2018 Chinese Pro Qualification

[wolfking]

Two more rounds are posted. My predictions for round 6 were both wrong. Han Enyi beat Zhang Baiqing, while Zhang Xinyu lost to Cai Yunrui. In round 7 Han suffered his first loss at the hand of Wang Wencong(王文聪) 6D. Wang is now the only undefeated player in Group B. Zhang beat Meng Wei(孟炜) in round 7. He probably still needs to win the last two rounds to make it to the main tournament.

[EdLee]

I... can't distinguish between male and female names

Even for native speakers, this task became quite difficult if not impossible in many cases since the 1960's.

[wolfking]

The preliminary tournament has concluded. Han Enyi lost the last 3 games but still finished at 10th place. Zhang Xinyu on the other hand won his last three games to finish at number 31. Both Han and Zhang ended up with 6 wins. There was no undefeated players in Group B. Han's round 7 opponent Wang Wencong took the top spot with 8 wins. Han's round 6 opponent Zhang Baiqing took 2nd place while round 8 opponent Pan Hanlin(潘瀚林) took 3rd place. All of Han's opponents since the 3rd round finished in the top 50.

Zhang Xinyu did especially well in beating his last round opponent, 17 year old Hu Xiao(胡晓) 6D of Ge Dojo (registered with Shandong Sports Association). Hu Xiao won two championships back in 2015 and missed pro qualification only by 1 game that year. It is good to see that the 10 year old kid rise to the moment and won the game that he absolutely needed to win.

In Group A, Nanning local, Ge Dojo's Zheng Zijian(郑子健) 6D went undefeated to take the first place.

Tomorrow all the main tournament participants will be arriving for registration. Main tournament starts on August 8th.

[wolfking]

The first two rounds of the main tournament were played on August 8th. Here are the results of some familiar names:

Han Enyi: Won his first game but lost to 12 year old Yang Zhiwen(杨智文) 6D (Team Hangzhou) in round 2.

Zhang Xinyu: Also won first game but lost to our old friend Zhang Baiqing 6D in round 2.

Hu Zihao: Won both games. He will play Hao Yuepeng(郝岳鹏) 6D (Team Hangzhou) next.

Luo Zhuofan(骆焯凡) 7D: Last year we followed him and Han Enyi. Han finished outside top 50 but Luo got in the top 50 and started in the main tournament this year. He also won the first two games. Luo will play Group A winner, the undefeated (11 games in a row) Zheng Zijian 6D in round 3. Given his good form I am leaning towards Zheng 6D in this one.

Wu Yiming: Our young 6D also won her first two games. 11 year old or not, she might just be the strongest female player this year. She just need to guard against loss of concentration that often comes with young age (I read that she spent quite some time eating, drinking (C-League games can go really long so there are free food and drinks available) and strolling around during her game against Mateusz Surma ).

Wen Zhaojing(文兆京): She is the younger sister of last year's new pro Wen Zhaoyi. I am interested to see if she can follow her big sis' step this year. She lost her first game but won the second. She is also in the "born in 2005 or later" age group and can qualify by virtue of being first in that age group (of course she needs to beat out Wu).

Chu Ke'er(储可儿) 6D and Huang Jiayi(黄嘉怡) 5D: These were the two amateur players of 2019 new Women's A-League team Dalian Yidao (see my report on this year's WAL results here: viewtopic.php?p=233010#p233010). Since WAL teams can have at most one amateur player one of them has to go, unless one of the two or both can make pro in this tournament. Both Chu 6D and Huang 5D won the first two games.

Edit: In fact Huang Jiayi 5D also won the first two games. I was looking at the wrong score sheet.

Yang Zhiwen 6D

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Chu Ke'er 6D

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[wolfking]

Some photos from Round 2.

Han Enyi 6D (Right) vs Yang Zhiwen 6D

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Wu Yiming 6D (Left) vs Zhou Runzhu 5D

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Hu Zihao 6D (Right) vs Liu Ruizhi 6D

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[wolfking]

Round 3 and 4 were played on August 9th.

Han Enyi: Won both games. His next opponent Zhang Yichao(张奕超) 5D is a high school student from Beijing. Zhang is one of those rare cases that has never trained at any professional Dojo. Zhang studied Go by playing one online game and review afterwards every day. 6 points (you earn 2 points per game won).

