Xie He (L) Lee Sedol (R) Photo Source:cyberoro.com
Lee Sedol 9P of Korea won the 8th Chunlan Cup by winning the best of three series, 2-1 to Xie He 7P of China. It is his first Chunlan Cup title, second title win of this year, and 15th world championship win of his career. Last year the winner of the Chunlan Cup was Chang Hao 9p who defeated in finals Lee Changho 9p 2-0.
The Chunlan Cup World Go Championship is sponsored by the Chunlan Group of China. 24 participants are invited, from China (9), Japan (6), Korea (5), Taiwan (2), America (1) and Europe (1). Each player is given 3 hours and 1 minute’s overtime counting for 5 times for the time. The compensation points are 7.5 and the champion and runner-up prize are $150,000 and $50,000 million respectively.
In the first game Lee Sedol tried some new variants in the opening (move 9) as he is always feels very confident in complicated situations. The turning point in the game was Lee Sedol's deep invasion into White's territory (move 133) which was not easy to answer. A few moves later Lee Sedol finds loophole in White's position, managing to divide White groups and eventually kill one.