| Park Junghwan | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Hangul | 박정환 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 朴廷桓 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 11 January 1993 South Korea | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Residence | South Korea | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Teacher | Kweon Kab-yong | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Turned pro | 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Rank | 9 dan | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation | Hanguk Kiwon | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Park Junghwan (born 11 January 1993) is a South Korean professional Go player of 9-dan rank.
Park became a professional Go player in 2006. He won the Fujitsu Cup in 2011. Park defeated Lee Chang-ho to advance to the final of the 2012 Ing Cup, where he faced Fan Tingyu for the title. He lost three games to one. [1] He won the 19th LG Cup in 2015, defeating Kim Ji-seok in the final, 2–1. [2] [3]
After a series of strong performances, in which during a span of 2 months he was able to defeat World No.1 Ke Jie in two consecutive international tournaments, namely the LG Cup and the Ing Cup, Park was able to reach the final of the latter, and the round of 8 in the former. Park faced Tang Weixing in the final of the 2016 Ing Cup, with the first two games being played in mid-August. The first 2 games of the Ing Cup were played, with Park winning the first by resignation whilst losing the second. In both games the margin of victory was small, but Park was able to produce a comeback in the second game, with Tang lamenting that he went wrong after the midgame.
Park's most recent results were the Bailing Cup, where despite his best efforts, he was not able to defeat the Chinese Tianyuan holder Chen Yaoye. During that game, both sides opened up securing territory and doing big territorial exchanges, but a slip-up by Park allowed Chen to win an important ko that ultimately led to loss of territory. Chen was then able to capitalize and win the game, thereby ending the Korean player's string of dominance in the international tournaments.
From the 22nd to 26 October 2016, Park contested the final 3 games of the 8th Ing Cup with former World Champion and one of China's highest ranked players, Tang Weixing, with the score standing at 1:1 (after the first 2 games were played in mid August). Despite Park winning the third game, and bringing the score to 2:1 and having 2 chances to win his first Ing Cup after losing the previous edition, Tang came from behind to win once with white (up to game 4 all games had been won by the player with the white stones), and once more with Black (by 5 points, after Ing komi was applied), thereby securing China's third Ing Cup victory out of 8, 2nd behind Korea who has 5. Park, however, was left with bitter disappointment for being the first player to lose 2 back to back Ing cup finals, despite also joining the ranks of a few well known pros of previous generations, such as compatriots Lee Chang-ho and Choi Cheol-han and former World Champion Chang Hao 9p of China, who had also played 2 finals. Incidentally, all 3 players listed above secured victories once over each of their rivals whilst losing to the other, spanning 3 consecutive Ing Cups from the 4th edition to 6th. The record between all of them is 1 Title, 1 runners up.
Park later played in the LG Cup quarterfinals on mid November (14th), where is opponent will be former world champion and 2x LG Cup winner Gu Li 9p. He defeated Gu Li by resign, but subsequently fell to another Chinese player Zhou Ruiyang 9p, thus ending his 2016-17 season.
Park won the 2017 World Go Championship, a special invitational tournament organized by the Nihon Ki-in, defeating Iyama Yuta, Japanese Go program DeepZenGo and Mi Yuting. [4]
Park performed strongly in 3rd Mlily Cup, defeating Tuo Jiaxi, Zhou Ruiyang, Ke Jie, Chen Zijian and Xie Ke. His opponent in the finals will be Park Yeonghun 9p.
| Rank | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 dan | 2006 | Promoted to professional dan rank after passing qualifying test. |
| 2 dan | 2007 | |
| 3 dan | 2008 | |
| 4 dan | 2009 | Won the 4th Siptan against Baek Hongseok. |
| 5 dan | 2009 | Won the 14th Chunwon against Kim Jiseok. |
| 6 dan | 2010 | Won the 5th Siptan against Lee Changho. |
| 7 dan | 2010 | Qualified for the 2nd BC Card Cup main tournament. |
| 8 dan | 2010 | Skipped over due to the Hanguk Kiwon promotion rules. |
| 9 dan | 2010 | Won the 2010 Asian Games, becoming the youngest Korean 9 dan at 17 years old. |
| Year | Wins | Losses | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 11 | 8 | 57.9% |
| 2008 | 15 | 14 | 51.7% |
| 2009 | 24 | 14 | 63.2% |
| 2010 | 35 | 15 | 70.0% |
| 2011 | 41 | 19 | 68.3% |
| 2012 | 79 | 31 | 71.8% |
| 2013 | 79 | 28 | 73.8% |
| 2014 | 75 | 26 | 74.3% |
| 2015 | 58 | 20 | 74.4% |
| 2016 | 57 | 24 | 70.4% |
| 2017 | 55 | 16 | 77.5% |
| 2018 | 58 | 19 | 75.3% |
| 2019 | 72 | 23 | 75.8% |
| 2020 | 17 | 9 | 65.4% |
| Total | 676 | 269 | 71.5% |
Ranks #5 in total number of individual titles in Korea and tied for #5 in total number of international titles.
