Invitational tournament(Korea, China and Japan)

[trout]

Lee SeDol(Korea), Gu Li(China) and Iyama Yuuta(Japan).

The first game will be palyed between Lee SeDol vs Iyama Yuuta 5/16 1pm(China). Loser will be playing against Gu Li in the 2nd game. Loser of the 2nd game is out and winner will play against winner of the first game.

[trout]

Iyama Yuuta won the first game.
Lee SeDol vs Gu Li in the 2nd game.

[HermanHiddema]

Sounds like a similar format to last year's China-Japan-Korea Meijin match:
http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/jck.html

Is this event related?

[John Fairbairn]

It is unclear to me whether there is any deep relationship, but last year's event was in Changde under the sponsorship of a Wuxi company. This year it is in Chongqing and is labelled the Bosai Cup, the Gold Buddha Mountain Championship.

Gold Buddha Mountain (Jinfoshan) is in the Nanchuan district of Chongqing, which is also the base of the Bosai Minerals Group. Gu Li is a local boy, which may explain something. The event has also been labelled as Term 1, implying (a) it is different fromn the Wuxi Super Meijin and (b) it might go on for more than one term, though the track record of these events seems poor on the whole.

[gogameguru]

Jing has written an article about this, which includes the game record from Iyama Yuta's win over Lee Sedol in game one.

It would certainly be something to see Iyama Yuta break through onto the international stage in this way. He has a tough match on May 18 no matter what though. The matches start at 1pm Beijing time (UCT+8) on consecutive days (May 16-18). You can watch them on Cyberoro.

[gogameguru]

Gu Li beat Lee Sedol and will face Iyama Yuta tomorrow.

The original post has been updated, there'll be a full report once we know the outcome tomorrow.

[John Fairbairn]

A Japanese player actually won a top-level in an international event!!!!!!! It did occur to me that, on the basis of this portentous event, certain people on this forum may have left the country on the Armageddon outta here principle (aka even if not in Rome do as the Romans just did).

But Iyama now stands 2-2 in games with Yi Se-tol. Admittedly he is 0-2 against Gu Li, but still.....

[gogameguru]

Well tomorrow's match will be very exciting to watch.

Lee Sedol and Gu Li are my two favourite (modern) players. In this case, however, I can't help supporting Iyama. It would make things more interesting to see Japan become more competitive again, even if it's just Iyama driving it.

I do wonder too, if Iyama wins, whether that will help other Japanese players break through a psychological barrier. Somewhat like the four minute mile... Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves though.

Actually, there's a poll running on our article above, and so far Iyama is ahead on votes. The poll did start yesterday though, so it could have been skewed by people hedging their bets .

Does anyone have anymore information about Lee Sedol's injuries last week. Was it just his fingers, or was it more extensive?

David

[kxedmab]

Iyama Yuuta wins Gu LI by resign!!
Good job

[trout]

Iyama Yuuta won the tournament. He has shown that he can be strong as anyone in the world.

[Adrian Ghioc]

Japaaan!

You can see the game here: http://weiqi.sports.tom.com/zhuantinew/19.html (click on the first red link having the anchor text 首届博赛杯金佛山国际围棋超霸赛决赛 井山裕太执白中盘胜古力)

[gogameguru]

It's on our site too http://gogameguru.com/iyama-yuta-defeat ... ournament/

[John Fairbairn]

I see the prizes have become a little tastier than the Super Meijin: first prize is now 300,000 yuan (about US$45,000).

Time limits of an hour each are maybe a little disappointing but not at MM levels.

The event seems to have been combined with holding the first few rounds of the China Weiqi League Division A in Chongqing. With all that dan wattage they wouldn't need to turn the street lights on!

The most interesting part will be watching reaction in Japan, given that the prime minister is a go nut. I expect he'll manage more than the usual "hisashiburi, ne".

[Ember]

trout, David (Gogameguru) and John Fairbairn, thank you so much for sharing!

I was really busy the last few days with university stuff and just noticed the news in the Nihon-Kiin- RSS-Feed - without being able to make any sense of it as I don't really speak any Japanese (I use that feed together with Google translate, which didn't produce anything readable this time). Also, I couldn't find any (understandable) news about this tournament anywhere around, not even on igo-kisen, but here - and then on Gogameguru, of course. Thanks for the great report!

As a fan of Iyama Yuta's, I'm SO happy about this success and I hope he can keep up the good work! Ganbatteee!! The international Go world will become really interesting if this success can be repeated in the near future.

I hope that the games are going to be commented in an upcoming issue of the Go World. As the result is quite spectacular for the international scene at the moment, there should be a small chance.. I'll keep my fingers crossed. ^^

@ John Fairbairn: What does "hisashiburi, ne" mean? It might be short enough to be remembered by me immediately and I'm always eager to learn a bit Japanese.
And please do post (shortly) about the reactions in Japan.

[Biondy]

oh wow. simply "hisashiburi ne"? he's surely calm about this...

anyway, I'm glad Iyama finally win an international event. good for him