The 8th Wu Qingyuan Cup kicked off in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, on December 2nd.
Ting Li 1p (austria), European Woman Champion, was playing there for Europe.

The Wu Qingyuan (Go Seigen) Cup is a prestigious World Women tournament for top players, inviting each year the best European and North American players, additionally to the top Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese professionals. It runs as a direct knock-out tournament with 24 players. As 8 players are directly seeded on round 2, a second drawing happens after the first round is over.

Unfortunately, the chances to reach that second round diminished quite drastically when the pairing disclosed the first opponent of Ting: Lu Minquan 7p, ranked 5th among Chinese women players.

"I didn't feel any chance, she is too strong" commented Ting (playing white), explaining that her game became very difficult early-on after a wrong choice in the top right corner, around move 32.
"When she connected on the right side (45), I felt hopeless already".


You can check the record of the game below.


The story ends here for Ting, but if you're interested in the tournament, kifus shall be added to this page: https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/news/wr/wc/7/

If you're not interested but are ready to get interested with a little teasing, you should know that last year's winner was the Japanese #1, Ueno Asami 6p. Somehow, Choi Jeong (#1 among World Women back then, #2 now) had lost in round 2, and the teenage terror Kim Eunji 9p (now World #1) had also not made it to the final.

This year, the players are:

China: Tang Jiawen 6p, Yu Zhiying 8p, Lu Minquan 7p, Zhou Hongyu 7p, Wu Yiming 7p, Ye Zimeng 3p, Li He 6p, Wang Chenxing 6p, Luo Chuyue 6p, Li Sixiang 6p, Gao Xing 5p, Zhao Yifei 5p, Yue Jiayan 3p

Japan:  Ueno Asami 6p, Fujisawa Rina 7p, Ueno Risa 3p, Xie Yimin 7p

Korea: Choi Jung 9p, O Yujin 9p, Kim Eunji 9p, Kim Jooa 4p

Taiwan: Lu Yuhua 5p

North America: Wang Yinli 6d

Europe: Li Ting 1p

Will Asami manage to keep the title this year? Or will Tang Jiawen 9p, last year's runner-up, take her revenge? Or will Korea get crowned...?