2018 Chinese Pro Qualification

[wolfking]

Here is August 13th event schedule in Chinese. The last column is event venue.

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Translated:
8:30-12:00 Longguang Cup "HTT Project" Guangxi Youth Go Championship / Guangxi Youth Ten-Thousand People Go Final 2nd Stage round 1 and 2 (ICC (International Convention Center) Area D Hall #2)

9:00-9:20 2018 "China Trust Securities Cup" World AI Go Open: Opening Ceremony (ICC Area D Hall #1)
9:30-17:30 2018 "China Trust Securities Cup" World AI Go Open: Preliminary (ICC Area D Hall #1)

9:00-12:00 2018 PQT Main Tournament / HTT 5 Dan Group Round 9 (NGYY (Nan Guo Yi Yuan) 3rd Floor)

9:00-11:00 2018 "HTT Project" Team Championship Round 1 (ICC area D Hall #2)
9:00-17:00 Marathon Go (ICC area D Hall #2)
9:30-11:30 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Team Go Stage 1 round 1 (ICC area D Hall #2)
9:30-18:00 "BDF Cup" China-East Asia Union Invitational round 1 - 3 (ICC area D Hall #2)
9:00-12:00 "HuQingYuTang Cup" Chinese Weiqi Congress Main Tournament Round 7 (ICC area D Hall #2)

11:00-18:00 2018 Chinese Weiqi A-League Round 12 (RFH (Red Forest Hotel) 4th Floor Berlin Hall)

13:00-15:00 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Team Go Stage 1 round 2 (ICC area D Hall #2)
13:00-15:00 2018 "HTT Project" Team Championship Round 2 (ICC area D Hall #2)
14:00-16:30 "HuQingYuTang Cup" Chinese Weiqi Congress Main Tournament Round 8 (ICC area D Hall #2)

14:30-17:30 2018 PQT Main Tournament / HTT 5 Dan Group Round 10 (NGYY 3rd Floor)

14:30-18:00 Longguang Cup "HTT Project" Guangxi Youth Go Championship / Guangxi Youth Go Final 2nd Stage round 3-4 (ICC Area D Hall #2)
15:30-17:30 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Team Go Stage 1 round 3 (ICC area D Hall #2)
15:30-17:00 2018 "HTT Project" Team Championship Round 3 (ICC area D Hall #2)

19:00-19:30 King of 9x9 Round 9 (NGYY 3rd Floor)
19:45-20:15 King of 9x9 Round 10 (NGYY 3rd Floor)
20:30-21:00 King of 9x9 Round 11 (NGYY 3rd Floor)
21:15-21:45 King of 9x9 Round 12 (NGYY 3rd Floor)

[wolfking]

Schedule on August 14th

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Translation:

8:00-17:50 "BDF Cup" China-East Asia Union Invitational round 4 - 7 (ICC area D Hall #2)
8:30-12:00 Longguang Cup "HTT Project" Guangxi Youth Go Championship / Guangxi Youth Go Final 2nd Stage round 3-4 (ICC Area D Hall #2)

8:30-23:00 2018 "China Trust Securities Cup" World AI Go Open: Semi-Finals / Final (ICC Area D Hall #1)

9:00-12:00 2018 PQT Main Tournament / HTT 5 Dan Group Round 11 (NGYY 3rd Floor)

9:00-11:00 2018 "HTT Project" Team Championship Round 4 (ICC area D Hall #2)
9:00-17:00 Marathon Go (ICC area D Hall #2)
9:30-11:30 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Team Go Stage 2 round 1 (ICC area D Hall #2)
9:00-12:00 "HuQingYuTang Cup" Chinese Weiqi Congress Main Tournament Round 9 (ICC area D Hall #2)

11:00-18:00 The 6th "China Trust Properties Cup" China Women's A-League Round 10 (NGYY 7th Floor)

13:00-15:00 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Team Go Stage 2 round 2 (ICC area D Hall #2)
13:00-15:00 2018 "HTT Project" Team Championship Round 5 (ICC area D Hall #2)
13:30-15:00 Longguang Cup "HTT Project" Guangxi Youth Go Championship / Guangxi Youth Go Final 2nd Stage round 7 (ICC Area D Hall #2)
14:00-16:30 "HuQingYuTang Cup" Chinese Weiqi Congress Main Tournament Round 10 (ICC area D Hall #2)

