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Lee Sedol Prevails in 5-Match Battle to Win BC Card Cup

Lee Sedol 9P has won the 3rd BC Card Cup World Baduk Championship, defending his title against Gu Li 9P, in an exciting five-match showdown. At press-time last week, the E-Journal reported that the 3rd BC Card Cup final was tied at one all. What an exciting week fans of professional go have had since then! Lee pulled ahead in Game Three, staging a surprise reversal after Gu led for most of the game. Gu, playing white, made a small overplay in the late middle game, invading black's position at the top with move 146. Lee met this with unrelenting force and an iron will. He managed to kill all of white's invading stones, bringing himself back into the game and going on to win by half a point. Game Four was the most complicated of the series, opening with a new and fiendishly difficult variation in the lower right. The fighting spread from there and didn't stop for the whole game. Many assumed the game was over and that Lee had won the title when he took a decided advantage at move 134. However, Gu kept fighting and pulled off an even more amazing reversal with his brilliant play from move 173 onwards. Be sure to check out An Younggil 8P's commentary. Given the preceding games, there was a lot of excitement around the fifth and final match. The game itself was relatively peaceful and, unfortunately for Gu, Lee took the lead after Gu misjudged a ko around move 70. After this, Lee demonstrated how to win a won game, trading his way around Gu's strong challenges and leading things into the endgame. Gu resigned after all his opportunities to reverse the game had been eliminated, giving Lee Sedol his second consecutive win in the BC Card Cup. This also resolves the deadlock in the head-to-head record between these players, with the record now tilting in Lee's favor at 14-13. - David Ormerod; compiled from the collected reports on the BC Card Cup at Go Game Guru. Photo: (from left) Lee Sedol, Rui Naiwei, Jujo Jiang and Gu Li review Game Four of the final.