Given the popularity of Christianity in South Korea, I’m a bit surprised the tournament runs straight through the Christmas holidays. Maybe that popularity being relatively recent means it’s not so baked into the culture to not do “business events” over Christmas? (I checked and Christmas Day is a public holiday).
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most people i know doesn’t do anything spécial at Christmas, just the hotel are fully booked because it’s a “couple days”
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It could have been deliberate because of the holiday, as a special event sort of thing, like the “NBA Christmas day”.
Live tsumego problem from the game between Shibano Toramaru & Lee Jihyun
Black to live on the upper left corner
And the crazy thing is that I think Shibano already solved it at move 162, with about 1 min 17 seconds time left, and maybe another 40 to 60 seconds in a later countdown to verify it. (so solve this under 3 minutes)
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Well, when you pose it as a problem with a cool solution I got the first move in 3 seconds without reading to check it actually works 
But yes getting into this high-stakes fight in the first place because you are confident of a solution is much harder.
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And was successful; ended up using that influence in lower left including that one white stone next to black’s three.
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Round of 16 Part 1 Streams:
Games will start at 2025-12-26T01:00:00Z
Yun Junsang 9p (Korea) VS Ichiriki Ryo 9p (Japan)
Shin Jinseo 9p (Korea) VS Ding Hao 9p (China)
For the full results and games, please refer to here.
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Round of 16 Part 2 Streams:
Games will start at 2025-12-26T05:00:00Z
Park Junghwan 9p (Korea) VS Yang Kaiwen 9p (China)
Park Minkyu 9p (Korea) VS Wang Xinghao 9p (China)
For the full results and games, please refer to here.
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Round of 16 Part 3 Streams:
Games will start at 2025-12-27T01:00:00Z
Han Seungjoo 9p (Korea) VS Dang Yifei 9p (China)
Kim Myunghoon 9p (Korea) VS Lai Junfu 9p (Taiwan)
For the full results and games, please refer to here.
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Round of 16 Part 4 Streams:
Games will start at 2025-12-27T05:00:00Z
Nakamura Sumire 4p (Korea) VS Shibano Toramaru 9p (Japan)
Park Jinsol 9p (Korea) VS Shin Minjun 9p (Korea)
For the full results and games, please refer to here.
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Ya, it is more like creating a tsumego problem of your own, not even sure if it has a solution or not. And the move 163 for black is crucial for this, since it involves semeai on the outside. If white can bridge under, or has one extra approach move, the black corner stones would die. So at 162 Shibano didn’t just have to solve the hypothetical “tusmego” that may or may not have a solution, but also the theoretical semeai as well as just play a gote move in the corner and let white go, and risk damaging the left side territory and compare their values, all in 1 min 17 seconds.
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Interesting analysis of SJS VS Ding Hao.
Both players played almost the same number of excellent moves, but SJS played more great moves.
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I heard from a pro commentator that SJS seemed to shift his style in this tourament, instead of thick and territorial, SJS opted for moyo and big framework build up for the past two games in Ro32 and Ro16. And it seems to be a very risky strategy since pros would very likely invade and start a fight, and it would be very difficult to read complex fights in such short time settings. However, this also might be SJS’s strategy, since others had studied his style and moves extensively, so he had to use something not typical of his usual style.
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I wish all the best for this tournament. And I hope that in future editions we will get at least 1 pro from AGA and 1 from EGF.
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Round of 8 Part 1 Streams:
Games will start at 2025-12-28T01:00:00Z
Shin Jinseo 9p (Korea) VS Wang Xinghao 9p (China)
Shin Minjun 9p (Korea) VS Dang Yifei 9p (China)
For the full results and games, please refer to here.
Poll: Can Shin Jinseo beat the 3rd and last “Hao” in the tournament?
- Yes, Shin Jinseo will beat Wang Xinghao easily after beating Li Xuanhao and Ding Hao
- Wang Xinghao will get his revenge against Shin Jinseo for Nanyang Cup
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voters
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Does anybody know if any European or American players were invited to or participated in a world slot qualifier but lost out to the Vietnamese player?
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Round of 8 Part 2 Streams:
Games will start at 2025-12-28T05:00:00Z
Park Junghwan 9p (Korea) VS Ichiriki Ryo 9p (Japan)
Kim Myunghoon 9p (Korea) VS Shibano Toramaru 9p (Japan)
For the full results and games, please refer to here.
Poll: Ichiriki Ryo has never won against Park Junghwan in an official game. The current score is 0-8. Can he get his first win?
- Yes, Ichiriki will show his might this time
- No, Park Junghwan will win again easily
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voters
Their last game was just over 2 years ago and Ichiriki had improved greatly since (he’s now 10th on goratings just above Park and clearly #1 in Japan in front of Iyama) so I expect a close game. Park has some mental advantage from their history and knowing how to beat Ichiriki, but is prone to latter game blunders, whilst Ichiriki is in form and has beaten some strong non-Japanese players in the last few years like winning the Ing Cup so that should give him some confidence on world stage.
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As far as I can find, when they announced it in late August, they already specified Vietimise players/associations to participate, so unless they already contacted other associations (or not) before that, they probably just sent official invitations at the association level, and each of them would decide how to do their own preliminary, or pick their players to participate with their quota (this is how I know from our association’s annoucement in Taiwan)
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