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WMSG 2008 reports
From go.org.nz
[edit] reports from Du Shiyong
[edit] 5th October
The opening ceremony has been held at The Beijing Olympic Sports Centre on the 3rd October. Although there are some problems with the organization, the opening ceremony was colourful and exciting. Edwin was NZ’s flag bearer and he was doing well on the stage.
The first day’s competition was exciting too, with all NZ players with at least one win from two games. Barry is on top of his C group with two straight wins. It’s a really good outcome considering some of our opponents are top pros in the world.
Xiaowei Zhao in group A: Lost to Jiang of Korea (pro 8d); beat Diego of Italy (2k) and will play Miguel of Spain on the third round.
Corrin Lakeland in group B: Lost to Uffe of Denmark (3d); beat Gintautas of Lithuania (2k) and will play Mika of Finland (3d) on the third round.
Barry Phease in group C; Beat Rudolf of Slovakia (2d) and Willen of Holland (5d); he will play Wei Cheng of Canada (6d) on the third round.
Michael Lee in group D: Beat Niyazi of Azerbaijan (3d); lost to Wang Licheng of Taiwan (pro 9d) and will play Shiu of Great Britain (4d) on the 3rd round.
Ken Xie in group E: Lost to Michiel of Holland (6d); beat Luis of Mexico (4k) and will play Ben of South Africa (3d) on the 3rd round. Check from the tournament.
Women’s individual will start today and open event start tomorrow.
[edit] 7th October
Events are developing so fast and it's hard to keep track of it. The full results will be available on the .
The men's individual group stage finished with some excellent performances from the NZ team. Michael Lee finished with four wins from six rounds - he lost to a 9-dan pro in 2nd round and another 9-dan pro in the final round. It's a great achivement as both of them are very famous and Gu Li of China is the current holder of "Fujitsu Cup" and "Chunlan Cup" and hot favorite for this event. Congratulations, Michael.
Ken is also doing well with three wins. All other players picked up two wins each.
Women's individual and open events started one day and two days later. Yucong, Edwin and Longyang Li all achieved 50% win rate.
Some friendly games and teaching sessions also took place as players enjoy the gala atmosphere.
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See the IGF WMSG blog at
11 October
With the individual events over, NZ can be pleased with the performance of Michael Lee (4/6) and Li Long Yang (5/7). You can see full results of NZ individuals at the WMSG. Michael was only beaten by 2 professional players and beat a clutch of European 4 dans. Long Yang had a stand-out performance in his last game against the top Ukranian player Bogatsky (6D). Another notable win for NZ was Barry Phease in his game against another top European with good recent form, Willem Pomstra (5D) of the Netherlands. The competition moves into the teams and pairs torunament in the second week, with Michael, Long Yang and Ken Xie competing again in the men's team, joined by Du Shiyong and Stanley Wang. Colin Grierson and Ning Hu will play for NZ in the pairs event. Check out full results at .
18 October The NZ mens' team ended the tournament 7th equal (with a very strong Romanian team) out of the 20 teams in Group B. They began with a win against Slovakia and a loss to the the Japanese (stacked with 9d professionals!). In the 3rd round a loss against Poland (5-0) must have been a low point, particuarly as on paper both teams looked evenly matched. The team came back well to beat Bosnia and Herzegovina (3-2), and must have regained their confidence after a good win against a solid Finnish team (4-1). A loss to Hong Kong (1-4) saw them matched against Hungary in the final round. On paper Hungary, with two 6D players in Pal Balogh and Csaba Mero, looked to have the edge but NZ came away with an excellent win (3-2). Check out the full results at
New Zealand's pair of Hu Ning and Colin Grierson finished a very creditable 4th out of 8 teams in Group A with wins over Serbia, Columbia, Norway and South Africa. The win over Norway (Xia Jie Li 3d ; Xia Jie Lin 5d) looks like their strongest game. See.