| Winners in the Quarterfinals |
| The quarterfinals began at 12:30. Just as it was last week, a lot of fans had already filled the hall. |
| Nine-dan Mr. Michael Redmond announced the start of the games. The spectators were able to freely walk around in the hall to watch games, as they did last week. It was exciting to watch the pro players playing close at hand although the game sections were roped off. |
| In the next room, 9-dan Mr. Redmond made a commentary with a large board with 5-dan Ms. Yumiko Okada as the respondent, as they did last week. Since the Ricoh Cup recorder uses a personal computer, instead of paper, for making the records of each game, it is possible to immediately display the records on all TV monitors on line provided in the hall. In the large board commentary room also, a personal computer and a monitor are used to display the progress of each game. The moves that must be made next are displayed on the monitor without the commentator's placing stones on the board. It is also possible to flexibly go back to previous moves without removing stones. This is a new-style commentary with a large board, which reflects the information technology society. |
| (The records of all games of this tournament have been real-time distributed to more than 100 countries all over the world through the Panda Net, the world's largest online Go network.) |
| Before beginning the commentary, Mr. Redmond gave the pair of Ms. Inori and Mr. Cho as the top favorite, saying, "I somehow feel that they will be better than any other pairs this year." As to the other pairs, he commented, "Mr. Otake (paired with Ms. Sugiuchi) is good at mind reading. He looks as if he could realize the other three players' minds." Referring to the pair of Ms. Izumi Kobayashi and Mr. Yamashita, Mr. Redmond said, "Their strong point is their aggressiveness. If they tune to each other well, they might smash their opponent." Regarding last year's champion pair, Ms. Kusunoki and Mr. Yoda, he briefly commented, "They have closely discussed before the game with considerable spirit." |
