Park Junghwan is now back to being the #1 rated Go player in the world, according to Rémi Coulom’s goratings.org. He got there in the best of ways: with a hot streak culminating with back to back victories against his top rivals, Shin Jinseo and Ke Jie, en route to winning the World Go Championship for the 3rd year in a row.
It’s worth noting that the World Go Championship is a small invitational, and winning is not nearly as prestigious an accomplishment as it sounds. Still, beating the #1 and #3 players in the world is no small feat, and few other Go players in the world could do the same. (Liao Yunhe, the current world #23, was his third opponent.)
Compared to the borderline old-fashioned Iyama Yuta games I posted a few days ago, Park Junghwan vs. Ke Jie was a chaotic mess of weak groups, ko fights, 3-3 invasions, and attachments. In otherwords: modern computer-inspired Go. I’ve uploaded the game to OGS, for anyone that wants to see how two of the strongest players in history duke it out over the board: