(Sports focus) Lee finally beats AlphaGo, winning Chinese Go master Ke confidence

South Korea's Lee Sedol finally broke the myth of AlphaGo, the computer created by DeepMind, after losing three consecutive matches, rallying to win himself and humanity some dignity to beat the Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) program in Game 4 of five-game human vs. machine Go-chess showdown on Sunday.

Go community has experienced shocking ups and downs in the week. Before the Lee vs. AlphaGo match-up, many experts gave Lee a lot of credits to win the series. Then AlphaGo beat Lee in a comanding style for three straight games, and most reversed to believe the supercomputer is unbeatable for human players, at least for Lee.

Now, Lee, the holder of 18 international titles on the ancient Chinese board game, surprised many to pull one game back as the AI program seems unbeatable to the human players.

The victory means a lot not only to Lee, but also more notably to the world's top ranked Ke Jie, an 18-year-old Chinese player, who believed he has a 60 percent chance to defeat AlphaGo prior to the series kicking off.

Now Ke, the youngest player with three world titles ever, who claimed "AlphaGo can't beat me", found the grounds to back up his proclamations.

"I'm happy to see Lee win finally and this helps me in my confidence. Just like I said, AlphaGo has its weakness. Lee is not in AlphaGo's match, but he can not represent humanity and he's not the right person to take the challenge," said Ke on Sunday.

"A lot of Go followers had accused me of bragging or big talking for my remarks on their encounter after AlphaGo leading 3-0," said Ke. "I'm mad with these accusations, and I stick to my belief 'AlphaGo can't beat me'. I'm not an arrogant guy when I say what I said."

"Now AlphaGo leads 3-1 in the five-game series, and its winning ratio is not even as good as my record," added Ke, who had won eight games in his 10 encounters against Lee. "My winning chance can be even 70 percent, at least 60 percent in facing off AlphaGo now," Ke keeps his high-profile stance on.

"The Google staff said 'no matter who I am, AlphaGo can beat me within three months' after the Game 3, but I would say they can't make that happen at all," added Ke.

Google Deepmind's CEO Demis Hassabis is willing for Ke to line up as AlphaGo's next opponent.

There were also commentators doubting the minor glitch happened to the computer system in the middle for a couple of odd moves from AlphaGo.

Lee had said AlphaGo was not perfect and had weaknesses, although

he did not elaborate on them after losing the Game 2. "Lee Sedol is the one who lost today, not humanity," Lee said.

Go, most popular in countries such as China, South Korea and Japan, involves two contestants moving black and white stones on a square grid, with the aim of seizing the most territory.

The most famous AI victory to date came in 1997 when the IBM-developed supercomputer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov, the then-world class chess champion, in its second attempt.

AI experts had forecast it would take another decade for computers to beat professional Go players. That changed when AlphaGo defeated the European Go champion Fan Hui last year in a 5-0 whitewash, in a closed-door match later published in the journal Nature. Since then, AlphaGo's performance has steadily improved. Endit