Lee Donghoon 9-dan pro moves to Southern CA
Southern California is blessed to have a new 9-dan professional go player who has arrived into the area: Walter (Donghoon) Lee.
Mr. Lee has moved from his home in Korea to Koreatown, a neighborhood in central Los Angeles, California. As a green-card holder, the 27-year-old Mr. Lee is now a permanent citizen of the United States.
An old friend of the AGA, Myungwan Kim 9P, also from Korea, says that Mr. Lee used to be a title holder and ranked within the top 10 in Korea. (He is not actively playing now though).
Mr. Kim says Mr. Lee "is super strong, way stronger than I am. Actually way stronger than any other go players EVER in the United States. No one would have any chance to win against him" on the continent.
Mr. Lee became the youngest professional go player in 2011 at the age of 13 years and 3 months. In 2012, at the age of 14, he was selected as the youngest Korean representative in the world at the Nongshim Cup World Team Championship. In 2015, Lee won the KBS Go Championship, beating the #1go player in the world at the time, Park Jeong-hwan, and then won the GS Caltex Cup in 2016 beating Chanhee Yun 3-0.
Mr. Lee became a 9-dan professional in 2017. He then was the runner-up in the Maxim Coffee Cup in 2019 and 2022 and the Usulbongjo Cup in 2022. He has also participated in the China A League for 8 consecutive seasons since 2014, showing a strong side to Chinese players.
I had lunch with Walter a couple of weeks ago in Beverly Hills. He is a mild-mannered articulate man whose passion is Go. He does not play competitively now but his mission is to teach Go in the United States. He is willing to teach any Go player online. Anyone interested in Go lessons from him can contact
Walter Grover <waltergrover60@gmail.com>
To see all of Mr. Lee's professional games and replay them, see
https://www.goratings.org/en/players/1259.html
One might recognize Lee Doonhong's name from the 2023 United States Go Congress at Kent State University in Ohio which he attended:
https://www.usgo.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=454497&item_id=88574
