The Vienna International Tournament took place on the 17th and 18th of June in the city's outskirts at one of Vienna's schools for tourism. Do you think that a beautiful Saturday would be enough to persuade the bravest of go players to go to the lake or next to the Danube to swim instead of coming to the go tournament? Only fools maybe! Over 60 players came to Vienna from all over Europe and didn't let themselves blinded by the beautiful illusion of summer. (And a good decision it was, since the rain decided to show them fools). The tournament started with the hope of the strong players to beat Kim Seong-Jin, who has been defeated only by Oh Chi Min since his arrival in Europe. Would anyone be successful?

Round 1
The first round started with a battle between the recent winner of the Kido Cup side tournament in Hamburg, Schayan Hamrah, and the-so-very-feared Korean ex insei Kim Seong-Jin, who has been taking over Europe after his arrival to Berlin. You would think that the ex insei 7 dan status and the recent good result of Kim in Europe would intimidate Schayan, but you are as wrong as one can be. Schayan faced his opponent very bravely and fearlessly. However, his braveness was not enough and Kim made a quick work of him.

In an impulsive moment Viktor decided what we think is against the better judgement to save 2 stones but in the process, gave away an overwhelmingly large (6th line) territory. Viktor fought valiantly and managed to invade it, but to no avail because he gave away more territory elsewhere in exchange and the game was decided.

Round 2
Kim, the obvious favorite of this tournament didn't want anyone interfering with that. His next opponent, Benjamin Drean-Guenaizia, faced a tough fate. After entering byoyomi the fight began. Benjamin took a big corner, but in exchange a ko was started for one of his groups. He was the next victim to resign the game.

Round 3

At the end of the day, Tanguy le Calve, strong and young French 6d, who is also a musician in this spare time, played the piano a bit the piano that was in the room for the enjoyment of the audience.

Round 4
Jonas started his game against Csaba as a mirror go game. Not many players chose this strategy. It was interesting that the mirror broke at move 18, but then it somehow got back to a mirror game until move 48, since usually in mirror go games the mirror gets broken very early. When the mirror got broken the board structure was still very similar and basically white managed to win with a small, yet substantial advantage. Which is actually pretty much the main idea behind mirrorgo: the game turns into a peaceful one in which both sides look very similar, yet white has the advantage of komi.

Round 5
The hope that someone would defeat Kim were very small in this instant. Stanislaw tried, but it was not enough.

The game for the 2nd and 3rd place proved to be a lot more entertaining. Lukas attempted a strategy to get solid territory on the left upper side at the expense of the security of two of his groups. Unfortunately for him, Andrii beautifully attacked black's weak groups and made black's life very painful. As a result, white developed the outside and created a beautiful potential for himself. Black thought necessary to attempt another invasion to eliminate white's big potential. It proved to be a dangerous situation, since he barely managed to live with a ko, after playing a beautiful tesuji at T8. Unfortunately, his live was very expensive and even though all of his groups managed to survive, the game was lost. Andrii was leading the game after the ko and then he safely secured his victory.

Another confrontation worth watching was the one between the strong youth players Elian Grigoriu (3d) and Oscar Vazquez, this year's European Youth Go champion U16 (recently promoted to 5d after the Pro Qualification).

The first three places were occupied by:
1. Kim Seong-Jin
2. Andrii Kravets
3. Lukas Podpera

For full results click here.

(article by QiYou Wu & Laura Avram)