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The Korean Prime Minister Cup (KPMC) is a world tournament organized by Korean Baduk Federation (KBF) and Taebaek Baduk Association, in cooperation with Asian Go Federation (AGF) and European Go Federation (EGF). It was usually held at the end of September, but this year it moved a bit in the even nicer part of autumn. All announcements were timely distributed globally, with all necessary information for invited countries and territories. As usual, all participants, officials and guests arrived one day earlier, on 7th November 2025, at Incheon Airport. Organizers prepared shuttle buses from the airport. The registration was very smooth with badges, traditional KPMC bags with nice presents for everyone and uniforms for all players. We spent the evening and the night in a nice hotel with a sea view. In the morning of the next day, it took around 5 hours to reach Taebaek-si (literally: Red Mountain), the second highest city in Korea (the attitude is around 700 meters above sea level. Surrounded by nice forests, it is famous for exceptional landscapes, clean air and unique ecosystems, contrasting usual crowds in larger cities in Korea.
We were just in time to set for the Opening Ceremony, starting at 2 PM sharp. It was interesting to see a local children’s tournament in one third of the large modern sport hall, and a senior tournament in another tournament in the opposite third. The middle had a setup for the special PairGo event planned as a solution of jet-leg and a warm-up for the KPMC participants. The opening ceremony was brief, with many KBF and local government officials giving optimistic speeches about the future of Go/Baduk in the Teabaek region. Lee Sedol, 9p, was a special guest at the opening.
The PairGo event was thoughtfully extended from its usual form (female player + male player) to a possible alternative (a senior player + a player from U15 age group). The tournament itself was very serious with referees taking care of every detail (even putting handicap stones in every game where it was necessary), scoresheets signed by all players and referees. The only small problem was that the number of pairs was too large to define a clear winner after 4 rounds. Therefore, the finals will be played after KPMC is finished, just before the Award Ceremony.
On the next day, after three rounds of PairGo, we were taken to the Gangwon Comprehensive Museum, around 40 kilometers toward the eastern Korean coast. It is impossible to describe impressions of thousands of unique artefacts we saw in a classical building having a natural cave as its part.
Full of new knowledge, we gathered for the instructive "Orientation Meeting", where some specific Korean rules (already written in the booklet) were carefully explained. In Korea, there is a very nice rule that a move is "finished" once a stone hits the intersection - the annoying "sliding" is not allowed. Another finesse is that the player is allowed to pause the timer if more than three stones are to be removed, but – before the pause – two stones of the group must be taken with the clock running. Naturally, players mostly asked about the opportunities to leave the playing area. Even more naturally, the answer was that they must ask the referee every time and that the number of toilet visits with the right to pause the timer is exactly - one.
Both playing halls are extremely nice and pleasant, just like every other space in the Taebaek Hotel. The playing equipment was the first class, with the new series of Korean clocks, capable of handling Fischer time and speaking four languages. In the National Players Division (main tournament) each game was filmed with a small GoPro-like camera. In the past editions of KPMC, it took some time to prepare the game records for publishing on the website. This time organizers made an amazing job putting all games to the tournament website at the same day: https://kpmc.kbaduk.or.kr/us/gibo. Top two games from both divisions were manually scribed to the Tygem server, giving enough food for thought and commentary of the Twitch team (Roman and Stephen), who did a very good job together with EGF-professional Benjamin Dréan-Guénaïzia and guests from Korea - Blackie 9p, Diana Koszegi 2p, Jeongsu Park 4p - commenting on the games.
Replays are available here https://www.twitch.tv/europeangofederation
The main tournament started with 52 participants, but two participants gave up after the first round, so 50 participants continued to play the 7 round Swiss tournament, using Fischer timing 40/20 (compared to the much faster rhythm 20/20 last year). Based on the overall quality of organization, it certainly deserves the class A in the European Go Database.
The Youth Division (U15) started with 28 players, with the same rules applied. The tables are a bit low for some taller players but the field is very strong: 10 players are 5d+.
Large global events, like WAGC and KPMC give equal chance for each participant to win. Very often, it leads to messy pairings, which are difficult to understand, especially to European players, used to McMahon groups and "law and order" of a few almost perfect pairing programs. The organizers developed their own software, which has very useful online sharing of information about pairings and results, but it is leaving complete random in pairing the group with the same number of points. In the Youth Division, some top players (6dan) were paired in first two rounds, hitting hard the young Korean players who lost both games.
Members of the EGF Executive Committee had a privilege to participate in the annual meeting of Asian Go Federation (AGF). It should be noted that Japan and China are not the members of AGF. It was very interesting to hear that many countries in Asia are facing the same problems we have in Europe: how to bring more youth to the game and how to make connections with other mind sports to approach national bodies responsible for sport. There is a lot of room for cooperation and exchange of best practices. Mr. Tom Urasoe from Nihon ki-in, representing the International Go Federation (IGF), announced that the GLOBIS Cup, a prestigious event for players aged 20 and younger, is coming back after a long break. Representatives of Korean Baduk Federation (KBF) confirmed that the new Youth Division for players aged 15 and younger will be a permanent part of the KPMC in the forthcoming editions.
Pairings and Standings
Here are the lists of players and inofficial standings as small pdf-files. The official page with results: https://kpmc.kbaduk.or.kr/us/2025/result has less relevant starting numbers of opponents in the table of results. The final standings below have final ranking numbers of opponents in the table of results, showing the information in much better way:Main Tournament: List of Players, Final Standings
Youth Division: List of Players, Final Standings
