2008 WAGC Day 3 (5/31)

KOREA WINS ’08 WORLD AMATEUR; U.S. PLACES 7TH: While Korea and China topped the 2008 World Amateur Go Championship as expected - Sung Bong Ha of Korea swept all 8 of his games to win the championship and Yuzhen Guo of China took second place - - they had some new company in the top ten this year. Fernando Aguilar of Argentina placed an impressive 3rd with 7 wins, losing only to Korea and Hong Kong’s Nai San Chan took 4th; Argentina had placed 14th last year and Hong Kong 11th. Hungary broke into the top ten this year – it placed 17th last year – with Pal Balogh’s 8th-place finish, as did Germany for the first time since 2004, when Franz-Josef Dickhut – who took 9th place this year – took 5th place. Tsung-Lin Yang of Chinese Taipei was 10th, a drop from last year’s 5th-place. The United States moved up a place this year, with Mozheng Guan’s 7th-place finish, while Japan’s Yoshiyuki Tsuchimune and Romania’s Cornel Burzo tied for 5th place. Pierre Audouard – the visually-impaired player from France who went 5-3 – won the Fighting Spirit Award. “All of you did a good job here,” Chief Referee Norio Kudo told the WAGC participants at Saturday’s awards ceremony. “I was especially impressed by the spontaneous outburst of applause at the conclusion of the half-point game between Korea and China. This was a high-level game and even we pros have things to learn from it.” Kudo joined tournament chairman Hiromu Okabe in urging players to “go back to your countries and encourage more people to play go.”

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items are from between 29 May 2008 & 31 May 2008.