2018 Chinese Pro Qualification

[wolfking]

It is that time of the year again. I will try my best to cover this year's Chinese Pro Qualification tournament. For an introduction to the Chinese Pro Qualification you can read about it in my report of last year's tournament here: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=14393.

This year's tournament will be held in Nanning, Guangxi Province (广西南宁) from August 1st to August 15th. The basic structure will be the same as last year, namely a 9 round prelim tournament for the male participants from Aug 2nd to Aug 6th, and 13 round main tournament for both male and female participants from Aug 8th to Aug 15th (they will have one day rest on Aug 11th).

This year there will be 282 male participants (29 of them are returning top 50 finishers from last year's tournament and will go straight to the main tournament) and 99 female participants in the tournament, both are a little less than last year's numbers.

There is also a slight rule change for this year. The CWA has decided to give younger participants an edge. On the male side, 3 players born on Jan 1st, 2005 or later will be promoted first, then the rest 17 will be promoted. On the female side it is the same age threshold but only 1 player will be promoted before the rest 9 are considered.

This will bode well for our friends Hu Zihao(胡子豪) and Wu Yiming(吴依铭). Both Hu and Wu are 11 years old and played in this year's C-League. Wu Yiming had an especially impressive tournament with 4 wins 3 losses (she beat Mateusz Surma in round 5). Another youngster that was in this year's C-League, 10 year old Zhang Xinyu (张歆宇), might have a chance too. Although it will be much tougher for Zhang because he will need to start in the prelim and fight to get into top 50 of his group just to make it to the main tournament. On the other hand Hu Zihao is one of the returning top 50 from last year and will start in the main tournament directly.

EDIT:
I cannot believe I missed this but it turns out that this year's Go Congress has another event that can issue pro certificates (there will be 14, 10 male, 4 female) to the top finishers. And this one does not have an age limit!

The name of the event is a mouthful. It is called "Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Project" All People Weiqi Dan-Kyu King of Go Final (“百千万工程”全民围棋段级位棋王赛总决赛). The "Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Project" is short for "Hundred City - Thousand County - Ten Thousand Town All People National Go Promotion Project". The "All People" part refers to the fact that there was no age limit or strength requirement for participants.

The event probably started preliminary stage long ago and now is the final stage at the Go Congress. The competition is split into 7 groups. 5 groups ranging from 1 Kyu to 4 Dan. 1 male, 1 female group for 5 Dan and above. It is the 5 Dan groups that will issue pro certificates. The winners of the two 5 Dan groups will be issued a "King of Go" certificate on top of pro status.

I knew about this event but did not know that 14 new pros will come from the event. I chose not to even include it in the Go Congress introduction because the name was too hard to explain in a short passage. But now I have no choice . I will cover it along with the Pro Qualification Tournament. And there are some interesting people in this event that I would like to talk about later.

I will call this event the HTT (short for Hundred Thousand Ten thousand) Final.

11 year old Hu Zihao

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11 year old Wu Yiming

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10 year old Zhang Xinyu

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[wolfking]

This year's tournament venue, NanGuoYiYuan (南国弈园，meaning 'the Go garden of southern country'). It has a traditional Chinese style garden on the rooftop.
Overview

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Rooftop garden

nanGuoYiYuan2.jpg (59.44 KiB) Viewed 23664 times

Interior

nanGuoYiYuan3.jpg (59.61 KiB) Viewed 23664 times

[wolfking]

This year's Pro Qualification is actually part of the 2018 Chinese Go Congress (2018中国围棋大会). This is only the 2nd iteration of the biggest Go Congress in the world. Last year there were more than 2000 participants in the very first Chinese Go Congress held in Ordos, Inner Mongolia. Other activities on the schedule of this year's Go Congress include CWA General Assembly Meeting, both male and female A-League games, National Children's Championship, Whole Nation Team Championship(this is for amateurs only, each team consists of 4 male players and 1 female, and must have 1 male player in each of the 20 up to over 50 age group), Go Cities Championship Final (This is similar to CWL the City Weiqi League), AI tournament, and all sorts of other tournaments.

[ez4u]

Thanks in advance for your great coverage wolfking!

[EdLee]

Hi wolfking,

Thank you.

Are you physically on location ?

[wolfking]

Thanks in advance for your great coverage wolfking!

You are very welcome Dave!

Are you physically on location ?

Unfortunately I am stuck at work I wish it was held in September then I might be able to go.