14:30-17:30 2018 PQT Main Tournament / HTT 5 Dan Group Round 12 (NGYY 3rd Floor)

15:30-17:30 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Team Go Semi-Final (ICC area D Hall #2)
15:30-17:00 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Simuls (ICC area D Hall #2)
15:30-17:30 2018 "HTT Project" Team Championship Round 6 (ICC area D Hall #2)
16:00-16:40 Longguang Cup "HTT Project" Guangxi Youth Go Championship / Guangxi Youth Go Final Stage 2 Award Ceremony (ICC Area D Hall #2)

[wolfking]

August 15th schedule.

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Translated:

8:00-12:00 2018 "China Trust Securities Cup" World AI Go Open: Final (ICC Area D Hall #1)

9:00-11:00 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Team Go Final (ICC area D Hall #2)

9:00-12:00 2018 PQT Main Tournament / HTT 5 Dan Group Round 13 (NGYY 3rd Floor)

9:00-17:00 Marathon Go (ICC area D Hall #2)
9:00-12:00 "HuQingYuTang Cup" Chinese Weiqi Congress Main Tournament Round 11 (ICC area D Hall #2)

10:00-12:00 2018 "China Trust Securities Cup" World AI Go Open Final: Big Board Live Commentary (ICC Area D Hall #1)

11:00-18:00 2018 Chinese Weiqi A-League Round 13 (RFH 4th Floor Berlin Hall)

11:30-12:00 "Huaxia Fund Cup" 2018 Reunion Pro Team Go / "HTT Project" Team Championship Award Ceremony (ICC area D)

12:00-12:30 2018 "China Trust Securities Cup" World AI Go Open Award Ceremony(ICC Area D)

17:30-18:30 2018 Chinese Weiqi Congress Closing Ceremony (ICC Area D Hall #1)

Throughout The Week: 9:00-18:00 China Weiqi Congress Expo (ICC Area D Hall #1)

[wolfking]

Results of round 7 and 8 played on August 12th.

In the PQT:
Lu Liyan (吕立言) 6D is the only player that is still undefeated on the men's side.

Han Enyi: Lost round 7 and won round 8. Will play Liu Ruizhi 6D next on board 22. 10 points

Zhang Xinyu: Lost both ganes. With 5 rounds left he needs to win out from here to have a chance. 6 points.

Hu Zihao: Lost to Shi Ji(史记) 6D but beat Li Haotong (李昊潼) 7D which is quite impressive. 12 points.

Luo Zhuofan: Won both rounds. 12 points.

Wu Yiming: And she is still undefeated! Will play Xu Jingqi 6D in round 9. She is almost guaranteed to earn pro status. 16 points.

Wen Zhaojing: Won 1 lost 1. 6 points.

Chu Ke'er: Beat Xu Jingqi 6D in round 8. Will play Huang Jiayi 5D next since they are the only two players with 1 loss. 14 points

Huang Jiayi: The other player whose only loss was to Wu Yiming. 14 points

In the HTT Tournament:
Nie Fenglin (聂峰林) 6D is the only player undefeated on the men's side. On the women's side it was Wang Zhen(王祯) 6D. She missed 2012 pro qualification by one game and went to Shanghai Foreign Language University. Now she might finally fulfill her dream.

Deng Yinyi 5D beat Wang Rui 5D in round 7 but lost to Chen Yilin(陈奕琳) 5D in round 8. She has 8 points. Wang Rui has 8 points.

[wolfking]

The results of the 10th round is not posted yet, but we already know the 3 names that are qualified for pro status after 10 rounds. On the men's side it was Lu Liyan 6D and Sha Xingyu(沙星宇) 6D. They qualified through "Early Qualification". On the women's side it was Wang Zhen 6D in the HTT Project. The HTT does not have early promotion but Wang 6D will qualify even if she lose the last round (HTT Women's Group only plays 11 rounds).

