Imamura drops back to 1-2. Everything will depend on his game with Cho. Two games were held in the Losers' Section of the 39th Judan tournament last week. The preliminary tournament for the 5th Samsung Cup was held in Seoul from 26 July to 1 August. Since all expenses, including transportation and accommodation, have to be borne by the player himself, the conditions are quite different from other international tournaments.
Eligibility is determined by the prize money rankings in each country.
The Japan-Korea Go Exchange is an unofficial series of goodwill matches between young players from Japan and Korea. On the Japanese side, it is mainly organized by Oya Koichi 8-dan, who gets together a group of Japanese players to visit Korea. This year it was held for the 7th time, and the Japanese team was made up of players visiting Korea to participate in the Samsung Cup preliminaries. According to Oya, every year the Korean team seems to be getting younger and younger. This year almost all of their players were teenagers, whereas there was not one on the Japanese team.