Founded in 2010, the Korea Daezhou Cup Seniors Tournament was initially limited to veterans over the age of 50, but from the 4th edition, the restrictions were relaxed for female chess players, and the age of participation was reduced to over 30 years old. Ten years later, Lee Hyun-jin, who was originally the "object of care", and Kim Hye-min, who was born in 1984, expelled the seniors one by one in the 9th Dazhou Cup, setting a new record for female chess players to win the championship and runner-up of gender-neutral events for the first time.
Kim Hye-min Jiudan, who is pregnant with the 6th League, entered the tournament after defeating Choi Kyu-bong in the final round of the qualifiers, and won the same opponent who was revived with a wild card in the semi-finals to advance to the final.
The preliminary selection of this year's Dazhou Cup began from January 17 to 19, with 47 male players over the age of 50 and 31 female players over the age of 30 participating. Many Hanjiang elders, even if their hair is gray and their children are trembling, they are also excited to come to a plate. After the three rounds of qualifiers, only Kim Il-hwan, Ahn Kwan Wook, Kim Jong-so, and Seo Neng-wook broke through, and the female chess players were Lee Young-joo, Cho Hye-lien, Kim Mi-ri, Park Ji-juan, Kim Hye-min, Kwon Hyo-jin, Lee Hyun-jin, and Kim Lun-young, reaching as many as eight.
Eighty-year-old Park Jin-yue's nine-dan (left) qualifier against seventy-four-year-old Cho Young-sook Sandan (South Korea's first female professional chess player) is rarely seen in the young Chinese-Korean chess world.
In order to maintain the gender balance, in addition to the last champion and runner-up Xu Bong-so and Liu Chang-hyuk who directly entered the competition, the organizers issued two wild cards to the 6th champion Choi Gyu-bing and the 7th runner-up Kim Young-hwan, who failed to qualify. In the qualifiers, Jin Ronghuan lost to his Chinese daughter-in-law Kwon Hyo-jin as soon as he came up, and Choi Gyu-bing lost to Kim Hye-min in the decisive round after winning consecutive victories over Wen Wengen and Zheng Daxiang, and a foreshadowing was laid.
Born in 1937 and now at the age of 85, Choi Jang Won played in the qualifiers, losing in the first round to kim Shin-young, a beautiful chess player aged 54. Choi Jang-won is the oldest active professional chess player in South Korea, and the only person in the world above him is Japan's Sugiuchi Shouko Hachidan.
Affected by this, the queen who was once in the limelight, but Park Ji-eun, who lost to Kim Hye-rin in the first round of the qualifiers, did not get the favor of wild cards. "Emperor of Go" Cao Xuanxuan did not fall in the first four Dazhou Cups, won two championships, but did not register after being elected to the National Assembly and returning to the chess world, giving the outside world a strong sense of excitement and reluctance to play a test.
Qualifier match scene.
The round of 16 will be played twice a week on Friday from February 11 at the studio of K Go TV in South Korea, which lasts until April 29. The match was drawn according to the eight-on-eight confrontation between men and women, and the most effective players on the veteran side, Seo Bong-so and Liu Chang-hyuk, were both out of the first round, losing to Kim Hye-min and Park Ji-juan. Xu Fengsu even played a big spoon at the last moment when there was only one or two eyes of the official, which made people sigh "incorruptible and old".
Seo Bong-so was runner-up twice in the Dazhou Cup and four times to the final four, until 2021, at the age of 68, he won the cup for the first time in the 8th edition, and the 9th edition left the tournament early in an incredible way in the opening match.
Seo Bong-so's 288 is a loss that has fallen by 98 win-points, and if it ends in the next road, it will be a white victory half-eye.
The first round of gender confrontation was 3 to 5, Xu Bongsu and Liu Changhe raised the white flag first, followed by "three golds", Kim Jong-so, Kim Young-hwan, Kim Il-hwan successively defeated Cho Hye-lien, Lee Hyun-jin, Kim Mi-ri, judging from the achievements made in their respective gender fields, this result is not surprising. Xu Nengxu, An Guanxu, and Choi Gyu-bing defeated Kim Lun-young, Kwon Hyo-jin, and Lee Young-joo in turn. In the quarterfinals, the fast gunner Xu Nengxu lost to the "heroine of the ring" Lee Hyun-jin, the "Golden Women's Civil War" Kim Hye-min eliminated Kim Mi-ri, Choi Kyu-bing and An Guan-wook won Cho Hye-lien and Park Ji-juan, and the semi-final returned to a balanced state of 2V2.
Xu Nengxu, the two-time champion who lost to Li Weizhen's eighth dan, sighed in the sky.
On April 15 and 29, the two semi-finals were held one after another. As the last bastion of the men's veterans, An Guanxu and Choi Gyu-bing were unable to turn the tide, exposing their backbone, losing to Lee Hyun-jin and Kim Hye-min, making a men-women game of Go competition for the first time by two female players competing for the championship. The final of the 9th Dazhou Cup will start on May 13, with a prize money of 15 million won (about 80,000 yuan).
Although Li Weizhen (left) has a legendary record of ending the ring many times, he has not won any individual championship in the twenty-four years since entering the stage. Kim Hye-min (right), two years younger than Lee Hyun-jin, has a special significance in this competition, and the due date of her second child is in May, when the finals are approaching.