Nexik’s Baduk

Go News, Lecture and more…

Today I will discuss about 3 match from Chinese A League 22 March: Xinxing vs Shandong. First I want Introduce members of both teams.

Team Xinxing:

• Luo Xihe 9p 9 (Captain)
• Peng Quan 7p
• Liu Xing 7p
• Huang Yizhong 6p
• Tang Weixing 2p
• Zhang Ce 2p

Captain is well known because of his victory over Lee Changho 9p in final of 10th Samsung Cup.

Next Peng Quan 7p is strong player with good results (lat year in Chinese A League he end with 14-8).

Third Liu Xing 7p is rising star, in December last year he won Agon Cup by beating Hu Yaouyu 8p, Gu Li 9p and Kong Jie 7p, so now he is consider to be top Chinese Wei’qi Master.

Huang Yizhong 6p level is about Peng Quan 7p, but he already won major tournament (16th Tianyuan).

Unfortunately about last two member I know nothing In first match play first 4 members.

Team Team Shandong:

• Cao Dayuan 9p (Captian)
• Zhou Heyang 9p
• Shao Weigang 9p
• Zhou Ruiyang 5p
• Tao Xin 4p
• Jiang Weijie 3p

About Cao Dayuan 9p to be captain, hm I think this decision was made to increase team morale. Cao Dayuan maybe is very good coach but captain? Last year he didn’t play single game in Chinese A League. We will see if he play something this year.

Next Zhou Heyang 9p is very strong player and in my opinion he is real captain of this team. Actually Zhou Heyang is playing in 22th Tianyuan against Gu Li 9p.

Third member is Zhao Weigang 9p. To be honest till today i do I don’t know anything about this player, but his bio don’t look very optimistic, normal Wei’qi master from old guard.

Forth player is my favorite Zhou Ruiyang 5p. In my opinion in few years he will be next Gu Li. Unfortunately he don’t won any major title only Xinren Wang (new pro tournament) in ‘07 and ‘08.

Information about last two players are very limited. I’m sure about one thing: they are very talented young players. In first match played: Zhou Heyang 9p, Shao Weigang 9p, Zhou Ruiyang 5p and Jiang Weijie 3p.

Pairing for first game was little odd. Captain of Xinxing team - Luo Xihe 9p play with the weaker player from Shandong team - Jiang Weijie 3p. In this game Luo Xihe took black stones and play very aggressive from the beginning. Black 29 is typical for Luo Xihe - brilliant move with many study.
After white 38 situation looks very complicated but Luo found another great tesuji at 41(1 on Diagram) and connect weak group to upper right corner. The fights was complicated but Jiang Weijie show good solid style, maybe too solid ;p

After white 74 he completely seal in Luo Xihe big dragon, but of course Luo made easy life with sequence from 72-82 and even obtain sente to play at 83. Maybe it will be better to play 1 instead of A and give black chance to reinforce at 1. Later Jiang Weijie made big furikawari.

Last odd move for me was white 119. Why white don’t play at 1 in Diagram instead of A? I’m very curious. In the end Luo Xihe won by 5,5 points.

In Next game we could see Peng Quan 7p and Zhou Ruiyang 5p. I was waiting for this game for very long time Zhou Ruiyang took black stones so I was expecting great opening in this game. Instead of opening they show interesting variation of joseki.

Black 1 is interesting idea. If white answer it with kosumi, black will play kakari and two space extension from 1 so he will make solid group on the side leaving a lot of bad aji in upper left corner. Of course instead of 1 Black can play kakari, but black will than have opportunity to play pincer and great extension on the side.

After white 2 sequence 3-6 is inevitable. Next black try to fix his shape playing attachment at 7. In the game Peng Quan first play some sente moves in bottom right corner to get ladder breaker and than play sequence from second Diagram. After white 12 black can capture single stone in leader, but give white chance to link his all stones.

Black plans was to give white ponnuki and cut white stones. Unfortunately Peng Quan prepare ladder breaker for ladder from second Diagram. Next Black play 19 to cut off white stones. The biggest question is : can white capture two black stones at A instead of 30 from Diagram 4?

The answer is of course not. Black will play 2 and squeeze white in sequence to white 7 and than start using his powerful wall by attacking 3 lone stones in upper side. this is why Peng Quan play white 30 from Diagram 4.

In next diagram Black play 1 and 3 in sente. White need to play at 4 or he will be captured in geta at A. Black 5 is very strong move which very easy to overlook. Black 5 made 7 sente. Thanks to black 7 after atari at 9 white must answer at 10. If he play 10 at 11 he will start very comlicated semeai but in the end he will lost it.

After this very complicated and interesting sequence black capture 4 white stones and we can see his plan success. In chuban Peng Quan play very good build huge moyo which give him few points lead. After 280 moves Peng Quan 7p won by 5,5 points.

In third game w could see Liu Xing 7p and Shao Weigang 9p. Saho Weigang 9p show solid baduk and win the game after 194 moves. This game show that young talented player still can learn a lot from old guard.

Last game was very trailing. Zhou Heyang last hope of Shandong team need to win game for a draw. Fortunately for Shandong Zhou Heyang won this game after 177 moves. This game show that large avalanche joseki lost his secret. In past large avalanche was very complicated with a lot of variations, but now its hard to find new variations of large avalanche in pro games.

The final result is draw. Only draw of this day. IMHO Chinese A League matches should be 5 games instead of 4 to avoid draw like Korean League.

