The Shanglü Cup is China’s biggest amateur tournament. It is hosted by the Hangzhou Qiyuan, and held in their huge 34 floor building, which combines a go school with a hotel. The attractive prize pool of roughly 35,000 €  gathered 277 players together from 27th of October to 1st of November.

While the Chinese participants had to qualify via an online tournament, there were no qualification criterion for the foreigners, who also received the special treatment of free accommodation and a pick-up service from the airport.
So, it’s a bit surprising, that only very few Westerners made their way to Hangzhou (possibly it was because many Europeans already participated in the Silk Road tournament just a few weeks earlier). Beside myself, who made the trip from Germany, the only Europeans participating where those who had been in that region anyway, they were David Ongaro, Jürgen Suntinger, Guillaume Douron, Vladimir Nesterov and Petru Oancea.
For future years, I’d recommend to everybody to consider this nice tournament, especially those who do not have many chances to participate in East Asian tournaments.

As expected, none of us came even close to reaching the finals for the top 32, which was a purely Chinese and Korean affair.

After 9 rounds Bai Baoxiang and Ma Tianfang were the only players with a clean 9:0 score and thus playing the match for the 1st place. The current amateur World Champion, Bai Baoxiang, got the upper hand winning not only this prestigious tournament but also 60,000 RMB.