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AGA Pro Tourney Moves into Knock-out Section

The round-robin section of the AGA Professional Qualification Tournament wrapped up Wednesday morning with few surprises except for second-seeded Ben Lockhart's 7th-place finish. Eric Lui was first, Aaron Ye second, Daniel Gourdeau third, then Andrew Lu in fourth, Sarah Yu was fifth, Jeremy Chiu sixth, and Manuel Velasco eighth. The knockout section commenced on Wednesday afternoon as Los Angeles enjoyed a second straight day of rain, although of course the eight top-ranked North American go players at the Hotel Normandie were oblivious -- or at least impervious --to the weather. The knockout section is a best-of-three, with the first game having already been played in the round-robin. Eric Lui had beaten Manuel Velasco in the round-robin and had no trouble with him on Wednesday afternoon, knocking Velasco down into the lower bracket. Daniel Gourdeau's win against Jeremy Chiu secured his place in the upper bracket as well. Sarah Yu had lost to Andrew Lu in the round robin, but won on Wednesday; they'll play to advance on Thursday morning. And Ben Lockhart, who had lost to Aaron Ye in the round-robin, beat him by a point and a half in the knockout, forcing a third game on Thursday morning. Both games will start at 9:30a PST on KGS. A brief video of Myungwan Kim 9P's commentary on the Ye-Lockhart game has been posted on the AGA's YouTube channel. - report/photo by Chris Garlock