Tracking Foreign Teams in 2017 China Weiqi League

[wolfking]

The Chinese media are actually fascinated by the European team, especially after the wins by Shikshin and Surma in round 3. There are quite a few reports about the team and also an interview of Shikshin. Some photos from these reports

Team photo under the tournament title billboard

This photo should look familiar as it's same angle of the one I posted in round 2, but with a twist: The gentleman looking over Surma's shoulder is none other than Wang Runan 8p, chair of CWA, aka the top boss of Chinese Go. If he looks familiar, that's because he is practically in every opening ceremony for every big tournament held in China and sometimes abroad.

Photo from round 1, showing the whole team (in suits too)

[wolfking]

A bit background of how the European Pro team got into the C-League.

We all know the European Pro System was the product of cooperation between a Beijing company called CEGO and the EGF. Turns out the main members of CEGO were from the Tsinghua Go Foundation. So naturally the European Pro System has deep ties with Tsinghua, a university that has a rich Go culture (remember Gu Li is a graduate student at Tsinghua).

This year Tshinghua Go Culture Exchange and Research Foundation helped to organize the European Pro team, provided managers and coaches, and got a special sanction from China Qiyuan (中国棋院), the Administration that oversees all things related to board games including Go, Chess, Bridge etc., to participated in the C-League. Tshinghua's Zijing Fund became the title sponsor. They also recruited some local help from Quzhou, Zhejiang Province. Quzhou's Huakong Pharmaceutical agreed to provide some financial support. The result is that each Euro pro will get playing fees regardless of results, plus win bonus, consecutive win bonus, winning round bonus, positional performance bonus, and promotion bonus (I suppose that is bonus for promotion to B-League which is a tall order). No wonder they are play the best Go of their life!

Zijing Fund board chair Shen Zhengning said that the Fund will sponsor the European Pro team at least two more years. So we should be able to see this team for another two years at least.

[wolfking]

Photo from round 4

Surma vs Yang Qian 3p, with whole team in background

Sgf of Shikshin vs Gong Yanyu 3p

[ez4u]

Great posts Wolfking! Thanks and please continue to keep us informed.

[Kirby]

I don't have much context for this event, but I would imagine that this type of activity will do well to raise the level of European go, overall. Collaboration between China and Korea helped raise the level of go in those countries in the past, and I imagine that this would do the same for Western go.

Exciting times.

[Uberdude]

Ilya's 5th game was broadcast on WBaduk, showing the interest in their games. He lost though by resign (behind by about komi) against 'JSW' 2p. He played the 2 space high shimari popularised by AlphaGo and the game was fairly territorial without big fighting. The decisive point to my eyes was when he attacked a few stones (on the left side) and played a peep which his opponent ignored to escape, Ilya captured the tail in gote whilst his opponent got centre thickness, who then came back to answer the peep: I think he needed to either get more in the fight or get sente to follow-up the ignored peep (bad timing initially?). Maybe the opening was already a little bad for him. He did later nicely harass the thickness and force it to make 2 eyes but it wasn't enough.

[pancake]

Really appreciate that you keep us up to date about this wolfking! I hope European professionals will continue to show good results!

[wolfking]

Ilya's 5th game was broadcast on WBaduk, showing the interest in their games. He lost though by resign (behind by about komi) against 'JSW' 2p. He played the 2 space high shimari popularised by AlphaGo and the game was fairly territorial without big fighting. The decisive point to my eyes was when he attacked a few stones (on the left side) and played a peep which his opponent ignored to escape, Ilya captured the tail in gote whilst his opponent got centre thickness, who then came back to answer the peep: I think he needed to either get more in the fight or get sente to follow-up the ignored peep (bad timing initially?). Maybe the opening was already a little bad for him. He did later nicely harass the thickness and force it to make 2 eyes but it wasn't enough.

'JSW' is Jiao Shiwei 2p, ranked 162 in CWA ranking with an ELO of 2292 (for comparison Ke Jie has an ELO of 2751). I was watching the game on Fox Go Server and felt the same when Ilya captured the tail in gote. He did get a lot of territory on the left but probably gave opponent too much center thickness.

There were two games broadcast on Fox Go Server from Round 5, this one and the one between Ida and Zheng Yuhang 3p. Just shows the interest of Chinese media in these two teams.

[wolfking]

Results from round 5, played on June 13th.

Yet another tie by Team Europe vs Team Yunnan! I think at this point we are not that surprised by the result. The team is confident and maybe they can get a win in the final two rounds.

1. Ilya Shikshin 0:1 Jiao Shiwei 2p
2. Ali Jabarin 1:0 Xu Jiawei 1p
3. Pavol Lisy 0:1 Li Wei 3p
4. Mateusz Surma 1:0 Han Enyi 6D

Surma has been unbeatable! And Ali gets his first win! Now everyone on the team has at least one win. This will definitely boost their confidence going forward. I wish at least one of them keep a blog to document this experience.


Team Japan came back in a big way and swept Beijing Qinglan 4:0. Ida got his first win.

1. Ida Atsushi 1:0 Zheng Yuhang 3p
2. Yu Zhengqi 1:0 Ying Yitao 3p
3. Hsu Chiayuan 1:0 Lei Zhenkun 2p
4. Shibano Toramaru 1:0 Chen Xuan 1p


For the Taiwan teams, Haifeng Qiyuan tied with local team Quzhou Hongxin 2:2, Zhonghuan beat Peking University + Beijing Go Institute 4:0. Haifeng's women's team tied Jiangxi Go Institue 1:1.

[wolfking]

Really appreciate that you keep us up to date about this wolfking! I hope European professionals will continue to show good results!

Thanks! I will try my best.

[wolfking]

Some photos from round 5.

Mateusz vs Han Enyi 6d

Ilya vs Jiao Shiwei 2p (The lady walking by Surma's table is Korea's Oh Yujin 5p, playing in WBL this year)

Ida vs Zheng Yuhang 3p

Overview of the gaming hall

[oren]

Do you have a link to a results page?

[wolfking]

Do you have a link to a results page?

Yes. Here is the link: http://www.eweiqi.com/index.php?m=conte ... 3&id=28431
The results unfortunately are pictures embedded in the page so Google Translate won't help. But if you know Chinese there will be no problem. And there are many more photos on the linked page.

[wolfking]

There are no games scheduled on Wed June 14th. Play will resume on June 15th. Here are the match ups for round 6

Team Japan vs China Pingmei

1. Ida Atsushi (B) vs Kim Sonjin 4p (W)
2. Yu Zhengqi vs Tong Yulin 4p
3. Hsu Chiayuan vs Shu Yixiao 4p
4. Shibano Toramaru vs Li Chengsen 3p

People from the US probably recognize Tong Yulin 4p, who attended US Go Congress in 2015 and won the US Open Masters Division. Team Japan has so far accumulated 5 points, 3 behind the leaders (two teams tied at 8 points). They will likely need to win the last 3 rounds to have a shot at A-League.

Team Europe vs Beijing Yiben Qingyuan

1. Ilya Shikshin (W) vs Gao Yu 3p (B)
2. Ali Jabarin vs Feng Hao 1p
3. Pavol Lisy vs Yang Wenkai 1p
4. Mateusz Surma vs Yao Xiaotong 1p

The last two positions of Beijing are held by 2016 new pros and Feng Hao is ranked 361 in CWA ranking so Team Europe has a chance to tie or even win this one.

[wolfking]

Sgf files from round 5

Shikshin vs Jiao

Ida vs Zheng