16th Moyo Open International Go Tournament
Bonus Point C Class
Pardubice, CZ, 15-16 July 2017

After the European Professional Qualification (EPQ) tournament had finished, the next day saw the Moyo Open tournament begin. All players in the EPQ also took part in the Moyo Open. They were joined by Pavol Lisy 1p and Mateusz Surma 1p, who had worked as commentators for the EPQ, the Mitic brothers, some top Czech players, and Schayan Hamrah from Austria. As a result, this edition of the tournament was one of the strongest ever held in its history. The MacMahon bar for the top group, which included 16 players, was set at the level of 5 dan.

The EGF professional players were able to show their strength, for instance during a sharp clash in the fourth round between Mateusz and Pavol, so far the only undefeated players, which in the end Mateusz won by resignation.

On board one in the last round we saw Mateusz - the only undefeated player, against the new EGF Pro – Andrii Kravets, who had suffered just one loss against Pavol. Mateusz also won this game, and as a result the whole tournament, he was the only undefeated player out of 71 participants.

Pavol was paired against Lukas Podpera in the last round and lost this game by one and half points. The game was played on board number two, and was thus also broadcast on KGS. This result was very unexpected for some observers, namely Vladimir Danek, so that when the scribe announced the result as Black plus 1.5, he asked: “and B stands for Black or for Bíly?” - “Bíly“ means “white” in the Czech language. That question was as much a source of amusement for the scribe as for the players, and Lukas, with a smile, complained that Vladimir did not believe in him. Lukas, with that “unexpected” win, finished in third place with four points. In second place was Dusan Mitic, he also had four points and a loss to Mateusz, but he had better SOS. Pavol, in fourth place, topped the group with three wins, finishing ahead of Andrii.

This was a pretty tough tournament, and with two games being broadcast on KGS for each round, you can enjoy the games below. The game between Mateusz and Pavol is commented by Pavol, who was also working as an EGF professional as this tournament was a Class C Bonus Point Tournament.

To end, we would like to thank to our supporters without whom the tournament would be not possible. Namely, the Czech Open Festival for its generous background support and especially to our sponsor, Moyo Holding company after which this tournament is named – www.moyo.cz/en.

The tournament is over for this year and we are looking forward to welcoming you in Pardubice again next year at the same time.

A complete results can be found here

Some pictures from the tournemant shot by Vojta Dedek can be found here

Written by: Jana Hricova