He Yuhan, who captured three major Chinese amateur titles this year (the amateur Tianyuan in February, the Fengcheng Cup in May, and the 3rd Qingdao Publishing Cup in June), ended his rampage by winning his way to profession shodan in the 2013 Chinese Go Ranking Promotion Competition, held July 20-25 in Yangzhou. In all, twenty men and five women qualified as pro shodan. The other men included Dai Zhitian, who beat He to win the Yellow River Cup in June, Li Weiqing, who took third in the Yellow River Cup, and Huang Jingyuan, runner-up in the Yellow River Cup last year. The qualification tournament is limited to players under 25 years old. He, Li, and Huang are still 13.

Meanwhile, the promotion competition for players who were already professional was being held July 17-30 at the Tongli Lake Resort. Two of the contestants played in the World Amateur Go Championship last year: Qiao Zhijiang (1st place, China), and Chen Cheng-Hsu (3rd place, Chinese Taipei).

Qiao Zhijiang turned pro shortly after the 2012 WAGC and won a promotion to 2 dan with a 9-3 score in the 2012 Promotion Competition. Overall, his pro record was 21-13 in 2012, and stands at 24-21 so far in 2013, including a strong 7-3 performance in the new HTC Cup. Qiao broke even (6-6) in the 2013 Promotion Competition, and remains 2-dan.

Chen Cheng-Hsu, who turned pro at age 13 in China to challenge himself, started off his professional career by scoring 4-6 at the Chinese Individual Championships in September 2012. Since then he has been continuing to meet his self-imposed challenge head-on; his cumulative professional record after 11 months is a level 29-29. His result in the 2013 Promotion Competition was 7-5, so he remains shodan.