LI League 2026

 

The Japanese GO Association have just rebranded their new Women's League (all of one year old) as the LI League and since it provides a nice limited introduction I have decided to follow and comment.

For those that don't know since they switched from making men and women compete for limited Professional slots each year and instead allowed female players to have their own promotion structure they have managed to increase the amount of Professional female players (and with no noticeable drop in standard which is perhaps interesting or maybe a comment on the younger men responding well to pressure situations). This allows them to run some wider ranging women's competition and the LI League is one of these.

The League consists of five teams run by a coach with four players in each team. Each team each year can protect a single player and then gets to 'draft' from a pool the other team players which creates some fun narratives.

The competitive structure is that in the pool section each team plays every other team twice - once in a longer game and for the second time in a faster, more blitzy game. In the pools when playing another team each team selects three players (and following almost standard Japanese team play they secretly can list which player is 'sitting' at which board so allowing more potential shenanigans).

After all the pool games complete (sixty I think) then the two highest scoring teams face off in a final. This is different though in that all four players will play and should the final result in a draw then the the tie breaker is that the team with the highest pool score ONLY needs either their Captain OR co-captain to win to 'win' If Captain or co-Captain lose then the finals team with the lower pool score needs both their Captain AND co-captain to win to win. 

Complex?  perhaps. But fun either way.

The competition starts proper in January 2026 so for the moment I am going to start introducing the teams and the players in each team with some, very spurious, guess analysis.

Hopefully you can come along for the ride with me as some of my favourite players are in this tourney.