On August 24 2011, Go professionals from China, Japan and Korea gathered in Beijing for the main tournament of the 16th Samsung Cup.
Playing Lee Sedol (9 dan, facing) is hard enough, but Jen Youngkyu (5 dan) had to look at a huge banner of him too. There is a banner for each former Samsung Cup winner.
Some had won a spot in the main draw by playing through preliminaries, others were seeded based on last year’s performance. Lee Changho (9p) of Korea received this year’s wildcard.
How the draw works in the Samsung Cup
The Samsung Cup draw is convoluted, though arguably fairer than a straight knockout format. The 32 players in the main draw are split into 8 groups of 4.
Players must win two games in order to proceed from the first stage; two players from each group will advance to the round of 16. In some ways it’s similar to the group stage of the FIFA World Cup, except that only two wins are necessary to continue.
An example of the draw
Here’s an example:
Anna vs Bai: Anna wins.
Chris vs Dosaku: Dosaku wins.
Then winners play each other and losers play each other:
Anna vs Dosaku: Dosaku wins and proceeds to next round.
Bai vs Chris: Bai wins and Chris is eliminated.
Then:
Anna vs Bai: Anna wins and goes through to next round.
Day one of the 16th Samsung Cup
After one day’s play, there have already been some exciting games. China’s Li Zhe (6p) defeated the recent 24th Fujitsu Cup winner, Park Junghwan (9p) of Korea.
Li Zhe (6 dan, left) plays Park Junghwan (9 dan).
One of the most anticipated games was the match up between China’s Gu Li (9p) and Korea’s Park Jieun (9p), one of the strongest female players. Gu defeated Park, though not until after Park made Gu decidedly nervous.
Park Jieun (9 dan, right) gives Gu Li (9 dan) a run for his money.
The other female player in the draw, Chinese youngster and double silver medallist from last year’s Asian Games, Song Ronghui (5p), put up a strong fight against Korea’s Kim Jiseok (7p). Unfortunately for Song, Kim eventually won the game by resignation.
Song Ronghui (5 dan) during her game with Kim Jiseok (7 dan).
Stay tuned as the first stage continues…
About Jing
Lol @ decidedly nervous. What made you say that? Did Gu Li sweat like in a manga?
Haha – Gu didn’t look particularly comfortable in that photo above.
What a breath-taking post! I really appreciate GoGameGuru, keep going!
Thank you. I’m glad you like my post.
Thanks for the multiple game records! Posts like these give me something new to study for a week.
You’re welcome. Younggil will probably comment on some games later on the in the tournament.
Hi more Game records of the tournaments are in gokifu.com.
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Also i really like the preliminary system of this tournament
I do as well, it seems much fairer.
there was a particularly strong group where they had Park Junghwan, Piao Wenyao, Chen Yaoye and Li Zhe.
Unfortunately 2 of these great players had to go. i think there match ups are decided randomly so this was just a matter of luck.
here you can see the whole table: http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/wr/sc.html
good article!
Thanks Agostino. Yes, it was certainly a difficult group to end up in!
I’ve got high hopes for tonight’s game with Gu Li Vs. Kong Jie. It’s been a disappointing year to cheer for Gu Li so far…
Gu Li recently beat both Kong Jie and Piao Wenyao to win the Jinli Champion of Champions. It’s hard to win everything when you’re playing in everything!