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A New International Tournament - "Nanyang Cup" World Weiqi Masters Championship
In the first week of November, a major new tournament appeared on the international stage! Organized jointly by the Chinese Weiqi Association and the Singapore Weiqi Association, the "Nanyang Cup" World Weiqi Masters Championship made its debut in Chengdu, China, gathering 32 players from 10 countries, including amateur players and top world players.
Andrii Kravets 2p (Ukraine), as the European Champion, was selected to participate.
The tournament is a world first, with two countries associations joining forces to organise a top-level world event of such stature. On this occasion, the Chinese Weiqi Association and Singapore Weiqi Association signed a strategic agreement of co-operation, marking a new milestone in the development of go on the world stage and between the two countries.
The ambition is to make this tournament long-lasting and use it to reinforce international cooperation and the development of go outside of the traditional three "leaders" of go, China, Korea and Japan. Singapore is strongly developing its go community, and the Chinese support for go improvement will surely further add to this dynamic, starting with training for players in China.
The tournament: system and players
The Nanyang Cup is a knock-out tournament and, for once (and a first for some players, actually!), is played with Fischer Time: 2 hours of main time with an additionnal 15 seconds per move.
The first prize is 250 000 singapore dollars (about 176 000€), with 100 000 SGD (70 350€) for the runner up, and other prize money for the lower ranked players.
This part of the tournament, in which Andrii participated, was only the first stage, with the battles for 1-4th places of the tournament to be played in Singapore in February-March in a Best of 3 format.
From the participating countries, we had the following players selected:
China: Ke Jie 9p, Gu Li 9p, Xie Ke 9p, Gu Zihao 9p, Dang Yifei 9p, Fan Tingyu 9p, Ding Hao 9p, Li Xuanhao 9p, Li Qincheng 9p, Liao Yuanhe 9p, Wang Xinghao 9p, Lian Xiao 9p, Zhou Hongyu 7p
Korea: Shin Jinseo 9p, Park Junghwan 9p, Shin Minju 9p, Choi Jeong 9p, Byun Sangil 9p, Weon Seongjin 9p
Japan: Hsu Chiayuan 9p, Yu Zhengqi 8p, Fukuoka Kotaro 7p, Otake Yu 7p, Ueno Asami 5p
Chinese Taipei (Taiwan): Xu Haohong 9p, Wang Yuanjun 9p
North-America: Jiang Mingjiu 7p
Europe: Andrii Kravets 2p
Malaysia: Chang Fukang 2p
Indonesia: Rafif Shidqi Fitrah 2p
Thailand: Pongsakarn Sornarra 6d (ama)
Singapore: Chen Yihan 5d (ama)
Now that we've taken a nice look around on what this tournament was about, let's check in greater detail about what happened in that first week of November...
Go, Andrii!
On either a beautiful morning or evening (our sources do not reveal which), Andrii Kravets 2p - European Champion (we said it already but we can say it once more, why not?) - ended up in Chengdu, in the Sichuan province, in China. There, a huge massive new tournament was about to start, with a strong line-up of participants and a meticulously well planned and prepared event.
Considering all the 32 participants, many were not in the world top 10, so there were good chances Andrii could pass to the top 16 players. That's with courage and enthusiasm that all players arrived and prepared themselves for the start of the tournament, with an incredible ceremony first.
" The organizers spend a lot of money for the event - nice accomodation, many celebrities at the opening ceremony, and plans to continue the tournament on the following years. Another positive thing was that there were 6 people outside China, Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan). Its more than usual. This is a positive signal and I hope in the next edition there will be even more places for other countries." - Andrii, when asked about the tournament set-up impressions.
Indeed, the opening ceremony looked incredible, with costumes and music, speeches from officials, and a fancy drawing for pairings!
The pairings were made with small numbers and masks.
History doesn't tell us why, but there is a cool-looking picture of Gu Li bracing the mask (if you've never heard of Gu Li 9p, you can remember he was once at the very top of the Go scene and remains one of the strong Chinese players).
Andrii, as it seems to be a very nice habit now, got a lucky number. Last time, at the Samsung Cup, he had been paired with Park Junghwan 9p, one of the best players of the world. One would think that maybe fate would be nice for once and pair him with one of the amateur players or equal-level professionals, giving a chance for Europe to pass to the next stage and have time, for example, to publish and article on the EGF website and get everyone "iiiih go Andrii!!!" on socials.
Unfortunately - but, it's all a matter of subjectivity, as it can be seen as an incredibly happy moment too - the lucky number got Andrii to play with Gu Zihao 9p, who is one of the strongest of the world.
Yeah yeah, things could have been more expeditive, Andrii could have played with Shin Jinseo. Still, that was a tough game ahead. But, who knows, sometimes the unexpected is just around the corner...
Oh, Andrii!
...but this time it was not really around the corner, nor even near.
The game with Gu Zihao 9p was sadly pretty difficult. After a mistake in the beginning, Andrii managed to find a good sequence, until it was not good anymore. Then, as Gu Zihao was having a confortable lead, there remained only crazy things to try, which brought the game to an end.
You can see it below.
Andrii-Kravets (B) vs Gu-Zihao (W). W+Res
Download Sgf-FileIn round 3, Gu Zihao experienced the bitter taste of losing after a classical win from Shin Jinseo 9p, the best player in the world.
Shin-Jinseo 9p (B) vs Gu-Zihao 9p (W). B+Res
Download Sgf-FileNevertheless, these experiences against top-world professionals, although frustrating on a winning percentage perspective, can be very educating. It's possible that we had written the same consoling sentence to conclude our article on the Samsung Cup match with Park Junghwan (decency prevented us from checking), but it's a fact.
If you want to follow the tournament, you can find the games on go4go and games and results here.
Speaking of the Samsung Cup, by the way, no Europeans managed to qualify (8 EGF amateur players played the qualifyers in Korea), so this year, we can't cheer for them :-(
Huge thanks to the Chinese Weiqi Association and Singapore Weiqi Association for this incredible new event which Europe will follow with attention, and for the pictures.
If you read chinese or have a good translator (and curiosity), you can read some reports by the CWA and other sources:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DdI-XXnKGBgIjE5f-GJYGw
http://www.eweiqi.com/app/News/news_detail.php?catid=16&childid=&id=35597
