On January 20th, in the first game of the LG Cup final, Ke Jie took the lead by winning by 2.5 points with black pieces against Byeon Sang-il.
This game was a full-scale chaotic battle, played with tension and excitement, leaving the spectators calling it thrilling. However, it's not entirely clear how Ke Jie managed to win or where Byeon Sang-il made his mistakes, even with AI at hand.
To explore this further, I have compiled comments from commentators at Yike, Yehu, and Xing Xiaomu to try to understand the game better.
Yike's commentary mainly represents the AI's perspective, focusing on which moves deviated from AI recommendations and which caused a drop in win rates. There were significant mistakes such as White's move 142, dropping the win rate from 77% to 33%; Black's move 183, dropping the win rate from 91% to 62%; White's move 196, dropping the win rate from 51% to 16%; Black's move 201, dropping the win rate from 89% to 55%; and White's move 218, dropping the win rate from 59% to 0.
Yehu's commentary identified three key points: the first being Byeon Sang-il's move 142, a major mistake that AI estimated to decrease the win rate by 40%-60%. Yehu believes that this move trapped all the white pieces, whereas if a different strategy had been chosen, the white pieces could have survived. The second key point is Ke Jie's move 175, where he made an incorrect choice. Yehu suggests that if Ke Jie had chosen to eliminate the upper left corner, the situation would have been much better, but instead, he chose to capture in the center. This move only decreased the win rate by 5%, according to AI, showing Yehu's unique perspective. The third key point is White's move 218, where AI indicated Byeon Sang-il's win rate dropped directly from an advantage to zero. Yehu believes this was due to Byeon Sang-il's time pressure, resulting in a fatal mistake. It also points out that Ke Jie's time management strategy was correct.
Xing Xiaomu's commentary agrees with Yehu's view that the first turning point was White's move 142. The second turning point, according to Xing Xiaomu, was Black's move 183, where AI estimates Ke Jie's win rate dropped by 31%, from 91% to 62%. Although the situation wasn't immediately reversed, it created a significant risk. Xing Xiaomu believes that the error in this move wasn't apparent at the time and only became clear after move 210, effectively eliminating the winning strategy that was originally available. The third turning point is also at move 218, where everyone agrees it was a significant mistake by Byeon Sang-il, causing his win rate to drop to zero.
In summary, all commentators agree that Byeon Sang-il made two major mistakes: moves 142 and 218. However, there is disagreement on where Ke Jie made his mistakes. Yike and Xing Xiaomu believe it was at move 183, but Ke Jie still had a favorable win rate of 62%. AI thinks Ke Jie's mistake was at move 201, with a win rate of 55%, still advantageous; while Yehu believes Ke Jie's mistake was at move 175, when his win rate was as high as 95%, making any mistake insignificant.
In conclusion, Ke Jie didn't make any significant mistakes in this game, yet he won by taking advantage of two major gifts from Byeon Sang-il. This might raise concerns that Ke Jie is lagging behind his opponent in overall chess content and can only win by 2.5 points due to his opponent's two major mistakes.
Regardless, Ke Jie has won the first game, and we look forward to him achieving the "Nine-Crown King" title and becoming China's number one player.