Lu Liyan 6D (Right) vs Zheng Zaixiang 6D

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Sha Xingyu 6D

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Wang Zhen 6D

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[wolfking]

Wu Yiming 6D finally lost to Jin Shan(金珊) 6D in round 10 and missed her opportunity for early qualification. But with 9 wins she is virtually guaranteed of a promotion. With 8 wins Jin Shan 6D should have a good chance to be promoted too.

Wu Yiming 6D vs Jin Shan 6D in round 10

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Wu Yiming 6D Hitting the clock

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Wu Yiming 6D signing score sheet

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[pnprog]

Hi!

Thanks to wolfing instructions, I was able to navigate my way to the Go congress. Although I know NanNing since many years, that was my first time at the International Convention Center.

The first hall that spiked my interest was (rather unsurprisingly) related with AI and teaching technologies.

Half the hall was dedicated to "China Trust Securities Cup" World AI Go Open, so a AI competition. The AI were Elf Open Go, BADUKi, Raynz, AQ, Golaxy, Og-go, DolBaram and Octopus (章鱼围棋). Among them, AQ and Raynz are supported by GoReviewPartner, and we somehow already interacted on Github, so I would have loved to have a quick chat with them, but visitors could not get close to them, and they were quite busy anyway:

Below, Raynz team (turning their back to me) vs BADUKi team (facing me), that as much close as I could get

The second part of the hall was about go technologies. Go playing robotic arm (video) and "smart goban". Smart goban (video) seems to be the newest trend, with 5 different companies showing their products. I am very enthusiast with this technology. I posted a video about those boards on /r/baduk recently but I think it was removed by the mods for some reasons, so maybe not every body share my enthusiasm for smart goban. So if you have question, ask directly on this thread.
Another trend is about Go learning app (tablet, or computers) to help rise children interest, or help teaching schools manage their students. Golaxy was in this hall as well, showcasing their AI.
In a second area, there were a lot of go products for sales (go equipment, fan, books...)

Then, on the other halls, where various Go competitions. Including one with foreigners from south Asia, and one competition similar to pair go, but with a 3 vs 3 format (first time I hear/see that). That 3 vs 3 competition gathered quite a lot of players in fact, and can be played as family team, I found it pretty cool.

[pnprog]

Then, after spending a couple of hour at the Go congress, I went the the Red Forest Hotel, where some A leagues matched were played on that day.

The event was scheduled to be finished at 17:30, so I arrived around 17:00
In fact, all the games were over already, except for one. To my surprise, I was possible to enter the playing hall, but I guess it's because there was only one game still on going. Otherwise, there was a "waiting hall" with screen for people waiting outside. Several pros were still inside reviewing their games.

Here is a short video of the last ongoing game, they are on bioyomi, so you can have a look at the set up.

Many go enthusiast were there, trying to get autographs on fans or Go books from the pro, and taking pictures. As a player, I would have been upset to have so many people taking a close look on the game and taking pictures, but they seem to be used to that. Although people were moving all around, they were still relatively quiet anyway.

As wolfking expected, there seems to have been a few very famous players that day

GuLi

Park Junghwan (right)

KeJie

[wolfking]

pnprog these are really nice pictures! And I like the videos too. The A-League game was Jiang Weijie vs Choi Cheolhan. I cannot believe that there are so many people around them even before the game ended.

And when I said "Everybody will be there" I mean it! ALL the 48 A-League games of round 12 and 13 were/will be played in Nanning on the 13th and 15th.

Were you able to participate in the afternoon simuls on the 14th?

Edit: Actually it should be 56 A-League games. 14 teams -> 28 games per round -> 56 games for two rounds.

[wolfking]

Round 11 and 12 were played on August 14th. We only have results of round 11. On the other hand we do know some new pros were produced in the last two rounds.

In the PQT women's group, Wu Yiming 6D beat Hang Xiaotong(杭小童) 5D, Chu Ke'er 6D beat Jin Shan 6D. Wu and Chu both earned pro status through early qualification with 10 wins. Just like Lu Liyan and Sha Xingyu in the men's group, they do not need to play the last couple of rounds.

