From the left: Youcheng, Baoxiang and Lee
On 7 June, as the last round finished, the 38th World Amateur Go Championship finally came to an end. The Chinese player Bai Baoxiang got 8 straight wins and therefore defended his title. He has also tied the record by winning the Championship 3 times.The runner-up was taken by the Korean player Sangbin Lee, and the third went to the Chinese Taipei player Lai Youcheng.
Sponsored by CITIC Securities and hosted by the International Go Federation the 1st AI Go Open will be held at the Yijinhuoluo Grand Theatre, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China on 16~17 August. More info about the tournament and the registration are available here. The list of competing teams together with some notifications about the tournament are available here.
On 6 June, the 5th and 6th rounds of the 38th World Amateur Go Championship kept going. The Chinese, Korean and D.R Korean had won all their games before round 5. After two exciting rounds played today, the Chinese representative Bai Baoxiang has become the only one undefeated, therefore he is on the verge of winning the tournament (results here).
Top 16
On 29 May, the 22nd LG World Baduk Cup top 32 round took place in the Gyeonggi-do Province/Korea. The Korean team has suffered a major blow, their 20-something players having been reduced to seven. From China as well, seven players, amongst others Ke Jie, are still in the tournament, while Japan sees two players advancing.
Each year, the LG Cup upholds its status as one of the most important international Go events. Armed with a thinking time of three hours and byo-yomi of five times 40 seconds sans lunch break, the players are competing for over 300 million KRW for the winner.
The top 16 round will take place on 31 May, with the following participants:
China: Ke Jie, Chen Yaoye, Zhou Ruiyang, Tang Weixing, Jiang Weijie, Xie Erhao, Yang Dingxing.
Korea: Lee Wonyoung, Park Junghwan, Shin Jinseo, Choi Cheolhan, Kim Jiseok, Kim Myonghoon, Kang Dongyun.
Japan: Iyama Yuta, Ida Atsushi.
The updated schedule of the 38th WAGC can be downloaded here.
In today’s game, Ke Jie took white as agreed after game 2 to play AlphaGo one last time. At move 209, he finally put two stones on the board as a signal to resign, and in total lost the match 0:3.
Looking back at these three amazing games, only the first game went to a count, the other two finished in a way that clearly indicated a gap of strength between human players and AlphaGo. Particularly in the third game, AlphaGo was in full control not leaving any chance for Ke Jie.
By now, the 5-day lasting Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen, China has officially ended.
Alpha-pair Go and team match were played on the 4th day of the Go summit in Wuzhen. In the pair game, Lian Xiao & AlphaGo defeated Gu Li & AlphaGo by resignation. Human players finally had a taste of “beating AlphaGo”. Later, the team match between AlphaGo and five world champions (Zhou Ruiyang, Tang Weixing, Mi Yuting, Shi Yue and Chen Yaoye) took place. After fighting for 254 moves, AlphaGo won the game to keep showing its AI power.
This kind of game-style is technically called “Consultation Go”. Each side consists of several players. They are allowed to talk and discuss during the game. Different from the usual, today’s game was played 5 vs.1, which actually put more pressure on the “World Champion” team.
Although five brilliant minds combined and fought very hard, that did not create any chances for them against the invincible AlphaGo.
The last game at the Go summit will be start on the 27th of May, Ke Jie is to take white playing against AlphaGo.
T
he three-part match between the world’s current No.1 Go player Ke Jie and Google’s artificial intelligence AlphaGo is taking place in Wuzhen, China. On 23 May, Ke Jie lost game 1 by 1.5 points. Two days later, he resigned in game 2 as AlphaGo placed the move 155, which means AlphaGo has won the match 2:0.
The second game was very exciting. According to AlphaGo’s evaluations, Ke jie had played perfectly and pushed AlphaGo to its limit for the first 100 moves. “I have tried, but AlphaGo is too strong, literally the God of Go.” Ke Jie told his post-match press conference.
Though the three-part match Ke Jie has lost 0:2, he will keep fighting in the third game and trying to bring a better game for the Go fans all around the world.
Recently the Ibero American Go Federation (FIG) chose Mexico as the host country of this year’s Ibero American Go Championship (CIG) -the biggest Go event of the Latin American region-. The idea is to upgrade this event into the 1st Latin American Go Congress.
“Latin America is lagging behind in its Go development compared to other regions of the western world such as North America or Europe” reports Mexican Go Association’s president Emil García.
“We need to start moving forward in order to catch up with the rest of the western world, that’s why last year we launched the 1st Pandanet Go Latin American Team Championship (PGLATC) which is a 10 team league whose teams are conformed with the top players of each participating country”. Find more about this league here.
The agreement with Pandanet is that the top 2 teams at the end of the league will get the chance to play an over the board final in the host country of this year CIG -which now we know is Mexico- with travel expenses sponsored by Pandanet.
“That’s how we came up with the idea of the Latin American Go Congress, run both the CIG and the PGLATC final plus some activities with pro players for the participants, in the fashion of the US Go Congress or the European Go Congress”, tells Emil García.
The event is planned to take place in Cancun, Mexico on October 13th-15th, 2017. Soon more information will be available in the Mexican Go Association’s new website.