Life In 19x19

Players:

Korea:Lee Sedol (defending champion), Park Junghwan, Shin Jinseo
Japan: Cho U, Terayama Rei
China: Mi Yuting, Li Qincheng

Quarterfinal matches will be played on 9/2.

The pairing:

Lee Sedol
Li Qincheng vs. Cho U

Park Junghwan vs. Terayama Rei
Mi Yuting vs. Shin Jinseo

Looks like it's gonna be an all Korean final...

I don't see why you say that. It's biased towards Korea, but the Chinese players are quite strong. In particular, Mi Yuting seems to be 3-3 vs. Park.

Any sites where I can watch or read about the tournaments?

pocketMAD wrote:Any sites where I can watch or read about the tournaments?

Chart in English:
http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/wr/at.html#28th

News in Chinese:
http://sports.sina.com.cn/go/2016-09-01 ... 2858.shtml
http://www.duxuan.cn/doc/20912282.html

You can watch the games on Tygem.

NHK canceled its planned broadcast: http://sports.sina.com.cn/go/2016-09-02 ... 3433.shtml (in Chinese). It seems we may not get the live text or board update either.

Is the NHK hosting this edition of the tournament? (I believe it rotates around Japan/Korea/China). So that means no one gets to watch the games live?

apparently they cancelled it because Lee Sedol went to that island months ago (apparently it's disputed territory between japan and korea)... seriously WTF, NHK?

Gosh, so they cancelled the whole tournament or just aren't broadcasting it? (Or banned Lee Sedol or all Koreans?) In that Chinese article there's a picture of Li Qincheng playing Cho U so something at least happened or started, and of Lee Sedol playing Go on the disputed Liancourt Rocks/Dokdo/Takeshima on June 30th.

They just cancelled the broadcast for "the safety of the players." Doesn't make much sense to me given Lee wasn't even playing yesterday.

As for the results, three Korean players and Li Qincheng advanced. Not much surprise there.

The first two games were apparently played (in Tokyo) and Japan got wiped out (Pak beat Terayama and Li Qincheng beat Cho U; Sin Chin-seo also beat Mi Yuting). The NHK site makes no reference to cancellation but simply says details of programmes to be posted as soon as available.

There may or may not be shenanigans behind the scenes, but taking the diplomatic huff by using go would be highly unusual (for example, even during the worst of the almost ritualised Sino-Japanese spats over the Yasukuni Shrine visits, amateur go delegations have been welcomed in China). In this case a major problem for the diplomats would be that there is no precedent so they'd have no way of gauging the effect (e.g. even merely at the go level, with future international invitations) or whether there would be a backlash at home. In particular, especially when you've been wiped out in Round 1 - it just looks like you've picked up your bat and ball and gone home in a different kind of huff. I find it hard to believe Japan's diplomats could be that amateurish. If there is any sort of brouhaha, there must surely be a more nuanced explanation (e.g. did Korea call its players home?).

But so far I haven't found anything in the mainstream Japanese media, and that alone is odd. If nothing else, a denial of the Chinese story should be expected.

The last big go spat that involved diplomats that I can recall involved Japanese players in the Chunlan Cup in 2001.

More explanation from NHK (in Chinese): http://sports.sina.com.cn/go/2016-09-02 ... 4816.shtml.

Semifinal matches (9/3);

Lee Sedol vs. Li Qincheng
Park Junghwan vs. Shin Jinseo

So it sounds like they will be releasing videos of the games (I'm guessing like the NHK cup ones on youtube) later on, after the games are finished.

I don't see how not having a livestream protects Lee Sedol, and I think they should've announced this earlier if that's what they decided to do. But at least we'll get to see the games later.

In the morning match, Li Qincheng beat Lee Sedol by resign to advance to the final.

Li has performed quite well this year.

not sure if I read correctly, but the finals will be between Shin Jinseo and Li Qincheng, it seems.