Nihon Kiin announced that Yanagihara Saki is going to be a pro. After that youth tournament where she beat Chinese player her strength was evaluated and she was recommended for professionalship. You know, without an exam. The official pro entrance will be next year in April but she’s gonna play in public matches already from January (because who cares at this point). She’s 11 but gonna be 12 already in October. And gonna be the currently youngest player in Nihon Kiin.
As an insei she’s pretty good. In the last exam she came up second after Chou Kosumi.
What’s wrong with the pairing? In the top group consisting of dan players, just after round 4, Rita was the only player with 4 victories while Ariane, Manja and Milena were the only players with 3 victories. The algorithm paired Rita with Manja and Ariane with Milena, is there a reason why another choice would have been better?
So are you saying that the issue is not with the fifth round specifically, but with the first four rounds?
There were five rounds in the tournament. There are less than 32 players above 20kyu. So, five rounds should be ideal for this championship.
Yet somehow, the player at second place has never played against either the first-place nor third-place players, and the player at third-place has actually defeated the player at first-place?
Surely there could have been a way to end up with a pairing and ranking more consistent and more convincing, where the player at first place has defeated the player at second place, and the player at third-place has been defeated by at least one of them.
Rather than this seemingly-arbitrary ranking in which the winner is only the winner because she has one extra point of SOS (164 to 163 to 162).
This must leave a sour taste for the runner-ups. The player at second place wasn’t even given a chance to face the champion before she was declared second; and the player at third place actually defeated the champion, but was still ranked third.
And from a spectator’s point of view, this is all disappointing as it feels like the champion was decided pretty arbitrarily, instead of being a true winner.
And imagine from the point of view of a journalist who would want to write an article about the championship. What are they going to write? "Although the champion actually lost against the third-place player, and didn’t even play at all against the second-place, she’s truly and undoubtedly the new European champion since she technically had one extra point of SOS. This was an exciting championship to watch, although it looks like they forgot to play the final. "
I share your enthusiasm but honestly that killer move don’t tell that much on the fight going on. Do you have any link by chance to the game?
Thanks for sharing.
You are absolutely right. I showed it because it’s the tengen and almost the last move in the game, but truth is, this black group has never really been alive at all during the whole game.
I can’t see the player names in the two sgf you uploaded for the final.
Wikipedia tells me Oh Yujin won 2-0 against Wang Chenxing.
Wu Qingyuan Cup - Go to Everyone! tells me the final was supposed to be played over three games from september 27 to september 28. I assume Oh Yujin won the first two and so the third one was cancelled (as often in best-of-three matches).
The first final game that you link looks very suspicious. White resigns at move 125 after seemingly making a huge blunder and letting Black kill a group.
It’s indeed the first final game. Comments on the Fox server by a pro said white had made some mistakes on the upper right corner. Wang Chenxing probably got panic in the byo-yomi and made more mistakes. I think she knew the white group was in danger, but was unable to save it when there were two groups under attack. Also, in the second game she made many mistakes under the time pressure. By the way, she’s expecting her second baby, so the match was brought forward.
It’s not very nice, mocking a player behind their back like that. Instead, you should shoot this Iyama guy an email, and teach them why this opening is bad. Otherwise they will keep making the same mistake.
At move 22, Ida Atsushi plays his weird contact move at D11. This results in a sacrifice of 8 white stones on the side, in exchange for a wall of influence towards the centre.
Then Seki Kotaro is so afraid of the influence that he spends moves 55 and 57 at C12 and G10 just to reduce the influence, completely ignoring White’s attacks on the east side.
White then proceeds to build a huge moyo on the east side. Then ignores Black’s cut at E3 and sacrifices a corner… But plays at M7 at move 86, trying to capitalise the moyo into a territory, instead of expanding the moyo. I think M7 is the kind of move that Takemiya Masaki really dislikes because it goes at the extreme opposite of what moyo are for.
Note that all that is written above is my personal analysis. I haven’t plugged Katago on that game yet. OGS’ online analysis says that Ida Atsushi managed to close the gap and come back to an even game, from move 96 to move 111; then White’s “last losing move” was the very slow move 112 at G2, where White passively lived in gote and let Black take the initiative for the remainder of the game.
In the end, Black lives everywhere, White’s moyo turned into a very small territory. The game record you uploaded just says “Tie + Resignation” as a result, but I assume Seki Kotaro won, since White completely abandoned the moyo strategy starting at move 86, and so didn’t get much in exchange for the huge sacrifices on the west side and southwest corner.
Someone posted rating comparison for Nakamura Sumire. On X axis it’s age on Y it’s rating. Purple is Nakamura Sumire, red is Iyama Yuta, green is Fujisawa Rina. Isn’t this amazing? Nakamura Sumire and Iyama Yuta are almost two parts of the same graph.
