Overcoming the shadow of 17 consecutive defeats to defeat Park Tinghuan, Shin Jinzhen will challenge for the Go world championship for the first time in 4 years

Park Jeong-hwan (32 years old), who dominated the Korean Go world in the 2010s, spread his wings of resurrection. On the 21st local time, Park Jeong-hwan defeated South Korea's No. 1 Shin Jinzhen (25 years old) in the round of 16 of the 30th LG Cup Chosun Ilbo Chess Championship held at Kunjiam Resort in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.

Park Tinghuan nine sections

Park created a favorable situation in the early grappling in the bottom right corner, and then stopped Shin Jinjin's counterattack to claim a rare complete victory. This is Park Jeong-hwan's second victory over Shin Jin-jin in 2 years and 10 months since the final round of the YK Jianji Cup round-robin in July 2022. During this time, Park Tinghuan lost to Shin Jinzhen for 17 consecutive defeats, and now he finally achieved a valuable victory.

Before Shin Jinzhen, Park Tinghuan was the first person to dominate the Korean Go world for a long time. Park Jeong-hwan, who has been known as a "prodigy" since he entered the Korean Go scene in 2006, turned 19 in June 2012, when he left Lee Sedol in the 9th dan and ascended to the top of the Korean rankings. Since then, Park Jeong-hwan and Lee Sedol have been on each other's thrones, and from December 2013 to October 2018, Park Jeong-hwan has been at the top of the list for 59 consecutive months, opening an era of his own.

Park Jeong-hwan (left) defeated Shin Jin-jin in the round of 16 of the LG Cup.

Park Jeong-hwan, who has won a total of 36 titles, has also won five major world championships. But with the emergence of the world-class "genius chess player" Shin Zhenzhen, Park Tinghuan was squeezed out of the championship. It is worth mentioning that in the "South China Sea Super Tournament Seven Chess Super Matchup" held in December 2020, Park Tinghuan was humiliated by Shin Zhenzhen and lost all 7 games, and was even evaluated as the end of the heyday.

But in the Go world dominated by Shin Jinzhen, Park Tinghuan also stubbornly survived as the second brother of South Korea and seized the opportunity to reach the top again. Park Jeong-hwan, who defeated Shin Jin-jin in the round of 16 of this year's LG Cup, will face Bian Sang-il in the quarterfinals in August this year. Although Bian Sang-il is the "defending champion", he has an 18-9 record in terms of head-to-head records, with Park Tinghuan leading.

Park Tinghuan (left) and Yang Kaiwen in the Chunlan Cup final

Affected by Ke Jie's abstention in the last final, all Chinese players in the LG Cup were absent this time. Therefore, if Park Tinghuan, who defeated Shin Jinzhen, crosses the threshold of Bian Sang-yi, the possibility of winning the championship will be very high.

Park Tinghuan will challenge the Chunlan Cup champion from the 20th to the 23rd of next month before the quarterfinals of the LG Cup, and the opponent in the final trilogy is Chinese chess player Yang Kaiwen, and Park Tinghuan is undefeated with 1 win to maintain the lead in the opponent record. Park Jeong-hwan's last World Series victory was at the Samsung Cup in November 2021. At that time, after losing 1 game to Shin Zhenzhen, he won 2 or 3 games in a row and turned defeat into victory. After that, Park Tinghuan, who failed to get involved with the world championship champion, is expected to win the championship again after four years. Recently, in the case of counterattacks by players in their 30s in the Korean Go world, whether Park Tinghuan will also be on the championship again has attracted much attention.