Go game review #5: Kevin Yang 1p vs Alexander Qi 1p

Who?

The NAGF held their pro-qualification tournament this year. The NAGF stands for the North American Go Federation and is a newly established go association. Their pro tournament started last month at the end of June and ended on July 1st. This is exciting because a pro tournament has not been held in america for the past few years. 

A professional tournament is the process by which new professional go/wei qi/baduk players are chosen. This is how it is done in other countries and it looks like it is how it's going to be done in america also. Participants of the pro tournament play several rounds of games and the winners of each round go on to compete against other winners until there are one or two winners left. It is a tough and intense competition and only the top winners of the tournament are able to become professional go players.

It is not easy! But that's how it's done.

The game:

This game, between Kevin Yang and Alexander Qi, kicked off the finals or final round of games. Alex Qi is black and Kevin Yang is white.

Opening:

This is a neat opening. Black gains the lower right corner and white moves to take the other lower corner.

Around mid-game:

White has now secured three corners and looks to be going for the fourth one. Black has chosen to go for side and middle territory instead.

Near the end:

Black's move here at P11 is a little slow. Those four stones are not as important as the middle territory at this point. It would be better to simply take the white stone in atari at Q10 because if white connects that stone, it also gains territory. If black takes white at Q10, white will not gain territory and will be forced to block black and make sure its group is alive.

End result:

It looks like white wins by resignation. Black didn't gain any of the four corners and has little territory elsewhere on the board. The corners turned out to be important in this game and black should have fought to keep at least one of them. 

This was a game between the two winners of the NAGF pro-qualification tournament. Alex Qi and Kevin Yang are now two new professionals in the american go world. Yang is 15 and Qi is 14 years old. They are young and who knows how much they will improve in the coming years.

Congrats guys! We look forward to watching you guys grow and become accomplished professionals here in america.