Four Games, Four Wins: Fujisawa and Ichiriki Take the World Pair Go Title
The first World Pair Go Championship in seven years went to Japan. Taiwan made the final after losing its opening game. Ichiriki now goes back to a tied Meijin series. The Honmaru Palace at Nagoya Castle hosted a world final on Sunday morning. Fujisawa Rina and Ichiriki Ryo, playing White, beat Yang Zixuan and Hsu […]
Shibano Has Been Level With Ichiriki Before. The Question Is What Happens Next.
Two games down, Shibano Toramaru has won two in a row to make the 51st Meijin 2–2. The last time these two were tied after four games, Ichiriki won the next two. Game 5 is in Toba on September 30. Three weeks ago the 51st Meijin looked like it might end early. Ichiriki Ryo had […]
One Year, Nine Months, Fourteen Days: Sumire’s Gamble Keeps Paying Off
The Japanese prodigy who left home to play in Korea has climbed to third in her adopted country’s women’s rankings — and just ended a six-game losing streak against the best woman player in the world. Korean Go coverage counted it to the day. One year, nine months and fourteen days since Nakamura Sumire last […]
The Three Kingdoms Reconvene: Korea Survives Round One of the Nongshim Cup
China’s Yang Dingxin tore through three opponents in Beijing before Byun Sangil stopped him. Korea, chasing a seventh straight title, heads to Busan with its heavy artillery untouched. There are bigger prize funds in professional Go, but there is nothing quite like the Nongshim Cup. Since 1999 it has put Korea, China and Japan in […]
Ichiriki Goes Two Up — and October Is About to Get Absurd
The Meijin champion leads Shibano 2–0 after a second straight win in Izu. He will spend the autumn defending three titles at once, against the only three players in Japan who look capable of taking them. Ichiriki Ryo finished Game 2 of the 51st Meijin at 3:19 on Thursday afternoon, playing White and forcing Shibano […]
Korea Sent 219 Players to the Samsung Cup Qualifier. One Got Through.
China took fourteen of the fifteen contested places — in Seoul, in Korea’s own building. The only Korean to survive is a 45-and-over qualifier and a former national team coach. The Samsung Cup unified qualifier finished on August 30 at the Korea Baduk Association in Seoul, and the scoreline is the kind that gets a […]
Eighty-Three Moves: Fukuoka Kotaro Demolishes Iyama Yuta to Earn a Second Title Shot
Japan’s youngest-ever Honinbo needed less than five hours to dismantle the most decorated player of his era — and set up a rematch with the man he dethroned in July. Professional Go games are usually long. Two players, three hours each on the clock, a board with 361 intersections to argue over — a serious […]
Kim Eunji Steps In With Her Team on the Brink
The Comeback Is On: Kim Eunji Wins Twice in Two Nights to Drag the Women’s Team Back Into the Fight Korea’s wildest team event turned twenty by adding a third army to the battlefield, and the Women’s team fell to the brink. Then their teenage closer — author of last year’s miracle — took the […]
Shin Jinseo Completes the Comeback: Humanity’s Champion Beats KataGo 2–1
After dropping the opener, the world No. 1 won two straight — capping the series with a three-hour rout the commentators called perfect. Ten years after AlphaGo, the human walked away the winner. It ended not with a nail-biter but with a statement. Shin Jinseo, the world’s top-ranked Go player, closed out his three-game series […]
The Human Wins One: Shin Jinseo Beats KataGo to Even the Series
Two days after a painful Game 1 loss, the world No. 1 adjusted his strategy, kept his nerve through a ferocious center fight — and did something he’d never managed even in practice. For the first time since Lee Sedol’s immortal Game 4 against AlphaGo in 2016, a human has beaten a top Go AI […]