Gu Li won Toyota Cup
After long break final of 4th Toyota Denso Cup was played at 6 and 8 January. Gu Li 9p and Piao Wenayo 5p fight for this important title. Gu Li show that he is #1 in China and beat Piao Wenyao with perfect score 2-0.
In first game Gu Li took black stones and play popular two space pincer in upper right corner with black 7. Interesting was answer to white 14. Recently extension to black 15 is not so popular, most player instead play at 18. Up to white 22, both player set new interesting variation.
Fight goes to bottom left corner. Gu Li show with 26, 27 that he want to fight like a hell. Piao Wenyao answer very calm with 28, but after 43 black is little favorable. Games turn into fight between two big moyos. With 54 Piao Wenyao start to make live in black moyo. Gu Li show killing intension with black 65. After white 100 black capture part of white dragon and secure large territory on bottom side. Of course black group in upper right corner was extremly weak after this sequence. White get a lot of profit by attacking this group.
Key point of this game is invasion in upper left corner. Gu Li made comfortable life in corner without any trouble. This give him a lead and decided the outcome of the game. After 157 moves Piao Wenyao resign the game.
In second game Piao Wenayo took black stones and play very thick opening. Unfortunately when they enter middle game IMHO Piao Wenyao was giving up more and more points to Gu Li. Gu Li play interesting endgame tesuji’s like combination 146 148 and get small lead in the end. After 232 moves Piao Wenyao resigned.
In last year I saw many new rising star trying their best like Han Sanghoon from Korea and now Piao Wenyao from China. Unfortunatelly to them finals in world championships aren’t so easy. You need not only talent and train a lot, you also need huge amount of baduk masters stamina.
After games in interviews Gu Li said some interesting things:
- He thanks Piao Wenayo to kick off Lee Changho, because in previous Toyota Cup Gu Li was eliminated in first rounds by Lee Changho two times in 2nd and 3rd edition of Toyota Cup. In 1st Toyota Cup Gu Li wasn’t playing.
- When he was asked about plans for this year, he replied that for China team the most important is of course Nongshim Cup, but for him match with Lee Sedol in LG Cup final is more important. He will train a lot to win LG Cup against #1 from Korea.
P.S. It is first time when Chinese baduk master won Toyota Denso Cup
Related posts:
This is just for fun! Look at the photos of Guri 9p and Won Sung Jin 9p!!!
http://scblog.chosun.com/blog.log.view.screen?blogId=493&logId=20757&listType=2
Those photos were taken after China-Korea Chunwon. Won 9p won against Guri 9p. Although Guri lost the title, it seems they were just happy.
At that time, Guri was totally drunk according to the article. =)
you can also see video from this party at http://vimeo.com/2792119 :)
LOL!!! Gu Li isn’t good at everything!!! ;)
The most interesting fact that today, i see same article:).
Although I do not remember there may be a link to the source,
but probably not – but your site look solid.