Who will take the medals in the 1st World Mind Sports Games in China?

 - an article by A.Dinerchtein  :  http://gogame.info/. 

Some rules and details first:

6 Go events will take place from October 4 to October, 17, 2008:

Men’s team, Women’s team, Men’s individual, Women’s individual, Mixed pairs (Pair Go), and Open.

1. Professional players can participate in only one event.
2. Amateur players can participate in two events.

Today we will talk about the following tournaments:

Men's Individual
1. 5 players is the maximum for each country or territory.
2. Both amateurs and professionals are eligible.
3. In the first stage, the Swiss System will be used to select the top 8 players. In the second stage, the knock-out system will be used.
4. The gold medal should be decided on 8th October.

Men's Team
1. A total of 6 players per country or territory (5 competitors + 1 reserve).
2. Both amateurs and professionals are eligible.
3. In the first stage, the Swiss System will be used to select the top 8 teams. In the second stage, a knock-out system will be used.
4. The gold medal should be decided on 17th October.

Mixed Pairs (Pair Go)
1. 2 mixed pairs is the maximum for each country or territory.
2. Both amateurs and professionals are eligible.
3. The Swiss System will be used, with 2 rounds per day.
4. The gold medal should be decided on 16th October.

Men's Individual
This is the most important event. We don’t have single World Championships like in chess or other sport/games, so most of people and Mass Media will call the winner of this division the best Go player in the world.

Korea. I am pretty sure, that the first Korean player will be Lee Sedol, 9-dan, who never plays in Team events, but who will be the next 4? Lee Changho, 9-dan is a team player – we remember his 15+ games winning streak in Nongshim cups. Korean team will need him! Park Yeunhun’s, 9-dan performance on the last Nongshim cup was poor. He lost his game to Chang Hao, 9-dan without any chances, so he will probably be the second player in the Individual event. These two players can make the chances for Gold medal very high, so it’s not necessary to invite other top Korean players to take part in this event. It’s better to save them for Team Tournament. Other good candidates for the last 3 places are Yoo Changhyuk, Park Chunsang, Mok Chinseok, Kang Dongyun, Kim Chiseok and Lee Yeongku

China. Chinese team, who won the Nongshim cup few days ago, will try to save the team members and repeat the success. I am not sure about Gu Li, 9-dan (the first board of the Chinese team on the Nongshim cup, who did not play any games), but Chang Hao, 9-dan who bring the victory to the Chinese team will not play in Individual event for sure. They will probably invite the players who did not play in Nongshim cup: Xie He, Kong Jie, Luo Xihe, Piao Wenyao, Wang Lei, Chen Yaoyoe, Yu Bin or other top players.

Japan. Japanese team has small chances for getting the gold medal in team competition, so they  can allow top players to take part in Individual event. We will probably see Cho U, Cho Chikun, Yamashita Keigo, Yoda Norimoto and Takao Sinji.

Taiwan. I am not sure that Taiwanese players will come to China, because of politics-related problems, but any way, I will describe their teams and chances.
Taiwanese players has small chances of getting medals, because it’s forbidden to invite "former Taiwanese", who don’t have Taiwanese passports such as Cho U, O Rissei, O Meien, Rin Kaiho, So Yokoku and others.  It’s clear that best Taiwanese players will take part in Individual event. We will see Zhou Junxun, 9-dan, Chen Shiyuan, 7-dan, Xiao Zhenghao, 5-dan, Lin Zhihan, 8-dan and somebody else.

Other countries: Top European and US players cannot compete with top Asians, so I suggest them to pay attention on other events - Pairgo, first of all.

Men's Team
Korea. Korean team has very good chances of winning the event, if they compose the team of Lee Changho, 9-dan, Choi Chelhan, 9-dan, Cho Hunhyun, 9-dan, Wong Sungchin, 8-dan and Yun Chunsang, 7-dan. All of them showed outstanding results in the previous team events, such as Nongshim cup and CSK cup.
The second Korean team can be formed by young professionals: Kang Dongyun, Kim Chiseok, Ko Guntae and other young stars. It will have some chances for medals too

China. The team, who won the Nongshim cup-2008, will take part in Men’s Team event. The only question is about Gu Li, 9-dan, who did not play any games for the Chinese team, because of Chang Hao, who destroyed all opponents of Korean and Japanese teams alone. Gu Li, 9-dan has good chances in Individual competition and it’s hard to estimate his final choice.
The second Chinese team can be veterans team or junior team, depending on the decision of the Chinese Weiqi Association. We will probably meet Nie Weiping, 9-dan, who will play on the first board of the second Chinese team.

Japan. The chances of the best-of-best Japanese team are small, so the main Japanese stars will take part in Individual event. Nihon Kiin may think of composing 2 teams: veterans team with Rin Kaiho, Otake, Kobayashi Koichi, Ishida Yoshio and Takemiya and juniors team with Kono Rin or Iyama Yuta on the first board.

Taiwan. Taiwanese teams will have small chances for getting medals, even if they invite best players

Other teams. Romanian team (Taranu, Pop, Bajenaru, Burzo, …) can be quite strong. Russian and US teams can be good too, if we find enough money for sending best players, but I don’t think that we have any chances against Asian teams. Maybe it will be possible to win against Taiwan-2, but that’s all.


Pairgo
Korea. Pairgo is not popular in Korea. They don’t have any pairgo tournaments and experienced pairs. Koreans will probably send family pairs: Kim Youngsam and Hyun Mijin, Lee Sanghun and Ha Hochang or Kwon Hyojin with her husband (but I am not sure, that he already received the Korean citizenship )

China. Chang Hao with her wife Zhang Xuan, who is currently the strongest Chinese pair will not take part, because of the 1-event limitation. We will probably meet the pairs with Hua Xueming, 8-dan and Yang Hui, 8-dan. I think that they have bigger chances of getting medals in pairgo, comparing with their chances on Female Individual Championship

Japan. Japanese pairs will be the main favorites, because they have pairgo pro tournaments such as Ricoh cup and partners, who know each other well. The best Japanese pairs are Yamada Kimio, 9-dan with Okada Yumiko and O Rissei, 9-dan with Kato Keiko.

Taiwan. They have some 1p-3p female professionals in Taiwan, but they are much weaker than girls from other Asian countries. I don’t think that Taiwanese pairs have real chances of getting medals.

Other countries.  Non Asian players have very small chances of getting any medals on Mind Sport Games in general, but if we think about the highest chances, they are in pairgo. European pairs Diana Koszegi with Pal Balogh ("zsi" and "macisajt" on KGS) and Svetlana Shikshina with Ilya Shikshin ("redrose" and "roln111" on KGS) can be dangerous for Asians. I am sure, that they have at least 5-10% winning chances against any Asian pair. It’s necessary to beat several Asian pairs straight for getting medals, so the chances of European pairs will be more or less than 1%.

t will be a miracle of course, but it’s pairgo and everything can happened here.
USA can form a very strong pair too, consisting of Feng Yun, 9-dan pro and Jiang Mingju, 8-dan. I will say that their chances of getting medals are close to 10%. Feng Yun, 9-dan may also think about playing in Individual Female tournament together with Rui Naiwei, Park Chiun and other top players, but considering that she is out of shape,  I will say that her chances of getting the medal in Individual competition are smaller than in pairgo.

Pairgo is full of mistakes and misunderstanding between partners, so I bet that the main sensations will take place in this event