New WC for women

[John Fairbairn]

Hands up all those people with dirty minds. We are, of course, talking about a new World Championship.

In early April, the Chinese are launching a rival to the Korean Cheongkwanjang Cup. Korea's version is for China, Japan and Korea and promotes ginseng. China's version is for China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan and promotes Taiwan - I think.

The event is the Huang Longshi Jiayuan Cup. It is to be held in Jiangyan City in Jiangsu Province. Jiangyan is very proud of being the birthplace of go genius Huang Longshi. It does not escape notice that it is also the birthplace of Chinese President Hu Jintao. Jiayuan, as far as I know, is a Taiwanese electrical goods manufacturer. I infer they have seen an opportunity in the wake of Joanne Missingham's startling success. Her career (as Hei Jiajia) is being closely followed in China.

The HLJ Cup is a team event for teams of three, run as a "league" (i.e. a round-robin) and, praise be, with reasonably sensible time limits of 2 hours each, the last five minutes being 1-minute byoyomi. The winners will get 200,000 yuan (about US$ 30,000), with 100,000 yuan for second and 50,000 for the other two teams. It opens on 6 April and play is on 7 ~ 9 April.

A spokesman for Cheongkwanjang said, "*!$Z*".

A spokesman for GoGoD said, "We have all the games of Huang Longshi".

[Biondy]

oh, that's great! I was always wondering when Jeongganjang cup will include Taiwan in the competition. Finally there is a tournament including Taiwan team.

How many people will compete in a team?