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:
- Shin Jinseo: world #1 Baduk player for the last 6 years and counting
- 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.
- Kim Jiseok: 2014 Samsung Cup champion and captain of the Korean national Go team for 8 years (2014–2022)
- 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.