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Gu Li now holding 4 national title:
Mingren, Tianyuan, NEC and Changqi

Today Gu Li 9p and Liu Xing 7p were playing decision match in final of Changqi Cup. Gu was White. Until Black 11 the opening was from 1 game, but Liu made some research and play today hoshi ogeima shimari. Nowadays this kind of move is very popular in Korea.

Gu Li start attack on bottom side and the opening turn into normal Chinese fuseki. Liu Xing shock me paying black 43. This kind of move is typical for Yi ChangHo 9p - he is famous of playing yose moves in fuseki. I thought that black will play F11 or something on the right side.

Gu Li play great yose

Liu play good game. After invasion in bottom left corner hewas leading bbut Gu start to play some tesuji moves. White 5-11 is good combination, but the greatest move is white 13 killing 4 black stones. Black cannot save them if he tried then:

Black collapse

If black play a atari at 1, white will capture 2 stone w 2 and black group have only one eye
Gu Li gets stronger and stronger in yose. After some important lost in international tournaments with Korean pro he learnt something about yose and now we can said he is unbeatable

Today Liu Xing 7p beat Gu Li 9p and equalize the result, so the deciding game will be tomorrow. Today Gu Li 9p was black. In first joseki Gu choose very rare variant and after White 24 he need to invade into white moyo. In middle of the game Gu Li feel very comfortable but Liu don’t start any unnecessary fights and play very solid. After white 51 black was very busy. Gu Li made a live in upper left corner but his group in center get weaker and weaker. After white 64 black position was very bad but Gu found great tesuji at black 2 on Diagram below:
Black 2 is standard tesuji from books about attack and defense. After black 8 white group below is under attack so Liu need to play 11 to link his stone but Gu Li 9p immediately cut black 14. The ladder is unfavorable for white so he need to play something to made a shape in center . Black group is very big so semeai for white is out of question. After 17 white position seems to be solid buy Gu find another great cutting tesuji After 24 the result is ko. Liu won this ko but he was forced to give up two stones (1 and 5 from diagram)
In yose Gu show one great move (black 1) but thanks to big komi in Chinese rules Liu was leading by very small margin. In the end Gu resign after 302 moves. The last game of this final will be tomorrow

SGF of this game you can find at Go News

Today Gu Li and Liu Xing were playing in final of Changqi Cup. Gu Li was White. In Opening Liu development was very quickly. Black position was good but Gu invade i nupper right corner and made a pasition very complicated. Black attack at 29 was very skillful but after white white 32 seems to be a korigatachi and white play kakari in button right corner.
After White 3, Black 4 looks like a slack for me. I understand that Liu play solid Go but this gave Gu very comfortable result, so maybe black 4 should be at 5?
Next Liu made a very questionable furikawari in upper side which in my opinion was better for Gu Li. After that Liu invade to bottom left corner with with weird move black 83. Plan behind 83 was that it was sente to white group. After normal joseki black 83 won’t be 100% sente.

Black 113 is the most questionable move for me from this game. This move is a big overplay, black should play at white 114. Gu play at vital point and black situation in center was hopeless. In the end Gu capture huge group in center. Gu play another great game. I hope hat Gu will win some international title this year.

SGF of this Game you can download from Go News