The Confucius Cup, a Grand Prix Bonus point C tournament, took place in Dublin, Ireland, on September 27-28.

AJust under 30 players gathered in the beautiful building of the Confucius Institute, at University College Dublin, dedicated to Chinese culture and language studies.

As in every year, the tournament welcomed its guests in very high standings for a lightning tournament to "warm up" on Friday evening, followed by the real games over the next two days.

Despite a small number of participants and perhaps, at first glance, not such fierce competition for the big favourite - Cornel Burzo 6d from Romania, the games were quite balanced, with many swings right up to the end. You can watch the replay of the commentary by Mateusz Surma 3p and Andrii Kravets 2p (available for 90 days) on the Twitch channel of the EGF (rounds 2 to 5), if you don't believe it, or simply check out the bare games themselves (IGA1 account on OGS).

Replays: https://www.twitch.tv/europeangofederation

After a couple of thus not-so-easy games, Cornel Burzo won the tournament nevertheless. Congratulations!

With this victory, Cornel qualifies directly to the Grand Prix Finale, which will be played in Stockholm, Sweden, at the very beginning of 2026.

Final standings:

🥇Cornel Burzo 6d (RO)
🥈Mathieu Delli-Zotti 4d (FR)
🥉Fengyin Zhang 5d (IE)






Thanks to the Confucius Institute for the photos!
All the standings will be available soon on the EGD.

Huge thanks to the tournament organizers and the Confucius Institute for this successful event.
Lead photo - P. Renaut (IGA).