Hoban Cup

Korean team, 2022. Left to right: Oh Yujin, Heo Seohyun, Choi Jeong, Lee Seulju & Kim Chaeyoung.

(湖盤杯)

The Hoban Strongest Female Player’s Cup is a new tournament which began in August 2021. The sponsor is the Korean conglomerate Hoban Construction whose CEO Kang Sang-yeol has shown his interest in Go by supporting a female Go league team since 2016. In the qualifiers of this new competition 41 players competed out of which four qualified to join the three top ranked players (Choi Jeong 9p, O Yujin 9p and Kim Chae-young 7p) and Cho Hye-yeon 9p who received the sponsor’s wild card. The main event, a round robin tournament, had a thinking time of 2 hours and a byoyomi of 1 minute three times.

- Daniela Trinks

Korean Qualification League, 2021 (for the 1st Edition)

(excerpted from the same source)

Choi Jeong and Oh Yoo-jin recorded the most wins, 6:1 and 5:2, respectively, and met in the finals from January 17th to 28th. In an interview before the best-of-five title match, both players were confident of winning 3:0 whereas Go experts anticipated a 3:2 result. The two rivals’ overall head-to-head score was 29:7 in favor of Choi. Last year, however, Oh Yoo-jin defeated Choi Jeong to win two major titles. As expected, the clash was very exciting and unpredictable, for instance the 3rd and 4th games took more than 5 hours to complete. In the end, Choi Jeong prevailed 3:1 to win the 1st Hoban title and her 22nd career title. She took home 30 million KRW ($25,000), while Oh Yoo-jin received 10 million KRW ($8,000)

1st Edition, 2022

Team Korea consists of Choi Jeong 9p and Oh Yujin 9p (ranking seeds), Kim Chaeyoung 7p (sponsor’s wild card), as well as teenagers Heo Seohyun 3p (19) and Lee Seulju 1p (16) who won the qualifiers. They will compete against Yu Zhiying 7p, Zhou Hongyu 6p, Lu Minquan 6p, Li He 5p, and Wu Yiming 3p from China, and Xie Yimin 7p, Suzuki Ayumi 7p, Fujisawa Rina 5p, Ueno Asami 4p, and Nakamura Sumire 2p from Japan.

- Daniella Trinks, again

The first phase of the tournament was held in May. The prodigious Wu Yiming performed exceptionally well, beating five opponents before finally losing to Chaeyoung, who in turn was beaten by Rina. The tournament has now restarted, with Rina to be challenged by Li He.