In the HTT women's group, all matches have been played since there were only 11 rounds. The four players that earned pro status were: Wang Zhen 6D, Lu Shuo(吕烁) 6D, Deng Xinyi 5D, Chen Yilin 5D. Actually their ranks should all be 1p now. Qin Siyue(秦思玥) 5D and Zhou Lexuan(周乐萱) 5D finished at number 5 and 6. Qin and Zhou were promoted to 6D.

The new pros from HTT tournament: Wang Zhen 1p (Top left), Lu Shuo 1p (Top right), Chen Yilin 1p (Bottom left), Deng Xinyi 1p (Bottom right)

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New pros from PQT early qualification:
Wu Yiming 1p

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Chu Ke'er 1p

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[wolfking]

In the PQT men's group, 14 year old Jin Yucheng(金禹丞) 6D beat Zheng Zaixiang 6D in round 12 to get to 10 wins. Jin 6D earned pro status through early qualification, becoming the third new pro on the men's side this year after Lu Liyan and Sha Xingyu. All three of them are from Hangzhou Go School.

This is the fifth time Jin Yucheng participated in the PQT. Before this year his best finish was number 32.

Jin Yucheng 1p

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[wolfking]

Scores of some familiar names after 11 rounds:

Han Enyi: Lost to Li Haotong 7D in round 10 and Hua Chang(花畅) 6D in round 11. 12 points. Needs to win the last two rounds to get into top 20.

Zhang Xinyu: Eliminated afer round 9. 6 points.

Hu Zihao: Beat Yang Kuan(杨宽) 6D in round 10 but lost to new pro (to be) Jin Yucheng 6D. 16 points. He is in very good shape and most likely will make pro this year.

Luo Zhuofan: Also lost to Jin Yucheng 6D but beat Hu Xiao 6D in round 11. 16 points. Also in good standing.

Wen Zhaojing: Eliminated after round 9. 6 points.

Huang Jiayi: Won both rounds and the only remaining female player with 9 wins. 18 points

Luo Zhuofan 7D during round 8

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Huang Jiayi 5D during round 8

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[wolfking]

The 2018 Chinese Weiqi Congress has come to a close. We have the final standing for both PQT and HTT tournament. Here are our 44 new pros, 30 on the men's side, 14 on the women's side.

From PQT:

On the Men's side

1 Sha Xingyu (沙星宇) 9 wins
2 Lu Liyan (吕立言) 9 wins
3 Jin Yucheng (金禹丞) 10 wins

The above earned 1p status through Early Qualification (9 wins after 10 rounds or 10 wins after 12 rounds).

4 Wang Shuo (王硕) 10 wins
5 Zheng Zaixiang (郑载想) 10 wins age <= 13
6 Yang Zongyu (杨宗煜) 9 wins
7 Luo Zhuofan (骆焯凡) 10 wins
8 Hu Xiao (胡晓) 9 wins
9 Zheng Zijian (郑子健) 9 wins
10 Han Zhuoran (韩卓然) 9 wins age <= 13
11 Li Haotong (李昊潼) 9 wins
12 Zhao Bangqiao (赵邦桥) 9 wins
13 Zhang Mingkang (张铭康) 9 wins
14 Shi Ji (史记) 9 wins
15 Wang Haotian (王昊天) 9 wins
16 Hu Zihao (胡子豪) 8 wins age <= 13
17 Han Enyi (韩恩溢) 8 wins
18 Zhang Yichao (张奕超) 9 wins
19 Wang Junxiao (王竣啸) 8 wins
20 Huang Chunqi (黄春棋) 8 wins

The above were promoted to 1p.

21 Hao Yuepeng (郝岳鹏) 8 wins
22 Qu Ming (瞿鸣) 8 wins
23 Yang Zhiwen (杨智文) 8 wins
24 Wang Pengfei (汪鹏飞) 9 wins
25 Xu Liming (徐黎明) 8 wins

The above were promoted to 6D (Note by rule number 21-25 earns 6D, but in reality all 5 players are already 6Ds. This '6D' rule does not extend to players finished outside 25 in this situation, so no new 6Ds were produced by the rule).

Our friend Hu Zihao, Han Enyi, Luo Zhuofan all made pro this year!

