Park Junghwan is the current #1 player in the world by goratings.org ratings.
He held this title before, from about September 2011 (when he took it from Lee Sedol) to about August 2014, when Ke Jie took over.
But Ke Jie has slipped a little and now Junghwan is Back.
In August 2011 he won the final Fujitsu Cup.
He won some domestic titles, and anchored and won the 14th Nongshim Cup for Korea in 2013.
Interestingly he took back #1 a little before winning the MLily Cup,
but with that title win he seems to have floated safely above Ke Jie for now.
Interestingly has has lost twice to Ke Jie since November, but overall he is 18-4,
an 81% win rate, In Nov Dec and Jan.

I asked in the Ke Jie thread "How long will Ke Jie reign?"
It seems now like the answer was "About three years."
It's an all-too rare example of the older player knocking out the younger one.
We will see what happens next!

I'm just surprised at Lee Sedol spring back to no.5 even though he's almost 10 years older than Park Junghwan. South Korea has pros in 10's, 20's, and 30's occupying top 5 position.

Considering age, Lee Sedol is certainly admirable. To give an example, Ke Jie started learning go around age 5 in 2003... The same year Lee Sedol became 9d. He’s had a long run

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it's be happy, not achieve happiness

Go4go shows Park Junghwan playing in something called "1st Korean Crown Haitai Cup". Does anyone know what this tournament is like? It's still hard to find info in English on these things.

You can find the brackets here:
https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/kr/crown/

It seems to be some kind of "under (25?) Years old" tournament.

Crown Haitai is a large confectionery company in south Korea. It sponsors this 'new star' tournament. Park Junghwan is qualified because of his relatively young age, although surely he cannot be considered as a new star. However, professional tournaments are dying quickly in Korea in recently years. Even top professionals don't have enough tournaments to play. So I guess they just grab whatever chances that are available.

BTW, it you are already a Go4Go user, you can find the tournament score charts on that site too, for example https://www.go4go.net/go/tournaments/news/206 - these are dynamically generated from database therefore can be more accurate.

Also, before beating Mok Jinsuk in the KBS Cup quarterfinals today, Park had already been reached the score of 3647 on Remi's goratings list, the highest point a human has ever reached (as of January 15). Among the top names, Junghwan was probably the most positively influenced one in the post-Alphago era.

This isn't actually true, the way whole history rating works is it can change the rating in the past using new information. So on Sept 6th 2017 it put Ke Jie at 3680, but if you look now at his rating on Sept 6th it's lower because it's basically updated to say "Oh, he wasn't as actually as strong as we thought during his win streak because the streak ended and he lost more recently". https://web.archive.org/web/20170906033 ... gs.org/en/

P.S. also what do you mean by "probably the most positively influenced one in the post-Alphago era."? Large change in his style by AG influence, or best increase in win rate in this time which may or may not have anything to do with AG-style moves? Although he has incorporated some AG ideas into his game (e.g. early attaching against ogeima shimari), I had a quick browse through the last several dozen of his games and I didn't see any early 3-3 invasions from him so it seems like he hasn't embraced this as Ke Jie and some others have. Maybe his good results are because he hasn't done so much AG stuff he doesn't understand, but sticks to what he knows, understands and can make work.

Understood, thanks for the correction.

I had wanted to gather up a few more numbers and write up a dedicated post, but who knows if I'll have time, so I'll post this here:

Park just turned 25 last week, which means that of the top 5 Korean players, 3 of them are now more than 25 . Of the top 10, 6 are more than 25, and 4 are more than 30.[0]

Park surpassed Lee Sedol towards the end of 2011, when the former was 20, and the later was 28.

[0]
Park 25
Shin 17
Lee Sedol 34
Kim 28
Na 22
Lee Yeongkyu 30
Choi 32
Byun 20
Lee Donghoon 19
Park Yeonghun 32.

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Occupy Babel!

He's won four more times in January, most notably against Byun Sangil 6p in this Crown Haitai Cup. An interesting fuseki with two big 34 enclosures:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wcm16
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . X . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . X , . . . X . , X . . |
$$ | . . . O . . O . . . . O . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

Park just beat Shin jinseo in the first game of the final of the Crown Haitai Cup.
https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/kr/crown/
This is his twelfth victory in a row.

Live now on wbaduk is Park vs Shin in what I presume is the 2nd game of the crown haitai final.

Edit: it was a blitz, maybe another event. There was high drama at the end when Park resisted being sealed to live safely and ran around Shin's thin positions but ultimately he couldn't get out to safety or capture anything so he died and resigned, ending his 14 game win steak.

That game was indeed the crown haitai final; this event evidently had short time limits. Park beat Shin in game 3 this morning (is it best of 3?) and is now playing Weon Sungjin in his second game of the day, busy schedule!

Actually, the game with Shin was yesterday. I have no idea about which tournement it was but in today's game against Weon, Park won again.

Just to update this thread, Park Junghwan won the 2nd World Go Championship. He won against both Ke Jie and Iyama Yuta. His eight-game win streak was broken by Fan Tingyu in Chinese A League: http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/73102

Although Park lost this one by half a point, I thought this game from today in the Chinese league was excellent. His opponent was Mi Yuting who is on fine form and looks set to overtake Ke Jie to get the #2 spot on goratings.



P.S. can anyone explain f11 and g11? Is there are ladder somewhere with k13 stones?

Cannot explain this exchange. But I can confirm this actually happened - I just checked with somebody who was following the game at the site.

Thanks mace, and for getting all those games into go4go so quickly! My current ideas:
- white prepares an attack on black left group (e.g. d10/11) and black's attach is some fancy answer that means he can fight back with e11 or something whilst also having effect on k13 fight.
- preparing j12 or k12 to hem that black group in and try to force it to connect passively at l17. Why doesn't black answer at k12 or thereabouts, worries about left group?
- prepare cutting at l17, though that seems pretty overplay given white's weakness, would expect white to prefer to make those stones stronger and black grovel connect.
- could there be a ladder from n7 area?

Will see what bots say later.

I haven't been following all the new corner strategies, is that sequence in the upper-left new? looks so strange.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm9
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 3 . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

also looks strange to me. The game sprawls out into a crazy fight after black invades. I looked for this sequence on alphago teach and found the same with a different

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm9
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . a . . X . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

I like just connecting for white, it matches my intuition. I would probably have played at a instead of tennuki.