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ROUND 2 HIGHLIGHTS: DPR Korea Downs Japan, U.S. Squeaks By France, Austria Upsets Czechia

“I didn’t expect to lose on the first day,” said Japan’s Yohei Sato after his second-round loss to Taewon Jo of DPR Korea. Sato “missed a move in the middle game, completely failed to see it,” he said, admitting “This is going to hurt. But perhaps it’s psychologically easier to lose to an opponent like this early on, instead of after winning five or six games in a row.” Thomas Hsiang 7d (U.S.) squeaked out a half-point win over a visibly distraught Thomas Debarre 5d (France). “After the opening I felt I was far ahead, but then he tried hard to catch up and I almost let him do it,’ said Hsiang.

In one of Day 1’s most surprising upsets, Bernhard Scheid 5d (Austria) defeated Ondrej Silt 6d (l)  of Czechia. Silt “made a joseki mistake and so I got the lead,” said Scheid, “but then he managed to complicate the game and my lead became less clear. But then he began to make mistakes in the endgame, and after a while he resigned.” Meanwhile, Lucian Corlan of Romania recovered from his morning defeat by beating Geert Groenen of the Netherlands, Pal Balogh of Hungary downed Yuxiang Lou of Singapore, Ofer Zivony of Isreal beat Kaikun Xie of New Zealand, Leszek Soldan of Poland prevailed over Emil Estuardo Garcia Bustamante of Mexico, and Frederik Blomback of Sweden outplayed Le Khanh Lam Bui of Vietnam. Meanwhile, on the top boards, the players from China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, and the Republic of Korea rolled to victory over opponents from the Ukraine, Ireland, Denmark, and Switzerland. Summing up his game against Cheng-hsun Chen of Chinese Taipei, Ireland’s John Gibson (r) said “I resigned when I started getting into time trouble and realized that all my groups were dying. Chen had used up 10 minutes and 15 seconds of his time. It might have been 10 minutes and 30 seconds if I hadn’t helped him get his water bottle open. Perhaps that was the best thing I did during the game.’ - based on James Davies’ report on Ranka online; photos by John Pinkerton