Top male and female Go professionals face off in high-stakes online showdown live on PlayGo.gg
PlayGo.gg is hosting a four-player Go tournament, pitting some of the world’s elite male and female professionals against each other in a rare head-to-head format. Dubbed the “Battle of the Sexes,” which sounds a bit ’70s to us, the live-streamed event on June 1, 2026 is actually designed to showcase how the gap between male and female Go players is inching ever closer.
“The event highlights the strategic depth and competitive evolution of Go, a classic strategy game that shares strong crossover appeal with Chess, Checkers and other board games,” says Eric Wainwright, Marketing Director at PlayGo.gg. “It also demonstrates how, with greater access to resources and opportunities, the very best female players in the world can now compete with the very best male players – a development that has not been the case until very recently.”
Wainwright says this event matters because for most of Go’s history, the gap between the top male and top female players was treated as a fact of life – but that fact is starting to change. Female participation, performance and prize pools globally have transformed over the last decade, and the results on the board are starting to show it.
The competing players are:
Shin Jinseo. World #1 for seven consecutive years, winner of nine international majors at age 26, and widely regarded as one of the greatest Go players of all time.
Kim Jiseok. 2014 Samsung Cup champion and former captain of Korea’s national team for eight years.
Choi Jeong. The most decorated female Go player in the modern era with seven women’s majors. In 2022 she became the first woman to reach a mixed major final, defeating top male professionals Ichiriki Ryo, Yang Dingxin and Byun Sangil before facing Shin Jinseo.
Kim Eunji. Current world #1 female player at just 19 years old, already ranked inside Korea’s top 20.
The event will stream live on PlayGo.gg and YouTube (@PlayGo_gg), with community discussion on Discord.
The competition will be double elimination – meaning every player needs to lose twice to be knocked out, with losers getting a second chance through the lower bracket before the grand final.