Website of The International Go Federation

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.

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.

The 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.

The Iwamoto Norther America Foundation for Go (INAF) today announces in Tokyo the award to establish a Go Center on the east coast in the Washington DC area.  To be located in the nation’s capital, this new hub for Go is incorporating as a non-profit to be called the National Go Center. For details, see here.