way, does anyone know the legal implications of translating Internet articles? I think that I have to contact the author for permission, even if I give the web article credit. Is that correct?

There is an interesting interview with Ke Jie, which I wanted to translate, but it's a bit troublesome to try to get in touch with the authors every time.

For personal use, I think the translation is okay, but I'm not so sure if it's okay to do on a forum like this.

Are small excerpts, like the one above, okay?

[macelee]

That was true for half a year, but not now: 2 losses in go4go:

[2015-06-17] Year 2015 Baojiashi Cup, round 1
Black: Shin Minjun 3p
White: Ke Jie 9p
Result: B+R (6.5 komi)

[2015-07-17] Year 2015 Jinli Smartphone Cup, round 1
Black: Tang Weixing 9p
White: Ke Jie 9p
Result: B+1.5 (7.5 komi)

The two games above are from small or unofficial tournaments. Might that explain the discrepancy? Not all games are included for the purpose of calculating Chinese ranks. When top Korean started playing in the Chinese league many years, those games were not counted for Korean statistics, even if they were quite serious games against strong opponents.

[Freewheelin']

Game 2 is so interesting that on Chinese media people say it can easily become a candidate for the 'Game of the year' award. Another interesting question: is W18 the losing move? An early invasion soon developed into a half-board life&death problem. This is Igo Hatsuyoron kind of L&D. We amateurs can only watch and enjoy it.

I'm curious to know at which point w had a terrible sinking feeling.

[jeromie]

In fact the three games between Shi Yue and Tang Weixing are much more interesting (technically).

...

Enjoy these games!

Thanks, macelee! These games were all fascinating and fun to play through.

[Uberdude]

I was surprised by Lee's L3, it feels so small and low and pathetic (and shouldn't it be L4 after he plays h3? though of course if you do that it's more likely white will play j3 either immediately or try to get sente to do so after doing something on the right). And then not playing q18 too was perhaps trying to justify L3 but meant he staked the game on attacking the right side group but that was hard to profit from.

Yeah, it could very well be that black was behind by this point. From the article, it just says that after move 40, you can see that black's opening was a failure.

So rewinding to find where things start to go wrong, if L3 is not so great then what is better? 4th line below hoshi on right? Invade top side 3-space extension (but we don't have ladder so not so great)? q18 seems too slow. Other extensions on lower side not so amazing. In which case we go back to the peep on left side group. If black connects the jump then white will likely defend the top side. Then black could choose between tenuki (such as approach bottom left) or reinforce with another jump, in which case white likely plays the same knight move as the game but then c6 is more exciting for black (downside is white has an extra stone on top side so invading there is harder, but it's also smaller so invasion less necessary). Or going back even further is black's 2 space extension on the 3rd line the root of the problem? The lighter 3 space extension to the 4th line is fashionable these days and appeals to me.

(I didn't watch the AGA broadcast, maybe they address these issues)

Interestingly enough Park Younghoon's first game of the Mlily semi-final against Ke Jie featured a very similar opening to Lee vs Ke. I suspect he had studied that game Lee lost before playing, and indeed the choices he made in his game suggest that my feelings of Lee's dubious moves were largely correct:
- First off Park chose the same 2 space extension for move 11 on the left side, but then played the other one point jump of e11 not e14. This has less threat against the top side, but if you are going to block on the 3rd line as Lee did against the peep that threat is illusory. Park's jump has a greater threat against c9 so Ke accordingly defends at c6 rather than f3.
- Park then makes the sprightly jump to f15 which will more easily wreck the top side if ignored, and Ke answers with g16 which is thin (so a big ko happens later, seems fair). Mu understanding is this helps makes the d12 peep less of a worry.
- As Ke played c6 rather than f3, Park gets to play j3 on the lower side, rather than Lee's lame l3.
- Park defends at q18 for move 21 as I prefered before.
- Ke now spends a move to reinforce the right side group as black's corner is stronger.
- Rather than making a gote 2 space extension on the lower side as Lee did from l3, Park does the e2 sequence which gives white a more solid corner than Lee's game, but retains sente.

Up to this point Park's opening feels far more successful than Lee's to me, though I'm not sure I would go so far to say black is leading, it feels a pretty even opening. Park does go on to lose the game, but from quickly looking though the game I feel that happened later, particularly with him being overly concerned with keeping the top right territory, and then letting Ke make a big centre.

Lee vs Ke:

http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/wr/sgf/20scsf21.sgf

Park vs Ke:

http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/wr/sgf/2mlsf21.sgf

[trout]

12/18/15 final 1st game;



Ke Jie defeated Shi Yue by 1.5.

[trout]

12/9/15 final 2nd game;

Ke Jie defeated Shi Yue by resign.

Ke Jie is new Samsung cup Champion!!!!!!!!!

[wineandgolover]

Thanks Trout. Too bad the AGA couldn't stream these games. Hopefully somebody will comment on them or at least translate a top-pro commentary.

Congrats to Ke Jie!