This morning, two of our European professionals were playing a game in the first round of the first "Beihai Xinyi Cup" World Weiqi Open Tournament, organised by the China Weiqi Association. This event gathered in China 64 professionals from Asia, North America, Europe and South-East Asia.

Let's kill the suspense already, Tanguy and Stanislaw lost and are already eliminated. Nevertheless, things could have been much more interesting if the usual lucky flow of life had let go of endless realities and would have allowed history to be hit by the seal of unprecedented unexpected surprise.

Now that suspense have been created by this psychological tesuji, let's write a few more boring lines and then get to the point with a bonus of sgf games.

All the games were broadcasted on fox server. You might have a hard time finding the first round, but you'll be able to follow the next ones, as the tournament is ongoing until April 20th. You can find the top games on channels such as BadukTV.

For a quick look at the opening ceremony with Tanguy and Stanislaw on the left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZO4XHiqZP4
On this website you shall be able to find the pairings, games and results https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/news/wr/belhal/1/

Back to Stanislaw and Tanguy, they had a tough pairing:
Stanislaw played black against Tu Xiaoyu 9p, a rising Chinese player who just defeated Shin Jinseo (N°1) last month, thus hopes were close to whatever can be under 0 for Stas to win. But…
But let’s check Tanguy as well.

Tanguy played black against Kyo Kagen 9p, a Taiwanese player from the Nihon Kiin, quite a very strong guy, hopes were also close to nothingness.
One more time, it seems Europeans were not that lucky with the pairings, but that’s fine, it’s 90% chances to fight some super strong top pro anyway!

In the game of St... no, let's start with Tanguy. In the game of Tanguy, things went not so good for Tanguy and unfortunately, as Kyo Kagen played very solid and sharp, there was no chance to fight back at all, so Tanguy resigned.


In the game of Stanislaw, on the other hand, things went in an interesting way: Tu Xioyu made a mistake and started a ko instead of living. He threatened to kill a group, but Stanislaw ignored, as there was a nice tesuji to connect (that’s the moment many strong European players who were following the game started to scream things such as “OH MY” and so on). Indeed, in just a couple of moves, tables turned completely. White was ahead by more than 18 before the ko, and suddenly, Stanislaw was actually....building a 10-11 pts lead, having only the yose to play at full strength to win the game!
Halas, Stas missread the sequence too and didn't play the right move - simply connect the stones-, which led to a final collapse later. Oh no! So close!

See by yourself, the action happens on the lower bottom and right.



Well played to both Tanguy and Stanislaw anyway, it was thrilling to watch!