Also all 3 players that are 13 or younger made pro in their natural position (they all finished in top 20 straight up). So the "Young player first" rule did not make a difference, unless you want to argue that knowing they are young and have an advantage made them more confident and boosted their results.

Zhang Xinyu 5D finished at 101st place. He is just not strong enough yet. He will likely earn a 6D before turning pro.


Now on the women's side

1 Wu Yiming (吴依铭) 10 wins
2 Chu Ke'er (储可儿) 10 wins

The above earned 1p status through Early Qualification (10 wins after 10/11 rounds).

3 Huang Jiayi (黄嘉怡) 10 wins
4 Hang Xiaotong (杭小童) 9 wins
5 Zhou Yushan (周昱杉) 9 wins
6 Gao Ruohuan (高若环) 9 wins
7 Jin Shan (金珊) 9 wins
8 Ding Mingjun (丁明君) 10 wins
9 Zhang Xinyue (张馨月) 9 wins
10 Dong Tianyi (董天怡) 9 wins

The above were promoted to 1p.

11 Xie Jiaxuan (谢佳璇) 9 wins
12 Wang Meicheng (汪美成) 9 wins

The above were promoted to 6D (in this case the rule made a difference. Both were 5D before the tournament).

Wen Zhaojing finished at 77th place. Her big sis Wen Zhaoyi made pro last year, but she is 5 years younger so she still got time.

Chu Ke'er and Huang Jiayi of Team Dalian Yidao (Way of Go) both made pro, so they could potentially keep the team intact and play in 2019 Women's A-League as an all shodan team.

Edit: Fixed typo in 12 Zhao Bangqiao (I spelled it Zhao Pangqiao. Correct spelling of his given name should start with B not P.).

[Tryss]

By the way, do we have an idea if there's a significant difference in strenght between the men and women tournament? Are the young ladies weaker than the boys, or are they closing the gap?

[wolfking]

For the HTT tournament:

On the men's side

1 Li Zehao (李泽豪) 10 wins
2 Wei Xiaolin (魏笑林) 10 wins
3 Zhao Wei (赵威) 10 wins
4 Chen Hao (陈昊) 10 wins
5 Cheng Shijiao (程时骄) 10 wins
6 Zhang Haowei (张浩伟) 10 wins
7 Nie Fenglin (聂峰林) 9 wins
8 Qin Jialin (秦佳林) 9 wins
9 Zhang Zihao (张子豪) 10 wins
10 Xue Hongzhe (薛宏哲) 9 wins

The above earned 1p or 7D status.

There was no early promostion rule in the HTT tournament. Nie Fenglin started with 9 wins then lost 4 in a row. Fortunately by winning early he accumulated enough opponent points to edge out several other 9 win players.

Due to the fact that the HTT tournament does not have an age limit, some of the older players might wish to keep their amateur status as the pro scene could be too competitive for them. In that case they can choose to accept 7D status as as an alternative.

I just learned that of the 10 qualifiers Wei Xiaolin, Cheng Shijiao and Nie Fenglin chose to remain amateur and were promoted to 7D. The rest chose to turn pro.


11 Liu Bingxin (刘炳心) 9 wins
12 Li Botao (李博韬) 9 wins
13 Kang Daqi (康达奇) 8 wins
14 Zhang Luo Zixin (张罗子辛) 9 wins
15 Shen Ao (沈奥) 9 wins

The above were promoted to 6D （Liu and Li were 6Ds before the tournament).

On the women's side

1 Wang Zhen (王祯) 10 wins
2 Lu Shuo (吕烁) 9 wins
3 Deng Xinyi (邓歆懿) 8 wins
4 Chen Yilin (陈奕琳) 8 wins

The above earned 1p or 7D (Nobody turned down pro status on the women's side).

5 Qin Siyue (秦思玥) 7 wins
6 Zhou Lexuan (周乐萱) 7 wins

The above were promoted to 6D (both were 5Ds).

I just realized that I misspelled Deng's name all this time (I spelled it as Deng Yinyi instead of the correct form Deng Xinyi. The given name should starts with an X not Y). The second character of her name is the same as our 10 year old kid Zhang Xinyu, not sure how I messed that up.