u/GrapefruitUsual2859

PlayGo.gg Championship Tour Commentary Lineup
▲ 37 r/baduk

PlayGo.gg Championship Tour Commentary Lineup

Hi all!

Last week, I made a post announcing our PlayGo Championship Tour and first tournament. For those that missed it, the world #1 Shin Jinseo and long-time female #1 Choi Jeong are among the players that will be competing!

Today, I am excited to announce the commentary team! We will do our best to provide commentary across languages so that everyone can tune in and enjoy.

Commentator Graphic

English commentary: Michael Redmond 9P and Yoonyoung Kim 8p.

Micheal Redmond is famously known as the only western player to achieve the highest possible rating of 9P and for commentating the AlphaGo matches!

Yoonyoung Kim is well known in the western Go community for her excellent lectures!

Korean commentary: Lee Hynwook 9P

Lee Hynwook is one of the most popular Baduk streamers in the world. He streams a few times per week on YouTube and averages in the thousands of concurrent viewers.

Japanese commentary: Cho Hyeyeon 9p and Akira's Go.

Cho Hyeyeon has been an active player for over 20 years and is one of the most decorated female Baduk players of all time!

Akira's Go is a YouTube channel that covers all things Baduk.

Chinese commentary: 小小林围棋, 朱瑞斯7段

Both are popular Baduk streamers in Taiwan.

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We are actively looking to have commentary in as many languages as possible! If you'd like to co-stream this event, you are free to do so without restrictions.

We hope that you can join us on May 31st at 6pm PST! You can read more about the event here.

Matthew, playgo.gg co-founder

reddit.com
u/GrapefruitUsual2859 — 5 days ago
▲ 63 r/baduk

Launching a championship tour for Go on a Western platform — kicking off June 1 with Shin Jinseo & Choi Jeong

I'm Matthew, one of the cofounders of PlayGo.gg. Some of you may remember a post we made back in December of 2025 asking for beta testers — over 100 people from r/baduk volunteered. Since then, we’ve had tens of thousands of signups and people using the website daily. We wouldn't be here without your early support. Thank you! I wanted to come back here first with what we're doing next.

Baduk has tens of millions of players worldwide, but the top-level competitive scene lives almost entirely in Korea, Japan, and China. For Western fans, that means little to no access to live pro games with English commentary.

We want to change this with our championship tour: a recurring series of top-level tournaments played on our website and streamed to a global audience.

Just as important, we want to make pro Baduk fun to watch. This means faster time controls, varied formats, and a season structure borrowed from traditional sports: regular-season events, playoffs, and a year-end final that decides the tour champion. The first event is June 1st.

This tournament will feature some of the best male and female Baduk players. The lineup includes:

  1. Shin Jinseo: world #1 Baduk player for the last 6 years and counting
  2. Choi Jeong: world #2 female player and the only woman to reach the final of a mixed major (2022 Samsung Cup), beating Ichiriki Ryo, Yang Dingxin, and then world #3 Byun Sang-il on her way there.
  3. Kim Jiseok: 2014 Samsung Cup champion and captain of the Korean national Go team for 8 years (2014–2022)
  4. Kim Eunji: world #1 female player at age 18 and top 20 in Korea overall

Why start with this?

For most of Baduk's history, the gap between the top male and top female players was treated as a fact. That's changed a lot recently and the results on the board are starting to show it.

This tournament is a chance to see where things stand right now between the very best. We wanted to open the tour with an event that excites existing fans and pulls in people who've never watched Baduk before — and this is exactly that.

You can add this to your calendar and read more about the event and players here.

I’m happy to answer questions about the tour, the platform, or the tournament in the comments.

u/GrapefruitUsual2859 — 12 days ago