2016 Irish Confucius Cup Report
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The 2016 Irish Confucius Cup weekend occurred over the March 4th-6th weekend under mixed weather conditions. The venue once again was the Gresham Hotel which will be celebrating its 200th anniversary this year.
44 Go (Weiqi) players attended from China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Korea, Spain, and UK. Poland came prepared and in numbers with 11 competitors. JinWon Chae and MinGyu Oh, two Korean 7 dans, made Dublin the first stop of their whirlwind month-long tour of Europe. There was also a strong turnout of Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) players including Nicholas Dang, 7-time European Champion, UK’s Chen Li, 2nd place in 1999 World Xiangqi Women’s Championship, and Chunlong Huang, European Grandmaster.
The Saturday opening ceremony announced the creation of a new Irish Chinese Chess Association with John Gibson as President. A congratulatory speech was given by Mr Ming Wang, Honorary President of the World Chinese Chess Association.
The games began soon afterwards with three rounds of Go while the Chinese Chess players hardly had a break all day as they were kept busy with four. The Saturday evening rounds were concluded with an entertaining session of simultaneous games against the visiting Beijing professional players Ms Yingqin You (Grandmaster and World Champion) and Ms Shuang Yang (5p Go player). They would also give very informative reviews of the top Go and Chinese Chess games on Sunday afternoon.
Cristian Pop 7d, for the second year in a row, delighted the organisers by making his final game a long hard fight in byo-yomi, this time against Mateusz Surma 7d. In fact, if it wasn’t for their Ing clock cheering them on enthusiastically, their game would have been part of the closing ceremony.
In the end it was MinGyu Oh who won the battle of the 7 dans and claimed the title, with Mateusz Surma coming second, and Cristian Pop third. Best of Irish was Noel Mitchell 2d with 2/2 wins, and Best of British was Toby Manning 1k with 3/5. The Chinese Chess was won by Nicholas Dang GM, followed by Nhat Phuong Lu and Chunlong Huang respectively.
| Friday evening hosted the rapid games where we were joined by about twenty players from the Irish Chess Union (ICU). Piotr Gawron won the Go with Farid Ben Malek in second place. Daqun Wang won the Chinese Chess, and in Chess, the winner was Killian Delaney with Stephen Moran as runner up. |
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A very special thank you of course must be made to the Chinese Ambassador Jianguo Xu, the UCD Confucius Institute for Ireland, and all the sponsors for making this such a successful event.
| Final Results (Click Link) | |
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| Go | Chinese Chess |
| Awards Summary | ||||||||||||||||||
| Silly Prizes | ||||||||||||||||||
| Loveliest Jacket – Arthur Cater | ||||||||||||||||||
| Most Beautiful T-Shirt – John Wan | ||||||||||||||||||
| Most Lovely Handbag – Carol Doyle | ||||||||||||||||||
| Most Remarkable Haircut Indeed – No Winner | ||||||||||||||||||
| Best Pair of Spectacles – Chiwing Ng | ||||||||||||||||||
| Irish Go Championships | ||||||||||||||||||
| 2015 Irish Champion – Philippe Renaut | ||||||||||||||||||
| 2015 Irish Women’s Champion – Carol Doyle | ||||||||||||||||||
| Dan Certificate Awards presented by Ms Shuang Yang 5p | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1 Dan – Karol Cieslak | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1 Dan – Toby Manning | ||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese Chess Certificate Awards presented by Ms Yingqin You, GM and World Champion | ||||||||||||||||||
| Haihan Chen | ||||||||||||||||||
| Friday Night Rapid Winners | ||||||||||||||||||
| Go 1st Place – Piotr Gawron | ||||||||||||||||||
| Go 2nd Place – Farid Ben Malek | ||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese Chess 1st Place – Daqun Wang | ||||||||||||||||||
| Chess 1st Place – Killian Delaney | ||||||||||||||||||
| Chess 2nd Place – Stephen Moran | ||||||||||||||||||
| Youth Awards | ||||||||||||||||||
| Antoni Bugaj | ||||||||||||||||||
| Marianna Szychowiak | ||||||||||||||||||
| 4 Wins or More | ||||||||||||||||||
| Karol Cieslak | ||||||||||||||||||
| Geoffrey Crespino | ||||||||||||||||||
| Patrick Ridley | ||||||||||||||||||
| Marianna Szychowiak | ||||||||||||||||||
| 2016 Irish Confucius Cup Main Event | ||||||||||||||||||
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The game records from the top Go board for all five rounds are downloadable here:
Round 1: Stanislaw Frejlak vs Cristian Pop [Download]
Round 2: Cristian Pop vs MinGyu Oh [Download]
Round 3: MinGyu Oh vs Mateusz Surma[Download]
Round 4: JinWon Chae vs MinGyu Oh [Download]
Round 5: Cristian Pop vs Mateusz Surma [Download]
The above games are also viewable on YouTube here.
The game record from the top Chinese Chess game between Nicolas Dang and Chunlong Huang can be downloaded here.
Photos
| Additional Thank Yous |
| Guohan Zhang – Chinese Chess Tournament Organising |
| Arthur Cater – Equipment |
| Daniil Lunev – Clock Reseting |
| Marek Gutkowski – KGS & YouTube broadcasting magic |
| Tongyu Cao – Translation Services |
| Poland – For producing so many wonderful Go players |
| Complete List of Sponsors |
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