Zhang Xinyu: Won in round 3 but lost to Luo Zhuofan 7D in round 4. 4 points.

Hu Zihao: Still undefeated. Hu beat Gao Yidian(高逸典) 6D in round 4. 8 points.

Luo Zhuofan: Lost to Zheng Zijian 6D then beat Zhang Xinyu 5D. 6 points.

Wu Yiming: Our wonder kid is also undefeated. She gave Chu Ke'er 6D her first loss in round 4. 8 points.

Wen Zhaojing: 1 win 1 loss. 4 points.

Chu Ke'er: Won round 3 then lost to Wu Yiming. 6 points

Huang Jiayi: Undefeated. She beat her next opponent Xu Jingqi(徐晶琦) 6D back in June in Women's B-League. I think she can do it again this time. 8 points

[pnprog]

Hi!
I happen to be in NanNing this month (unfortunately, I did not notice that discussion earlier!)

Do you think the event is opened for visitors to have a look inside, and maybe take some pictures?

[wolfking]

Hi!
I happen to be in NanNing this month (unfortunately, I did not notice that discussion earlier!)

Do you think the event is opened for visitors to have a look inside, and maybe take some pictures?

I would think so! And would hope so! It is definitely worth a try. And there are tons of events at the Go Congress. There was a booth that has a robot acting as the arm for an AI (I think it was Golaxy). Looking forward to some pictures from you!

Edit: Keep in mind that the pro qualification will have an off day on August 11th.

[wolfking]

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.

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

[wolfking]

Some photos from the Go Congress

Robot vs Human

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Playing with kids

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Go Congress Expo banner

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[wolfking]

Back to the promotion tournament (including the HTT event). By the way the HTT 5 Dan groups have the exactly same schedule as the Pro Qualification Tournament. So on August 10th both events played round 5 and 6.

In the Pro Qualification Tournament(I will call it PQT going forward):

Han Enyi: Beat Zhang Yichao 5D but lost Zheng Zijian 6D. Will play Hao Yuepeng next. 8 points

Zhang Xinyu: 1 win 1 loss. 6 points.

Hu Zihao: Beat Tang Tianyuan 5D but suffered first loss at the hand of last year's Qingdao Press Cup champion Lu Liyan 6D. 10 points.

Luo Zhuofan: Beat Yang Tingxuan 6D but lost to Wang Junxiao 6D. 8 points.

Wu Yiming: Still undefeated. Will play Huang Jiayi 5D in round 7. I think she has a chance to go undefeated all the way. Did I mention that Surma did not have a chance after the opening? I heard she started strolling around early in that game . On the other hand she started last year with 5 wins in a row too so there is no guarantee because the competition is simply too strong. 12 points.

Wen Zhaojing: Lost both rounds. This is probably not the year for her. Well she is 5 years younger than her big sis so plenty of time left. 4 points.

Chu Ke'er: Won both games. 10 points

Huang Jiayi: The other undefeated player in women's group. Beat last year's Shangri-La Cup Group A champion Zhou Yushan(周昱杉) 6D in round 6. Plays Wu Yiming next. Note Wu Yiming finished 7th in that Shangri-La Cup last November. This should be a good match up. 12 points

[wolfking]

There are 108 male participants and 32 female participants in the HTT tournament. I think it is easier for players to earn pro status in this tournament than the PQT. I got one thing wrong though. The woman's group in this tournament only plays 11 rounds.

So far there are 2 undefeated players on the man's side and 1 undefeated player on the women's side. One match up I am particularly interested in in the women's group is Wang Rui(王锐) 5D vs Deng Xinyi(邓歆懿) 5D in round 7.

Wang Rui was a young girl fighting to be pro 20 years ago but it did not pan out for her and she became a university student instead, majoring in journalism. Now she is a well known Go journalist, commentator and writes for the popular Go magazine Weiqi Tiandi. She is married to a pro and have two kids. Her husband is Huang Yizhong(黄奕中) 7p.

