Chinese professional Chen Yaoye plays the Micro Chinese Fuseki in this game versus Korean star Choi Cheolhan. It's always difficult to know who to root for when you've been following both players involved since before they reached 9dan. Harder still when it's an international match and you know they both want to take a win [...]
We all know that Lee Sedol sits proudly on top of the Korean go world. But do you remember when he was just a 3dan? Seems almost inconceivable, doesn't it? But he was, an for quite awhile, too.
I began studying Lee Sedol's gameplay when he was still a 3dan. Memorizing, in fact. To this day [...]
Now this game goes all the way back to the year 1996 when Lee Changho was still embracing his strategy of giving his opponent exactly what they wanted, and still winning. No, that's not a joke. Rui Naiwei, the strongest female professional go player was quoted saying that. This was the strategy with which he [...]
Now, I knew right from the off that Choi Cheolhan is a player who sometimes dabbles into the more unorthodox openings. One of the very first games of his that I ever studied was a game in which he played that way! Still, that style sort of died out from him as he grew into [...]
Normally I would say this lecture is surprising because of...something. But the player featured in this game is Lee Sedol. Really, over the years, what hasn't he done that could still surprise us? You don't become one of the world's top players by only playing one way with one style. He's tried it all.
So in [...]
I shouldn't have to tell anyone how much I dislike tengen. The mere sight of it causes me to sigh. When professionals use it, that's another story. I respect anyone willing to use this rather risky opening in a professional setting. After all, those games aren't just for fun or to troll. Those games typically [...]
It's no secret that I teach a lot of go, both publicly and privately. I do it practically every day. No days off for a go teacher. That said, how many times have I brought one of my students games online to share with everyone? Not often, huh? This game demanded that i review it for [...]
Park Jungwhan should be a household name for anyone who regularly studies top professional games. He is arguably one of Korea's best players, a status you don't come by without being able to take on the likes of Lee Changho, Lee Sedol, and others. So, when we see a player of that caliber play a [...]
If you've been paying attention to my lectures then you know that I love concentrating on 'normal' styles of play. My mission, if you will, is to help everyone identify what is normal about normal play and what it is considered normal. However, not everyone studies the same thing we do. I know, I know. [...]
Ah, the good old Kobayashi Fuseki. I used to play this thing all the time. More often than the Chinese Fuseki, if you can believe that. It's a stretch, I know. Playing something more than the Chinese Fuseki? Isn't that against the rules, or something? Because everyone is playing Chinese Fuseki variations these days, so [...]