5/20 Preliminary 1st round
5/21 Preliminary 2nd-1 round
5/22 Preliminary 2nd-2 round
5/23 Preliminary 3rd round
5/24 Preliminary final

Seeded players;
Korea: Park Junghwan, Park Younghoon(finalist in last cup), Shin Jinseo, Kim Jiseok, and Byun Sangil
China: Ke Jie, Chen Yaoye, Fan Tingyu, Gu Zhihao, and Yang Dingxin
Japan: Murakawa Daisuke, Ichiriki Ryo, and Mutsmura Yuuta
Taiwan: Wang Yuanjun
Sponsor will select 2 players after preliminary.

Reminder!!!!

Preliminary starts tonight.

From what I see, there are 36 Open groups (306 players), 4 Female's groups (69 players), 4 Amateur's groups (28 players) and 4 spots go to EGF & AGA.

Youngster Nakamura Sumire 1p (white) in action against Wang Chenxing 5p. I don't understand how she could think that empty triangle trying to kill was a good idea.



Update: Wang won by resign.

Shin Minjoon, Oh Yoojin, Kim Dayoung, and Baek Hyunwoo(Amateur) are only players from Korea passed preliminary and will join main tournament.

Rest are players from China. No players from Japan and Taiwan survived.

Seeded players;
Korea: Park Junghwan, Park Younghoon(finalist in last cup), Shin Jinseo, Kim Jiseok, and Byun Sangil
China: Ke Jie, Chen Yaoye, Fan Tingyu, Gu Zhihao, and Yang Dingxin
Japan: Murakawa Daisuke, Ichiriki Ryo, and Mutsmura Yuuta
Taiwan: Wang Yuanjun
Sponsor will select 2 players after preliminary.

One result I noticed was Chinese veteran / former world champion / national team coach Yu Bin (go ratings #163, probably one of highest veterans) beat non-veteran Lee Yeongku (goratings #35).

I saw that Nakamura Sumire was having some training games during her stays in Beijing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments ... vs_ke_jie/
https://www.facebook.com/haifongigo/pho ... =3&theater

According to the social media, she was in Nie Weiping Go School and Chinese Go Association to play some practice games. Many of the Team Taipei players were also training in the Nie's Go School during the M'lily Cup.

I checked out the game Yu Bin plays with Lee Yeongku, he has his own style and understanding in Go and the AI agrees, but he lost to Liao Yuanhe in the final round so still couldn't make it to the main tournament. Many of the strong players (like Lian Xiao, Zhou Ruiyang, Tang Weixing etc.) were also eliminated in the first 2 rounds.

The final round Prelims results are as per below:

Open Group

1. Tong Mengcheng 7P bt Zhao Bangqiao 1P
2. Xie Erhao 9P bt Kim Hyeongwan 8P
3. Li Weiqing 6P bt Li Yu'ang 2P
4. Tong Yulin 4P bt Cai Wenchi 4P
5. Ding Hao 6P bt Hu Yuhan 5P
6. Liao Yuanhe 7P bt Yu Bin 9P
7. Tu Xiaoyu 5P bt Chen Yunong 4P
8. Yang Yi 4P bt Huang Mingyu 2P
9. Wang Zejin 6P bt Zhang Dongyue 5P
10. He Yuhan 6P bt Lai Junfu 4P
11. Chen Zijian 7P bt Jeong Seojun 3P
12. Jiang Weijie 9P bt Seol Hyunjun 5P (https://home.yikeweiqi.com/desktop.html ... 1:15734440)
13. Peng Liyao 6P bt Park Jaekeun 3P
14. Wang Wei 4P bt Rong Yi 6P
15. Mi Yuting 9P bt Shin 1P (http://m.baduk.or.kr/record/gisa_info.a ... E=10001079)
16. Dang Yifei bt Yan Huan 6P
17. Shi Yue bt Chen Lei 2P
18. Huang Yunsong 6P bt Lee Donghoon 9P
(https://home.yikeweiqi.com/desktop.html ... 1:15734125)
19. Tao Xinran 7P bt Zheng Xu 4P
20. Liu Zhaozhe 5P bt Han Sangcho 1P
21. Xie Ke 7P bt Jian Jingting 4P
22. Li Chengsen 4P bt Wang Shiyi 4P
23. Fan Yin 7P bt Zheng Zaixiang 1P
24. Li Xuanhao 7P bt Choi Cheol-han 9P
(https://home.yikeweiqi.com/desktop.html ... 1:15734078)
25. Tan Xiao 9P bt Zhou Hexi 6P
26. Gu Lingyi 6P bt Yang Kaiwen 7P
27. Lyu Liyan 2P bt Zhao Chenyu 7P (Liyan is both qualified from LG Cup and Mlily Cup as a new pro last year, and he is also one of the 10d on Fox)
28. Wu Guangya 7P bt Wu Tian 2P
29. Li Xiangyu 5P bt Lin Lixiang 7P
30. Zhang Tao 6P bt Hu Xiao 2P
31. Chen Yusen 5P bt Cao Xiaoyang 5P (Yusen has beat Na Hyun and Lian Xiao in the first 2 rounds)
32. Shin Minjoon 9P bt Sun Tengyu 7P
(https://home.yikeweiqi.com/desktop.html ... 1:15734174)
33. Yi Lingtao 7P bt Kang Dongyun 9P
(https://home.yikeweiqi.com/desktop.html ... 1:15733870)
34. Xu Jiayang 8P bt Han Seungjoo 4P
35. Meng Tailing 6P bt Chen Xian 6P
36. Li Qincheng 9P bt Wang Shuo 5P