Luo Xihe 9p vs Jiang Weijie 3p W+5,5
Peng Quan 7p vs Zhou Ruiyang 5p W+6,5
Shao Weigang 9p vs Liu Xing 7p W+R
Huang Yizhong 6p vs Zhou Heyang 9p B+R

Last Saturday Guizhou Team play against Hebei team in Chinese A League. This time two teams plays without captains (Lee Sedol 9p and Nie Weiping 9p). 1 game between Wang Lei 8p(Guizhou) and Tan Xiao 4p(Hebei) was very typical for Chinese Wei’qi - a lot of small groups and some ko fights. After long ko fight on right side Tan Xiao 4p decide to ignore Wang Lei 8p threat but he probably saw some hallucination because he resign 270 moves.

In second game Piao Wenyao 5p (Guizhou) play with Wang Lei 6p(Hebei). Piao Wenyao takes black stones a plat very unusual opening. Up to black 35 position seems to be even but very difficult middle game fights started. I remember some games of Yoda Norimoto 9p from Japan, where you can also find 5-3 in opening. Unfortunatly recently is very hard to find many games with influence oriented oepoening for black, so it was very enjoyable to see some pros likes to play this kind of fuseki.

In this game you can see many good examples of using aji in opponent shapes, but Black 77 is the greatest from this game. After exchange 1-8 from Diagram black can start ko with A-E sequence. In the game Wang Lei not only win this ko but also play very brilliant sequence in bottom side. After 252 moves Piao Wenyao 5p resign setting draw in Guizhou-Hebei match.

Third game was between Sun Li 3p(Guizhou) and Wang Yuhui 7p(Hebei). This was the most aggressive game of the match and it was miracle that it end with half a point result. The most funny was seki in upper right corner. After this game Guizhou was leading 2-1, so last hope for Hebei team was only draw.

The last game decided outcome. Shi Yue 4p play against Zhao Zhelun 3p. In this game Shi Yue show great example how to attack weak groups. Of course Zhao Zhelun show great reading skill by securing almost all of his weak group but when they enter yose Shi Yue play very skillful and forced his oponent to resign after 221 moves.

Wang Lei 8p vs Tan Xiao 4p W+R
Wang Lei 6p vs Piao Wenyao 5p W+R
Sun Li 3p vs Wang Yuhui 7p W+0,5
Shi Yue 4p vs Zhao Zhelun 3p W+R

Battle between Guizhou and Hebei end with 3-1 result.

P.S. Now Photo link in header is working. You can find photos from few last tournament i had been.

Preliminary to Korean Baduk League 2008 end yesterday. Many young shodan enters to main tournament and of course Cho Hyeyeon 7p(Congratulation!!!), but today another league started. This time it is Chinese A League. This is a team tournament with 12 team(captain):

• Shanghai (Chang Hao 9p)
  
• Guizhou (Lee Sedol 9p)
  
• Chongqing (Gu Li 9p)
  
• Xinxing (Luo Xihe 9p)
  
• Shandong (Cao Dayuan 9p)
• Yunnan (Ding Wei 9p)
  
• Baejing (Zhang Wendong 9p)
  
• Wuhan (Ma Xiaochun 9p)
  
• Guangxi (Liu Xiaoguang 9p)
  
• Haidian (Zhao Shouxun 9p)
  
• Sichuan (Lee Yeonggu 7p)
  
• Hebei (Nie Weiping 9p)
  

This year in Chinese A League will participate two Korean players. Lee Sedol 9p and Lee Younggu 7p. The most unexpected was decision to made Lee Younggu 7p Captain of Sichuan team.

Today we could see 6 matches, but i want to focus only on match between Shanghai and Haidian:

In first game Qiu Jun 8p(Shanghai) play with Yang Xiaotian 2p(Haidian). Qiu Jun play very rare move in professional Baduk: white 14. This narrow extension is almost never seen before in professional Baduk, but lately we can see many “old” bad moves in recently professional tournaments.Another very interesting thing is white 40. In past this was consider to be inferior for white, but recently we can see this kind of shape played again and again. Maybe now it is joseki? If you are high Dan player and know the answer please leave comment

I like very much Korean Baduk but Chinese Wei’qi is also very enjoyable. The main difference is the more aggressive style. If we would compare aggression between China and Korea than China Wei’qi is like big battlefield with a lot of blood. Korean Baduk also is very aggressive but there is also place for some strategies new fuseki patterns. The greatest yose players are from Korea.

For this reason Chinese games are very good when you want study shapes, middle game fights etc. From 1 game i found very interesting moves: 28, 52, 54, 71, 129, 158.

Another very interesting move is white 34 which is trying to gets something after white 32. It important to know that after white 32 playing at sansan in corner is very bad(In near future i will write about this joseki, and some variation under Lesson label).

Zhao Shouxun tried to build some moyo in center but Chang Hao 9p very skillful reduce it and after 161 moves he win the game by resignation.

Third and fourth game wasn’t so enjoyable like first two games. Meng Tailing 4p(Haidian) beat Hu Yaoyu 9p(Shanghai) by resignation and Zhu Yuanhao 3p(Shanghai) beat Ma Xiaobing 4p by 1,5 points.

Qiu Jun 8p vs Yang Xiaotian 2p W+0,5
Zhao Shouxun 5p vs Chang Hao 9p B+R
Hu Yaoyu 9p vs Meng Tailing 4p B+R
Ma Xiaobing 4p vs Zhu Yuanhao 3p B+1,5

Team Shanghai beat Haidian 3-1