Deng Xinyi has similar experience as an young amateur aspiring to be a pro, but is one generation younger than Wang. She started her own Go school in Beijing and now the school has 5 branches. She also appears online or on TV as commentators from time to time.

I think these two are in the tournament probably more for the fun of it but it does not hurt if they get a pro certificate along the way. Wang has 3 wins while Deng has 4 wins after 6 rounds.

Wang Rui 5D

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Deng Xinyi 5D

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[Tryss]

By the way, I want to thank you for these reports, it's really interesting to get a glimpse of the pro-scene outside of major title

[pnprog]

Hi!

So today I went there to have a look

Here is a view of the building. From the outside, it was totally not obvious that something was happening inside:

I went inside anyway, and there were many people waiting on the first/second/third floor. I guess they were accompanying the younger players, and were waiting for them to finish playing. Here are some picture of the first and third floor floor. There was some sort of Go shop as well (in fact, that was not a Go shop) and I somehow befriended with the people working there:

So if was not possible to enter the playing room, and those area were every were waiting had no AC, it was very hot (as expected from NanNing in August), so I was not really considering to stay longer, call it a day and leave.

But then, I remembered wolfking had mentioned some traditional Chinese garden on the roof, so I found my way up to the top, and here are some more pictures:

And then, in one of those pavilions, I noticed some two persons apparently playing and official game. I could not (dared not) to enter, but managed to take a few pictures from the outside:

At least I would had something to show

But then, since I had befriended with the people from the shop on the first floor, they provided me with a "spectator pass" (they asked me if I would prefer a "Player pass" but I went for the first one ) so that I could try to enter the main playing room. Equipped with that sesame, I felt brave enough to try to force the security check. The security team were not deceived by that, but as I explained I just wanted to have a quick look inside and take some pictures, they let me inside. So here is the main playing hall (most of the 2nd? round games were completed already):

Then I went back to the roof, the game was over, so for those interested, the 2 players were:

And there were two other players reviewing their game:

Short video: http://yuntingdian.com/2018_Chinese_Pro_Qualification/VID_20180812_163740.mp4

So those 2 matches were team GuangDong (where GuangZhou/Canton is located) versus another team that I cannot identify.

Finally, I was able to chime in the conversations a groups had on the roof, but for a very short time. And now, I realized that one of those persons was WANG Hui 5d that was mentionned by wolfking above. I regret I did not realize that at the time, otherwise I would have asked for a selfie, but I quickly shied out of the conversation, because I am not that confident when handling a conversation in Chinese

Anyway, that was fun. All the pictures are in http://yuntingdian.com/2018_Chinese_Pro_Qualification/ if you are interested.

[wolfking]

pnprog I am so happy to see that you actually went there and took pictures! And I regret that I did not give you enough info for the activities there.

The games you saw on the rooftop were Women's A-League 9th round games between Team Wuhu and Team Guangdong. The first picture was Korea's Lee Sula 4p (on the left, Team Wuhu) vs Cai Bihan 3p (Team Guangdong). Second picure was 16 year old Zhou Hongyu 4p (on the right facing camera, Team Wuhu) vs Chen Yiming 3p (Team Guangdong).

The men's A-League will also play two rounds in Nanning at the Go Congress on the 13th and 15th! And If I am not mistaken everybody will be there! You should be able to snap some selfies with Ke Jie, Chen Yaoye, Park Junghwan, Mi Yuting etc.（those four will play each other in round 12 on the 13th） Or get some autographs!

However the venue for the A-League games is not NanGuoYiYuan. It is at the 4th floor Berlin Hall (柏林厅) of Nanning Red Forest Hotel (红林大酒店). The Go Congress' main venue is the Nanning International Convention and Exhibition Center (南宁国际会展中心) which is about 800 meters to the south of the Red Forest Hotel.

I will post a detailed schedule of the Go Congress later so you can pick the event you are interested to go. If you go there on the 13th you should probably ask them about A-League Go promotion activities(围棋推广活动) on the 14th (supposedly starts at 3pm). I suspect that is a simul teaching game event (there is a "多对多指导棋" many-vs-many teaching game on the schedule so that might be it). So you might be able to play Ke Jie or Chen Yaoye

Go Congress main venue: Nanning International Convention and Exhibition Center

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