Female's Group:

37. Oh Yoojin 6P bt Li He 5P
38. Zhou Hongyu 4P bt Cao Youyin 3P
39. Kim Dayoung 3P bt Nyu Eiko 2P
40. Yu Zhiying 6P bt Chen Yiming 3P

Amateur's Group

41. Ma Tianfang
42. Baek Hyunwoo
43. Zhao Yan bt Wang Chen
44. Zhou Zhenyu bt Tao Hanwen

Qualified from EGF: Ilya Shikshin 3P and Artem Kachanovskyi 2P

Qualified from AGA: Jiang Mingjiu 7P and Andy Liu 1P

Not sure why Ryan Li was not selected by AGA as he was doing particularly well in the last Mlily Cup. Still remember last time the sponsor has selected DeepZenGo as the wildcard "player", hopefully they will consider Ryan Li or Mateusz Surma this time.

Round of 64 - round of 16 10/9 - 10/13

The sponsor has decided to give the wild cards to Gu Li and Nakamura Sumire

Good move for publicity, although I can't say I agree with it.

Maybe Lee Sedol didn't register for M'Lily Cup? As I see many Go fans say they want to see Gu Li & Lee Sedol - 1. they were run-ups in the first two versions of the tournament
2. due to their relationship and competition in the MLily sponsored Jubango

So it is unfortunate for Mr Lee that he couldn't get a wildcard in both LG Cup & Mlily Cup... fans may want to see him more in the rumour that he's going to retire soon...

The Sumire phenomenon is getting a bit out of hand. Being chosen as a wild card in such a major tournament? Seriously? What kind of strings did Nihon Kiin pull to get her in the tournament? This just confirms my suspicion that Nihon Kiin is behind the concerted effort to promote Sumire as a way of promoting Go in Japan. Desperate times indeed... China of course would gladly go along with this to repay a debt of gratitude, since Japan played an important role in the revival of Chinese Go, with Fujisawa sensei being especially generous with his time and knowledge. But still, the push behind Sumire is getting more and more distasteful to me.

Schedule of Main tournament;
10/10 round of 64
10/11 round of 32
10/13 round of 16

Pairing for round of 64;

Group A:
Shin Jinseo vs Gu Lingyi
Ding Hao vs Huang Yunsong

Group B:
Park Junghwan vs Li Qincheng
Li Xiangyu vs Jiang Mingjiu

Group C:
Kim Jiseok vs Andy Liu
Li Weiqing vs Dang Yifei

Group D:
Park Younghoon vs Kim Dayoung
Shin Minjoon vs Peng Liyao

Group E:
Byun Sangil vs Ma Tianfang
He Yuhan vs Tong Yulin

Group F:
Wang Yuanjun vs Oh Yoojin
Yang Yi vs Xu Jiayang

Group G:
Mutsmura Yuuta vs Baek Hyunwoo
Yi Lingtao vs Ilya Shikshin

Group H:
Nakamura Sumire vs Li Xuanhao
Liu Zhaozhe vs Meng Tailing

Group I:
Ke Jie vs Wu Guangya
Shi Yue vs Chen Yusen

Group J:
Ichiriki Ryo vs Yu Zhiying
Wang Zejin vs Lyu Liyan

Group K:
Chen Yaoye vs Tan Xiao
Zhou Zhenyu vs Xie Erhao

Group L:
Yang Dingxin vs Fan Yin
Artem Kachanovskyi vs Xie Ke

Group M:
Murakawa Daisuke vs Tao Xinrant
Mi Yuting vs Zhou Hongyu

Group N:
Gu Zhihao vs Tu Xiaoyu
Jiang Weijie vs Tong Mengcheng

Group O:
Fan Tingyu vs Liao Yuanhe
Li Chengsen vs Zhao Yan

Group P:
Gu Li vs Wang Wei
Chen Zijian vs Zhang Tao

Thanks for the heads up trout, lots of interesting match ups.

First official game for Ke Jie since he enrolled in Tsinghua University.

Do you know here we could see the games ?

You can see them on Fox Go Server, but my preferred way on the move is with the Ah Q Go Lite app on my android phone which loads the games from Yike and lets you analyse with LZ too.

Ilya Shikshin beat Yi Lingtao 7p (goratings #54 at 3420), his greatest win yet!

Looks like the turning point was the brilliant shortage of liberties combo he found with d2 and e5 around move 223.



(see https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?p=241361#p241361 for a listing of other wins by EGF/AGA vs Asian pros, Ryan Li's win vs Chen Yaoye is still on top).