Founded in 1996, the LG Cup World Chess Championship is one of the most stable world tournaments in the Go world, and will usher in its 29th edition in 2024. The only regret is that the scale of the LG Cup has shrunk since 2021, and the tournament has returned from 32 to 24 before 2005, and when the news of the possible resumption of the international comprehensive qualifiers in the Samsung Cup was announced, the allocation of places since the epidemic was still followed, and Korean chess players will occupy a maximum of 14 places including wild cards, more than half of the total.
The scene of the 29th LG Cup Korean team selection match.
On April 7, Shin Jin-jin kicked off for the LG Twin of the Korean Professional Baseball League as the LG Cup champion.
Practice before tee-off. Shin Jinzhen chose the No. 3 jersey that won the LG Cup three times on his behalf.
From April 9th to 19th, the Chinese team selection tournament was divided into the first stage of double elimination, and the second stage was held in turn. Since there are only 4 shortlisted places, 16 people from the national team will participate in the former rating, and Qi Yuting, Fan Tingyu, Ke Jie, and Gu Zihao successfully qualified, and formed the "strongest lineup" with seeded chess players Ding Hao and Xie Erhao.
The Japanese team is quite different, as the domestic tournament schedule has already been scheduled, and the players can only be selected according to the schedule restrictions. In addition, the Japanese Go national team decided to have a selection system this year, so there was a sequence of Xu Jiayuan, Ita Atsushi, Sakai Yuki, and Yuichi Hirose in the morning and afternoon rounds of the four on April 16, and then according to the results of the 79th Honinbo Challenger Decisive Match in Japan on April 18, to determine which of the above four people played.
Ben Yin Fang battle Yu Zhengqi defeated Shibano Tiger Pill to get the right to challenge, but Yu Zhengqi was unable to participate in the LG Cup because of the collision of the final schedule (the current Ben Yin Fang Yili Liao is also the same), Shibano Tiger Pill "lost the east corner of the harvest of mulberry elm", and Xu Jiayuan, Ita Atsushi went into battle together. Based on the above situation, if Shibano challenges Beninbo, the LG Cup may be the lineup of Heo Jiayuan, Atsushi Ita, and Yuki Sakai, otherwise the selection match will be meaningless.
The LG Cup selection tournament of the Chinese Taipei team, which was held in the Taiwan Chess Academy in the past, was held in the Haifeng Chess Academy for the first time due to the transfer of all operations by the Taiwan Chess Academy in February 2024.
The Chinese Taipei team selection tournament was held from March 28 to April 16, with a total of 32 professional chess players signing up, and Lai Junfu defeated Chen Weiting, Wang Yuanjun, and Hsu Haohong in a row, and won the only place in the competition for two consecutive years.
The decisive round is traditionally played at the Taipei Yingchang Period Go Education Foundation.
The Korean team selection tournament was held from April 14 to 19, with 238 professional players and 8 amateur players (a total of 246 players, more than the 235 players in last year's 28th edition) to compete for seven qualifications. From the 85-year-old veteran Ko Jae-hee, who was born in 1939, to the new junior Duan Kim Ha-yun, who was born in 2011 and is not yet 12 years old, all participated in the cruel competition with a ratio of 35 to 1. The winners are as follows:
Kang Dong-yun (born in 1989), Shengyang-jian, Choi Jae-young, Shim Jae-ik, Lee Won-young, Park so-chang. Against Park so-chang (left), an older up-and-coming talent born in 1994 and only set in 2022, Kang Dong-yun had been in a big defeat for a long time, and he miraculously reversed in the eight moves before the endgame.
Lee Ji-hyun (right, b. 1992), Seung Park Shin-young, Lee Hyun-wook, Kim Ki-beom, Jung Yeo-yeo, Moon Min-jong (left).
Choi Hyun-jae (left, b. 1993), Seung Yoon Seo-won (transliteration, amateur), Jang so-young, Park Min-kyu, Kim Seung-jae, Ahn Jung-ji (right).
Kim Jin-hui (b. 1996, right), wins Lee Min-seok, Han Jung-hee, Lee Sung-jae, Kang Ru-taek, and Kim Ji-seok.
Lee Chang-seok (b. 1996, right), Seung Kim Joo-hyung, Lee Chang-ho, Song Ji-hoon, Han Woo-yeong, Kim Do-bin (left).
Kim Myung-hyun (b. 1997), H. Yong Young, Park Young, Zhao Young, Kim Young-jin, and Choi Jin.
Han Sang-joo (right, b. 1999), Seung Na Hyun, Park Jong-hoon, Yoo Chang-joo, Lee Seung-joon, and Hyun Hyun Joon (left).
Eight years ago, LG Cup champion Kang Dong-yun led a group of stalwart chess players (there was no post-00), and the last champion and runner-up Shin Jinzhen and Bian Xiangyi, Park Tinghuan and Shin Minjun, who ranked high in the rating, and Park Jianhao and Won Sung-kyun, the seeds of the South Korean national team, formed the 13-member squad of the Korean team. The wild card has not yet been announced. The top 24 and top 16 of this competition will be held on May 20 and 22 in Kunjiam, Guangzhou, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.
The little girl Choi Jinghao won four consecutive victories - a big reversal of Song Gyu-sang and Kim Da-young, a complete victory over Hwang Jae-yeon, and even broke the world champion Park Yong-hoon, but unfortunately fell to the last hurdle before this match.
Sumire Chung-yi, who represented South Korea in the World Championship for the first time, defeated Kim Jung-hoon (left), an amateur powerhouse who was 17 years older than her in the first round of the qualifiers, and also had a long-term victory in sight when she challenged the famous player Xu Yinghao.
Xu Nengxu vs. Diana.
An embarrassing scene occurred on April 16, the duel between Lee Chang-ho and Lee Chang-seok has given people a humorous impression of "Lee Kui vs. Lee Ghost" from the name, a generation of kings Lee Chang-ho left and right down did not return, and the calculation of the levy continued to make mistakes, and the son of the conscription ran four times before he saw the defeat, leaving a "short life spectrum" of 126 hands.