| Domestic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Title | Wins | Runners-up |
| Baduk Masters Fighting God | 1 (2007) | |
| Siptan | 2 (2009-2010) | |
| GS Caltex Cup | 1 (2011) | |
| Prices Information Cup | 1 (2013) | |
| Chunwon | 2 (2009, 2014) | |
| Guksu | 2 (2014–15) | |
| Myungin | 1 (2016) | |
| Maxim Cup | 3 (2012–13, 2017) | 1 (2014) |
| KBS Cup | 5 (2011–2013, 2016, 2018) | 3 (2014–15, 2019) |
| Crown Haitai Cup | 1 (2018) | |
| Baduk TV Cup | 1 (2019) | |
| Yongseong | 1 (2019) | 1 (2020) |
| Korea Strongest Player | 1 (2020) | |
| Total | 20 | 7 |
| Continental | ||
| Title | Wins | Runners-up |
| China-Korea Tengen | 1 (2010) | |
| Total | 1 | 0 |
| International | ||
| Title | Wins | Runners-up |
| Fujitsu Cup | 1 (2011) | |
| Asian TV Cup | 2 (2013, 2015) | |
| Ing Cup | 2 (2013, 2016) | |
| LG Cup | 1 (2015) | 1 (2020) |
| IMSA Elite Mind Games, Men's Blitz | 1 (2017) | |
| Mlily Cup | 1 (2018) | |
| Kuksu Mountains Championship | 1 (2018) | |
| World Go Championship | 3 (2017–19) | |
| Chunlan Cup | 1 (2019) | |
| Total | 8 | 6 |
| Career total | ||
| Total | 29 | 13 |
| Title | Wins | Runners-up |
|---|---|---|
| Asian Games, Men's Team | 1 (2010) | |
| Asian Games, Mixed Double | 2 (2010) | |
| SportAccord World Mind Games, Team | 1 (2011) | |
| SportAccord World Mind Games, Men's Team | 1 (2013) | |
| Nongshim Cup | 1 (2013) | 4 (2014-2017) |
| IMSA Elite Mind Games, Mix Double | 1 (2016) | |
| IMSA Elite Mind Games, Men's Team | 1 (2017) | |
| Total | 7 | 5 |
Players who have won international go titles in bold.
Chen Yaoye 16:22
Lee Sedol 14:18 Park Yeonghun 21:9 Kim Jiseok 20:6 Lee Changho 16:7 Ke Jie 11:10 Choi Cheolhan 14:6 Shi Yue 11:9 Tan Xiao 12:5 Yun Junsang 9:8 Cho Hanseung 13:3 Zhou Ruiyang 11:5 Tang Weixing 9:7 Lee Younggu 13:2 Shin Jinseo 10:5 Fan Tingyu 8:7 Kang Dongyun 7:7 Baek Hongseok 11:2 Mi Yuting 7:6 Won Seongjin 7:4 On Sojin 7:3 Mok Jinseok 6:4 Gu Li 5:5 Hong Seongji 8:1
Chen Yaoye is a Chinese professional Go player.
Gu Li is a Chinese professional Go player.
Choi Cheol-han (Korean: 최철한) is a South Korean professional Go player. He is the fourth youngest to become a professional Go player in South Korean history behind Cho Hun-hyun, Lee Chang-ho and Cho Hye-yeon. His nickname is "The Viper".
The Ing Cup is an international Go tournament with a cash prize of over US$400,000. It was created by, and is named after, Ing Chang-ki. The tournament is held once every four years and hence often nicknamed the Go Olympics.
The Nongshim Cup is a Go tournament sponsored by Nongshim, an instant noodle food company of South Korea.
Kong Jie is a Chinese professional Go player.
Zhou Ruiyang is a Chinese professional Go player.
The 16th LG Cup began on 13 June 2011 and concluded on 15 February 2012. Jiang Weijie won the title, defeating Lee Chang-ho in the final. 32 players from four countries competed in the final knockout tournament:
The 15th LG Cup began on 7 June 2010 and concluded on 23 February 2011. Piao Wenyao won the title, defeating compatriot Kong Jie in the final. 32 players from four countries competed in the final knockout tournament:
Ke Jie is a Chinese professional Go player of 9 dan rank. He was born on August 2, 1997, in Liandu District, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province.
Zen, sold as Tencho no Igo in Japan, is a closed source Go playing engine developed by Yoji Ojima (尾島陽児), a Japanese Go programmer.
Master is a version of DeepMind's Go software AlphaGo, named after the account name used online, which won 60 straight online games against human professional Go players from 29 December 2016 to 4 January 2017. This version was also used in the Future of Go Summit in May 2017. It used four TPUs on a single machine with Elo rating 4,858. DeepMind claimed that AlphaGo Master was 3-stone stronger than the version used in AlphaGo v. Lee Sedol.
Shi Yue is a Chinese professional go player.
Mi Yuting is a Chinese professional go player. As of Oct 2018, he is ranking 1st in Go ratings with an Elo rating of 3645.
Lian Xiao is a Chinese professional go player. As of January 2017, he is ranking 5th in Chinese Weiqi Association official ratings with and Elo rating of 2660. Lian was promoted to 8 dan on 16 January 2017, and 9 dan in October 2017.
The Future of Go Summit was held in May 2017 by the Chinese Go Association, Sport Bureau of Zhejiang Province and Google in Wuzhen, Zhejiang, the permanent host of the World Internet Conference. It featured five Go games involving AlphaGo and top Chinese Go players, as well as a forum on the future of AI. It was Google’s biggest public event in partnership with the Chinese government since Google China's search engine was moved out of mainland China to Hong Kong due to the government censorship in 2010. It was seen as a charm offensive launched by Google toward Chinese officials, being part of effort to reopen China's market.
Tang Weixing is a Chinese professional go player. He has won three international titles, with two championships in the Samsung Cup and one in the Ing Cup (2016).
Shin Jin-seo is a South Korean professional Go player. He has won seven major international championships: the LG Cup in 2020, 2022 and 2024; the Chunlan Cup in 2021; the Samsung Cup in 2022; the Ing Cup in 2023; and the Quzhou-Lanke Cup in 2024. He is the number one ranked Korean player in the Korea Baduk Association's official rankings, a spot which he first reached in November 2018 and has held continuously since January 2020.
