Over the last few days, China’s made a clean sweep at the 3rd China Japan Korea World Meijin and the 16th China Korea Tengen.
16th China Korea Tengen
Chen Yaoye 9 dan, long-standing Tianyuan title holder.
The 16th China Korea Tengen was a repeat of last year’s 15th iteration of the tournament.
On September 10 and 12, 2012, Chen Yaoye 9p, 25th Tianyuan (Chinese Tengen) winner, repeated last year’s 2-0 win over the winner of the 16th Chunwon (Korean Tengen), Choi Cheolhan 9p.
Chen has now played in four consecutive China Korea Tengen tournaments.
He won in 2009 against Kang Dongyun and lost to Park Junghwan in 2010.
Chen Yaoye (left) plays Choi Cheolhan (9 dan) in the China Korea Tengen title match.
3rd China Japan Korea World Meijin
Like the Tengen, this year’s China Japan Korea World Meijin tournament was almost a repeat of last year’s, with Yamashita Keigo 9p substituting for Iyama Yuta 9p after winning the 36th Meijin in Japan.
The other two familiar faces were China’s Jiang Weijie (9p – the 24th Mingren winner), and Korea’s Park Younghun (9p – the 39th Myeongin winner).
From left: Jiang Weijie 9 dan, Park Younghun 9 dan and Yamashita Keigo 9 dan at the 3rd World Meijin tournament.
As usual, these three way matches are played over three rounds. The games were held from September 10-13, 2012.
Yamashita drew the bye, leaving Park and Jiang to fight for the first spot in the final.
Park was the first to progress to the final, and eagerly watched Jiang and Yamashita vie for the remaining seat (Park won this event in 2011).
Jiang Weijie (left) plays Yamashita Keigo in round 2 of the 3rd World Meijin match.
After defeating Yamashita, Jiang managed to reverse the result of round 1 in the final, and added the 3rd World Meijin title to his collection.
Jiang Weijie (left) defeated Park Younghun to win the 3rd World Meijin title.
About Jing
That “3 stones thickness is only 1 eye” kill in the final Park vs Jiang game is rather amusing: the sort of trick you expect to see on KGS, not in a pro game final!
It’s a fairly complicated sequence to kill though, especially K19.
I really like K19
These three way playoffs are intrinsically flawed. Let’s assume that each player stands a 50% chance of beating another. That means that the players who don’t draw the bye only have a 25% chance of not making the final while the player who does draw the bye has a 50% chance of not making the final. I understand the difficulty of resolving a three way split but this is pretty crude.
Nevertheless, these three way mini events seem to becoming more popular in China. I imagine the sponsors see an events like the ‘World Meijin’ as providing a lot of bang for your buck.
Think about it, there are no preliminaries to pay for (the domestic tournaments already took care of that) and it’s an instant high profile event.
Certainly true, they are very appealing from a commercial and logistical standpoint. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the identity of the finalists owes more to the luck of the draw than the relative strengths of the players. This year the Japanese competitor drew the short straw, if memory serves the same happened the last time one of these three way contests occurred. The Japanese struggle enough as it is, they don’t need to consistently be giving their opponents two bites at the cherry when they get only one. Maybe the organisers should rotate which country gets the bye on an annual basis rather than do it by lots.
I don’t understand the dynamics of the competition, can you explain it better? What does drawing the bye mean?
The player who draws the bye sits out the first round. The winner of the first round progresses to the final. The loser of the first round will then play the player who drew the bye for the second spot in the final.
So I suppose the ‘bye’ in this case is a bit of a misnomer because you are actually at a slight disadvantage because you don’t get any second chances.