LG Cup

The international LG Cup, begun in 1996, is the successor to the discontinued Korean domestic Kiwang title. For the 29th Edn, the full name of the tournament is LG Cup Chosun Ilbo Giwangjeon.

Table of contents Prizes, format, and country wins Previous Winners and Runners-up 29th edition finishing in 2025, rules controversy 30th Anniversary edition

Prizes, format, and country wins

The winner’s prize is ₩300 million (about $US209,000), while the runner-up receives ₩100 million (about $US70,000).

The main event is a 32-player knockout tournament, leading up to a best of three (was best of five before 11th cup) final match. Time limits are 3 hours main time with 5 periods of one minute byo-yomi (2014 cup has 5 periods of 40 seconds byo-yomi).

In the 29 competitions held so far, a Korean has won the most with 15 times, a Chinese player has won 11 times, a Japanese representative twice, and a Taiwanese player once.

Previous Winners and Runners-up

(See also LG cup, Go to Everyone)

29th edition finishing in 2025, rules controversy

For the 29th edition, Byun Sangil 9p and Ke Jie 9p reached the finals on 2024-10-02. The top seed and defending champion Shin Jinseo 9p had an upset loss to Han Sangcho, then-6p now-7p, in R2. Han was defeated by Ke Jie in R3.

The final match started on 2025-01-20 with a win to Ke Jie (B+2.5); he had also won all 6 of his previous games against Byun Sangil.

But then Byun won the next two by a strange type of foul. Under controversial new Korean rules, a player must deposit a captured stone on a lid, so it is visible to both, so score can be worked out accurately. The first violation resulted in a two-point penalty, and the second, automatic forfeit. Ke Jie is used to Chinese scoring, where prisoners don’t count as such. Ke lost R2 that way, then refused to continue after the first penalty two-point penalty in R3 ( he was already losing by over 20 points on the board after an earlier big mistake). The Go to Everyone page scored R2 as B+F and R3 as W+A to reflect the different circumstances of the disqualification losses.

This harsh rule has generated much anger among Chinese Go fans. Ke Jie boycotted the award ceremony and the Chinese Go Association refuses to accept the result. The KBA is having second thoughts, apologizing that its new rules brought the event into disrepute, and hopes to restore good relations with the Chinese Go community.

In early Feb 2025, the KBA repealed this rule.

30th Anniversary edition

China is still sore at depriving their player of the title with a rule that now even Korea agrees was unfair. So they are boycotting the 30th Anniversary edition. To replace them, the organizers have invited previous winners directly to the main tournament: Lee Chang-ho (1st, 3rd, 5th, and 8th), Yu Chang-hyeok (6th), and Kang Dong-yoon (20th) 9p from Korea; O Rissei (2nd) and Cho U (9th) 9p from Japan; and Zhou Junxun (11th) 9p from Taiwan.

They have also seeded two female players directly into the final group. One is World female #1 Choi Jung 9p, because she is the only female player to reach the final of the international Samsung Cup and the only female to have won a round in the main group of an LG Cup. The other is Nakamura Sumire 4p, Japan’s “genius girl” who now plays in Korea. Because she can be regarded as a bridge between the two countries, she was chosen to symbolize the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan. Both won their first round games.

In R2, Park Junghwan finally beat Shin Jinseo after 17 consecutive losses in 2 years and 10 months since July 2022.