2003-09-30Round 3

The extra time available between the bus leaving the hotel and the 3rd round starting at 10:00, was spent on a little sight seeing. We went to the Wolido waterfront, where I had already been with Chris a couple of days ago in the evening. It is where the American troops first landed in 1950 in the Korean war. It gave us the opportunity to take some real touristic pictures (the kind where everybody poses against a certain background).

The pairing of round 3 had one big surprise: Japan (Hiraoka Satoshi) against China (Sun Yiguo). It gave ground to all sorts of speculations. Of course a random draw could give this pairing, but it is definitely an advantage for the Korean player that his main rivals meet early. Sun has already won an earlier Amateur World Championship in 1993, so he was a little bit of a favourite, but he lost this game. Both players are very strong, and known. I found I had 19 games of Sun already in my database, and 3 by Hiraoka.

Round 4

The most exciting game of round 4 was Korea (Kim Jughwan) against Chinese Taipei (Yi-Cheng Shin). Chinese Taipei? That is Taiwan. But the name cannot be used for political reasons. Anyway, this Chinese player is very strong. But the Korean is also strong. He was an insei, in the top twelve group, of which seven get promoted to professional every year. The story goes that he was still in the top 12 when he became 18, but did not earn his promotion, and the same when he was 19, the very last chance he had through the regular system. Maybe, if he wins this amateur championship, he might get his promotion after all. So he is not just playing for the prize money, he is playing for his career.

This game did probably not go as he had planned. He had a difficult game, and around move 180 even I could count that the Chinese player was ahead by a couple of points. But in byoyomi Shin made a blunder and had to resign.

The Europeans

Matthew and Vesa lost both their games today. Emil is doing better: he won both, and is 7th after two days of playing. Best Europeans are Cornel Burzo from Romania and Leszek Soldan from Poland, still with a perfect score.

Dinner and evening

See the pictures. We went into the Chinese Fairground to see the acrobats show.