[wolfking]

If you can read Chinese here is the combined registration sheet. Team #30 is my hometown team Hangzhou Go Institute. It has always been the largest team in pro qualification in recent years. Every other team has one manager and one coach(3rd and 4th column in the registration sheet), while Team Hangzhou has 9 managers and 7 coaches! Hu Zihao(胡子豪), Zhang Xinyu(张歆宇) and Wu Yiming(吴依铭) are all registered with Team Hangzhou. Han Enyi(韩恩溢) 6D, another name we learned from last year's tournament as well as this year's C-League plays, is also registered with Team Hangzhou.

Registration sheet: Colunm 1. Team Numbering; 2. Team name; 3. Manager; 4. Coach; 5. Male participants in the prelim; 6. Male participants directly go to main tournament; 7. Female participants.

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[EdLee]

hometown team Hangzhou Go Institute.

Hi wolfking,

I'm sure someone somewhere has compiled a list ranking the schools ( year by year ) by new 1p's by percentage ( divided by number of candidates from each school ) and by absolute numbers ( of new 1p's from each school ) ?

[wolfking]

After the first two rounds, Zhang Xinyu has one win and one loss, while Han Enyi won both rounds. Next up for Zhang Xinyu is Ge Dojo's Jia Deyi (贾得一, registered with team 27 China Coal Go Institute). Han Enyi will play Wan Enze(万恩泽) in round 3，who is also a member of Team Hangzhou. Wan is the 3rd place winner of Children's Group B(age 10 to 11) in last year's Bailing Cup National Children's Championship (nicknamed the Little Bailing Cup). Zhang Xinyu was the winner of Group C (age 9) in that tournament. By the way Han Enyi also played (and beat) the winner of Group B, Ding Lie Dojo's Xu Yidi(许一笛, also registered with China Coal since Ding Lie(丁烈) 6p is the coach), in round 1 of this tournament.

Edit: Fixed typo for Ge Dojo (somehow I wrote Go Dojo, maybe I was not that far off).

[wolfking]

hometown team Hangzhou Go Institute.

Hi wolfking,

I'm sure someone somewhere has compiled a list ranking the schools ( year by year ) by new 1p's by percentage ( divided by number of candidates from each school ) and by absolute numbers ( of new 1p's from each school ) ?

I would think so! But I have never seen this list But basically it is Hangzhou Go Institute vs Beijing's Ge Yuhong Dojo. They split maybe three quarters of the new pros if I have to throw out a ballpark number. By the way Team 25 Gansu Go Association is basically Team Ge Dojo since Ge Yuhong was originally from Gansu Province. And Ge Dojo has more students in the tournament than those registered with Team Gansu because many students chose to register with their hometown team/Go Association.

[wolfking]

Two more rounds were played on August 3rd. Han Enyi and Zhang Xinyu both won their two games. Zhang beat Jia Deyi of Ge Dojo in round 3 and Bi Zuyi of Nie Weiping Dojo in round 4. Han beat Wan Enze in round 3, and Lu Xunfeng(吕洵锋, also of Team Hangzhou) in round 4. Han's 4 wins are more impressive in that his first 4 opponents all had some success in national level competitions. So far he has beaten

round 1: Xu Yidi (Team China Coal), winner of 2017 8th Little Bailing Cup Group B (age 10-11 Group)
round 2: Duan Boyao(段博尧, Team Hangzhou), winner of 2018 9th Little Bailing Cup Group C (age 9 Group), 2nd place of 2017 Little Bailing Cup Group D (age 8 Group)
round 3: Wan Enze (Team Hangzhou) 3rd place 2017 Little Bailing Cup Group B (he was unbeaten before losing to eventual group champion Xu Yidi and ended up 3rd due to lower opponent scores)
round 4: Lu Xunfeng(Team Hangzhou) winner of 2017 National Youth Championship Children's Group (this is a smaller scale championship with 365 participants, compare to the Little Bailing Cup with 923 participants in 2017 and 1010 participants in 2018)

Next up for Zhang Xinyu is a Hangzhou teammate, 12 year old Zheng Zaixiang(郑载想) 6D. If you are familiar with the Chinese Amateur promotion system you know that 6D means he has won championship at provincial level or has placed very high on some national level competition (Zheng got his 6D thanks to his 4th place finish at last year's Fudiyuan Cup Open Amateur Championship). To see how hard it is to earn a 6D, we just need to look at the Little Bailing Cup. It is a very high level championship but due to the fact that it is a youth/children's competition there are only 3 spots for 6D promotions (there were more than 300 5Ds in last year's competition). I would consider Zheng Zaixiang the favorite to win this match up.

