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MYUNGWAN KIM 9P WINS FIRST STRONG PLAYERS ONLINE TOURNEY

Taking advantage of an attack on his opponent's central group, Myungwan Kim 9P won the first Strong Player's Online Tournament (SPOT1) Saturday, May 22. Kim won Game 2 Saturday to sweep the match 2-0 against his young Canadian opponent Jianing Gan 6d. The game featured a complicated battle in the bottom-hand right corner in which any mistake would lead immediate collapse. Gan responded correctly, but had a few slow moves and Kim took sente to attack another group and while Gan managed to survive, Kim consolidated a huge territory on the left and  Gan resigned at move 174. Earlier in the day, Eric Lui defeated Zhaonian Chen -- once again killing a giant group to seal victory -- to take third place. Lui, playing white, succeeded again with a moyo strategy; White 24 and 32 focused on the moyo while Black 25 and 33 stole White's corner territory. Black invaded by attaching at 73, and White's attack set up a favorable trade of 28 black stones while only sacrificing 13, keeping a lead of about 15 points and winning by resignation. Kim won the $1,000 top cash prize, runner-up Gan won $400 and Lui won $100. All three players automatically qualify for the Top 32 in the next SPOT tourney. Kuo Yin 3P provided live commentaries again for SPOT1 from Beijing, China, and Jie Li 7D commented game 2 of the finals. - Edward (Zhiyuan) Zhang; photo by Yixian Zhou