Haha, I put that one as a "Wechat moment" with the comment:And all my Wechat friends (who don't know about Go or KeJie) kept asking if I had won my game or not

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Tell them you won by forfeit because Ke Jie never showed up after you sit down.

A little extra titbit about new female pro Jin Shan profiled here. According to https://share.yikeweiqi.com/gonews/detail/id/19943 she is the partner of top male pro Shi Yue 9p.

10. Xue Hongzhe 1p

Born 2003 in Jinzhou, Liaoning Province. Xue's parents are owners of a small supermarket, and he has a sister that is 9 years older. At age 4 Xue was a super active kid and his parents put him in a Go class hoping the game will change him for a quieter demeanor (incidentally that was part of the reason why Wu Yiming's parents put her in a Go class). He quickly got addicted to the game and it did not take too long for him to reach 5D. That was when a choice need to be made about where to go from there. The stiffest resistance was from his big sister, who believed that the path to a pro Go player was too narrow and lonely for her kid brother (it was a difficult choice also because Xue excelled in regular school study). So a family voting happened and it went 3 to 1 in favor of continuing to pursue the pro dream. But after several unsuccessful tournament appearances even Xue himself was becoming doubtful about the choice.

That was when help came from an unexpected source. For a long time he was studying at the local Dawei Go Center with the founder Wang Dawei (who also taught another new pro Lu Liyan). In 2014 Wang sensei's student Wang Chao earned pro status and became a teacher at Nie Weiping Dojo in Beijing. Wang Chao 1p also wanted to have a student of his own and asked his old time sensei for some recommendations. So in 2014 11 year old Xue Hongzhe came to the capital city to study at the Nie Dojo with Wang Chao as his designated coach. In 2015 he won the Qingdao Press Cup with an undefeated 10 to 0 record. This year he finally realized his pro dream by reversing his last round game.HTT Women's Group Qualifiers:

1. Wang Zhen 1p

Grew up in Yantai, Shandong Province, Wang Zhen is probably the only Chinese pro with a master's degree in Go. She learned the game from her mom at 5 but did not start taking serious lessons until 8. In 2003 she went to Beijing to study at pro dojos. In 2008 she reached 6D. In 2009 she was admitted to Shanghai Foreign Language University and majored in Korean. In 2013 she went to Myongji University in Korea and earned her master's degree in Go (I think Myongji University is the only university with a Go department). Starting in 2003 she participated 9 times in the PQT with no success, missing by one game on her last try. Since then she has been active in Go teaching and amateur tournaments but probably never thought she would ever become a pro one day.2. Lu Shuo 1p

Born 1994 in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province. Lu Shuo started taking Go lessons at age 5, and won Guangdong Women's Championship in 2013. In 2015 she won the inaugural Jinshun Cup National Women's Amateur Mingren held in Shanghai and earned 6D. Since 2017 she has been a teacher at Chaozhao Go Center.

3. Deng Xinyi 1p

Born 1995 in Yueyang, Hunan Province but grew up in Guangdong Province. She won the Guangdong Eastlake Cup at 8 and Guangdong Chaofan Cup Youth Group Individual and Team Event champion at 12 (by the way on her way to the stage to accept that double individual/team championship award she fell and broke her foot and got through the ceremony in tears, not from the excitement but the pain ). In 2015 she won the reality TV show "Who is the king of Weiqi?" Cultural Sector champion so she is truly a celebrity in the Go circle. In 2017 she represented Team Hunan to finish 2nd in the team event of the 1st Chinese Weiqi Congress and earned 6D. In 2013 she founded the Beijing Xinyi Culture Promotion Co. Ltd. with 5 Go schools under management. 4. Chen Yilin 1p

Born 2001 in Shanghai, Chen Yilin is sometimes called 上海一姐, meaning the "number one big sis in Shanghai". Like another new pro and fellow Shanghai Sports Club member Li Zehao, Chen Yilin is active on the Shanghai Weiqi scene. She was in the Jianqiao Cup "Shanghai Top 10" event for 5 consecutive years together with her dad (who is also a strong amateur) and placed 2nd last year. In 2018 she finished 3rd in women's high school group of the National Grade Scool Weiqi Championship (this is actually a very high level event because quite a few pros are still in grade schools and are allowed to participate in this event. Zeng Zhihao 4p of Xi'an 83rd High School actually finished 4th in the men's high school group!).

Just for the fun of it, here are some interesting photos of 10 year old Chen Yilin during the inaugural Chen Yi Cup.

10 year old Chen Yilin playing 11 year old Sun HengqiA somewhat serious Chen YilinLast but not least, 2002 WAGC Champion Fu Li 8D staring down his young opponent (original subtitle was 付利老师不要吓人家啦 , meaning "Fu Li sensei please don't scare me!")

China has a lot of new go talent coming up every year because of their huge population of go players. I bet they will dominate Go in the coming decades and overtake Korea.

China has already overtaken Korea (though Park Junghwan is currently #1 on goratings), look at the last 5 years on https://senseis.xmp.net/?InternationalTitleStatistics.

Yea, there was a period of time of about 15 years between roughly 1993 - 2008 when Koreans won a large majority of international tournaments but since then China seems to have taken over and eclipsed them.

What happened to the Japanese btw? They won quite a few consecutive world tournaments in the late 80's to early 90's but we almost never see any Japanese players winning major world tournaments for the past 20 years or so ...

It looks like at least 4 of the new female pros are playing in female Mingren main bracket https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/cn/fm/1:

Wu Yiming
Dong Tianyi
Ding Mingjun
Chu Keren

It will be interesting to see how they fare against older pros.

Yes all 4 plus another new pro Hang Xiaotong are in the Mingren main bracket. Chu Ke'er and Ding Mingjun qualified by finishing in top 8 of the 2018 Women's individual tournament. Wu Yiming, Dong Tianyi and Hang Xiaotong by latest CWA pro Elo ranking.

Chu Ke'en and Ding Mingjun confirmed their form by winning in 1st round. Alas, they both lost in 2nd round. Chu's performance is remarkable, since she took out the defending champion.

I just want to report that the new all shodan team did come to fruition in the form of Shanxi Shuhai-Luxin Weman's Weiqi Team (山西书海•路鑫女子围棋队) as a result of cooperation between Shanxi Weiqi Association and Dalian Yidao Go Club. Shuhai, a publishing company and Luxin, an energy company co-sponsored the team. The new team will have all three original players from Dalian Yidao (Gu Wanshan 1p, Chu Ke'er 1p, and Huang Jiayi 1p), plus Wang Zixin 1p.

The team stated goal for the first year was to stay in the WAL.

Press conference of the signing ceremony