As for Han Enyi his round 5 opponent is 19 year old Tang Tianyuan(唐天源) of Hunan Go Association. Tang has won 3 regional tournaments just in this year, so no pushover either. I put this one at 50/50.

15 year old Han Enyi 6D

2018Leagues_r5_hanEnyi_resize.jpg (52.38 KiB) Viewed 23491 times

[silviu22]

Very interesting thread, wolfking. This year at the European Go Congress in Pisa, there is a new 1p from China (Liu, SiJia). I couldn't find anything about her except for your last year's thread.

I don't speak Chinese and can't distinguish between male and female names, so I didn't even know she is a girl until I saw she participated in women's tournament. She is doing well, having lost only once in 1st round. You can see her results here: https://egc2018.it/en/pairing.html.

I look forward to reading about these young players in the future.

So the boys in preliminary tournament have to place in top 50 out of 232 to make it to main tournament, yes?

I am guessing Han is in top 15, yes? I am guessing Zhang is in top 50 as well with 3 wins.

[wolfking]

Very interesting thread, wolfking. This year at the European Go Congress in Pisa, there is a new 1p from China (Liu, SiJia). I couldn't find anything about her except for your last year's thread.

I don't speak Chinese and can't distinguish between male and female names, so I didn't even know she is a girl until I saw she participated in women's tournament. She is doing well, having lost only once in 1st round. You can see her results here: https://egc2018.it/en/pairing.html.

I look forward to reading about these young players in the future.

So the boys in preliminary tournament have to place in top 50 out of 232 to make it to main tournament, yes?

I am guessing Han is in top 15, yes? I am guessing Zhang is in top 50 as well with 3 wins.

Yes there are not too many reports even in China so it is almost impossible to find info on the new pros in English until they have some success in international tournament.

Sorry I did not make it clear. The preliminary tournament is actually run in two groups, A and B. Top 50 of each group get to play in the main tournament. Both Han Enyi and Zhang Xinyu are in Group B. After 5 rounds Han won all 5 games and is one of the 4 undefeated players in Group B. Zhang unsurprisingly lost to Zheng Zaixiang 6D. He is schedule to play at board 27 in round 6 so is pretty much on the cut line for top 50.

[silviu22]

Sorry I did not make it clear. The preliminary tournament is actually run in two groups, A and B. Top 50 of each group get to play in the main tournament. Both Han Enyi and Zhang Xinyu are in Group B. After 5 rounds Han won all 5 games and is one of the 4 undefeated players in Group B. Zhang unsurprisingly lost to Zheng Zaixiang 6D. He is schedule to play at board 27 in round 6 so is pretty much on the cut line for top 50.

So on the boys side the main tournament is 150 (50 last year, top 50 from A & B)?

[wolfking]

Round 5 and 6 were played on August 4th but results of round 6 is not posted yet. In round 5 Han Enyi beat Tang Tianyuan to stay undefeated. Zhang Xinyu lost to Zheng Zaixiang as expected. I think Zhang needs to win 3 of the last 4 games to be absolutely sure that he will be in top 50. A split of 2-2 does not necessarily mean he will be out but he might need help with tie breakers.

Han's round 6 opponent is another Hangzhou teammate，14 year old Zhang Baiqing(张柏清). And a very tough opponent in that. Zhang placed 2nd in last month's Qingdao Press Cup, ahead of famous top amateurs Bai Baoxiang 8D and Ma Tianfang 7D. And yes, 7D and 8D means exactly what you think. Mr Bai has won the WAGC and Mr Ma has won national championships (Bai and Ma are two of the four "Kings" of Chinese amateur Go. The other two are Hu Yuqing 8D and Wang Chen 7D). Han finished with same number of wins as Zhang but placed 7th due to lower opponent scores in that same tournament. I will give a slight edge to Zhang in this match up.

Zhang Xinyu's round 6 opponent is Ge Dojo's Cai Yunrui(蔡韫睿). Cai is one of those rare want-to-be pros that excels both in Go and in academic study. He just finished 3rd in Jiangsu Province GaoKao exam (the national university entrance exam) which IMHO is just as amazing feat as gaining pro status in Go. Cai will study at Tsinghua University this Fall and become Gu Li's schoolmate. But I think Zhang should be able to win this one.

So on the boys side the main tournament is 150 (50 last year, top 50 from A & B)?

silviu22 you forgot to factor in the top 20 that were promoted to pro status . So usually only 30 or less from last year's top 50 will come back (there is a 25 age limit so some top 50 might not come back). This year 29 will go straight to the main tournament.