Kim (left) playing Lai

Korea’s Changhun Kim 6d remains the only undefeated player after the third day of the 36th World Amateur Go Championship. This puts Korea in first place, with Chinese Taipei, China and Hong Kong as the other possible contenders for the championship title, each with five wins out of six.

The most crucial game of the tournament so far was the clash in Round 5 between the unscathed Chinese Taipei and Korea. The game began with Jyun-Fu Lai 7d (Chinese Taipei) falling behind in the early middlegame after underestimating the power of a double peep, leading to a bad result giving too much thickness to his opponent Changhun Kim (Korea). He struggled on until Kim spotted his chance and launched an all-out attack on Lai’s dragon, which fled to the centre of the board where despite a last ditch ko it was unable to escape to safety (click here for the sgf file). A triumphant grin accompanied Kim’s enormous kill, which secured his place as the tournament leader.

In Round 5, the two young players Rafif Fitrah (Indonesia) and In-Hang Sam (Macau) gave spectators their money’s worth, with the game erupting into a gigantic battle full of cuts and kills that engulfed the entire board. Russia versus Czech Republic was a marathon of a game, with Russian Timur Sankin losing many stones in a capturing race but taking huge territory in return. When the game finally concluded, it was the Russian who came out on top, leaving Silt with a disappointing two wins out of five.

From the left: Shin (Australia) playing Do (Vietnam)

Round 6 saw Finland’s Vesa Laatikainen 5d rescuing his corner group from the jaws of death with a famous tesuji on the 1-1 point, but the timing was wrong and this allowed Merlijn Kuin 6d (Netherlands) to clock up his third point in the championship. The United States beat Russia, Hong Kong took down Japan, and Australia defeated Vietnam. Demetris Regginos 1d, a musician from Cyprus who has been playing 6-3 points in many of his games, beat Desmond Cann 5d (United Kingdom) to take his fifth win out of six. Stefan Sabo 2k (Slovakia) also remains on five wins, defeating Lithuanian representative Romeika Ernestas 2d in Round 6.

The other major drama of the day was yet another series of late arrivals. Serbian Dusan Mitic failed to appear on time for the third game this tournament, Ondrej Silt (Czech Republic) kept his German opponent Johannes Obenaus waiting for nearly twenty minutes, and Peruvian Leon Rios Joels completed the tardy trio. Despite all incurring time penalties, ironically all three players won their respective games.

With the top ten places still up in the air, there is everything to play for in the final two rounds tomorrow.

– John Richardson