This game is from the final round of the 1st Sports Accord World Mind Games. It’s between Yamashita Keigo and Lee Sedol.
Lee Sedol is currently ranked number one in Korea, and Yamashita currently holds the Honinbo and Meijin titles in Japan.
This tournament is brand new, and six teams participated in the competition. The six teams were America, China, the European Union, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
After round 4, Korea and Japan were tied at 3-1 each. China swept all rounds, so this Japan vs Korea match was the decider for the silver medal.
Yamashita Keigo (9 dan, left) plays Lee Sedol (9 dan) at the 1st World Mind Games.
This is the third time Lee and Yamashita have played. Lee won their last two games in 2005 and 2010.
I hope you enjoy this dynamic game, and if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment.
About An Younggil 8p
It’s always scary how Lee Sedol ruthlessly exploits every weakness in shape.
Yes, I get that feeling when I play through his games too…
I think it is not North America, but USA. Even though there was a Canadian player, he played with the USA flag (or maybe he is US citizen as well, I don’t know). Worked for them, but European Union wasn’t let to play as Europe, or include non-EU citizen Europeans; specifically Russia’s Ilja 7d and Alexander 3p, and Ukraine’s Artem 7d.
That’s actually my edit and I changed it because of the Canadian player. It was the American team either way.
Regarding the EU team, Ilya Shikshin qualified and was part of the team, but withdrew at the last minute. You might be interested in reading what Thomas Hsiang said here: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=85666#p85666
It’s nice to see that the proverb “Desperate? Play attachment!” carries on all the way to 9p
Haha, that’s a great one liner
. It would even make Vin Diesel proud. You’re right though.
What’s b67 for? Also is r5 or r6 not good at move for b119?
For 67, imagine if black didn’t play there and white did instead. You can see that white’s weak group in the center would be effectively connected to safety and white’s potential area on the bottom would increase. Separating white lets black keep harassing that group for profit.
For B119, R5 or R6 would let white run away into the center and that would make things easier for white. Black has a much stronger position locally so he wants to find a way to attack profitably rather than just defending the corner territory.
David’s answers were perfect. Thanks David.
Interesting game, thank you. As black was quite a bit ahead I must suppose that white made a questionable move in the opening or early middle game. But I cannot see which one, the moves played seem quite logical to me. What went wrong for white at the start? Thank you for your answer!
Kind regards,
Paul
Younggil’s still on holidays (this is one of the articles we prepared before our Christmas break).
If he has time he might drop in and answer questions, but I’ll try to answer your question now and he can correct me when he’s back if I’m wrong
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I don’t think white did anything particularly bad in the opening. The moves are all fairly normal, as you say. It’s more that black played a clever opening and white has to change the flow somehow.
One way of doing that is playing move 12 at F17 like Lee Changho did. I’d assume that Lee Changho saw this game. If you don’t like that, another possibility is playing move 10 at C4 (playable because white has a solid position along the bottom). That would change the opening completely.
There may be another move for white after the two space pincer, like playing F16 for move 16 maybe or another variation. White could also play C5 at C8, but I’m not sure that Lee Sedol would like to play that way…
In his commentary, Younggil gives a variation at 12 (simple high wedge/pincer) which has a variation at 23 (pincer), saying “this is still playable for Black”. To me “playable” reads like “even”. The awkward thing is that we’re looking for something “playable” for White, as the opening was considered good for Black.
Seems like the Yi ChangHo move at 12 and the above variation are two options for White, if 10 is not to become obsolete in this opening.
As for 10, I would certainly think there are many options here, like a simple one space pincer. If Black goes into the corner, White can build the lower side.
Pincering with move 10 feels awkward to me because white’s already setup a low and solid two space extension on the lower side. If white pincers and builds influence facing the lower side (after black invades the corner) black won’t hesitate to reduce severely at J4.
Because of that, white might build influence facing the left side instead, but then the N3, Q5, K3 exchange looks strange for white.
That’s why I prefer C4 (or even B5) to a pincer in this particular situation, even though it’s somewhat unusual.
I couldn’t find W’s mistake in the opening. W12 could be wrong, but I can’t say it’s a mistake. Yamashita’s opening in this game was very clever. On the other hand, opening is Lee’s weakest part of his go.
There were no Canadian players on the North American team.
Amazing. Simply amazing. Thank you so much for commenting this game
BTW, you can see video coverage of this match with some light comments here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yXwPgDY8PQ
I hear that Sedol’s 3vol set of commented games (http://tchan001.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/yi-sedol-famous-games-selection-3-books/) is being translated into English as we speak, and that the publishers are thinking to have it available around the time of the next EGC. Unfortunately the person who got the ball rolling on this, Lee Hajin, is not involved with the project anymore (you can read about that here: http://www.starbaduk.com/25675#1). In any case, I can’t remember being as excited to get my hands on a collection of commented since hearing about “The Life & Games of Mikhail Tal.”
I’ve also been becoming a bit of a Yamashita Keigo fan recently and am thinking his book “Breakthrough Attacking Power: Yamashita Style” might be fun to read (which I see you have here in your book shop). Read somewhere that the bindings on this series of books isn’t so great (think its at L19), but if the books commentary is good it would be worth it none that less.
It’s a sad story for Hajin
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move 67 was so über!!
im impressed
keep on good work
Why was it a good move?
Just for your information, the .sgf file proposed for download is not valid, as a few characters have been wrongly copied and pasted at the very end. The last 2 lines of the file should be deleted. It was detected while opening the file with Agora Go on Android. Cheers!
Thanks for letting us know JR. I’ve fixed this.
I confirm that the file properly opens now. Thanks for your reactivity, David, this is quite impressive. I discovered your site a couple days ago and I really like it. If you have an Android phone or tablet, I would be really glad to get your feedback on my application Agora Go published on Android Market.
How Exactly is territory counted? on move 49 white should have went to B16 this would have allowed him better control of the corner. On move 123 black sould have gone to M10 giving him a better grip on his territory. Or i think that would work let me know im still learning myslef.
Good questions! W50 was a good move. W can’t live with just saving W B17. B123 is a good move to attack that W group. If B plays in the center, W’d play at 123 and live easily.
Thank you I prefer to keep my identity hidden im into “go” and have been playing for about a year. I self taught myself and i wish to be the future Mejin. I have never played a real game in a tournament, i Prefer to use “Dragons” in “Go”. Are you a Go instructor?
If you have any advice I Would love to hear it. [email protected] is my email.
Hello. I want to ask about 228th move. why don’t white go to F2 instead G2.. and, why don’t black block at G2 after white go to H2?and white is not going to A12 either. Sorry for my lacking senses and skill so I can’t read pro players game fully.