National & International
Posted by ian on September 6th, 2008- The Irish Championship
- World Amateur Go Championship
- Korean Prime Minister’s Cup
- World Mind Sports Games
- Irish Online Championship
The Irish Championship
The main national title is that of Irish Champion, currently held by Ian Davis. The championship is a three stage process. First, aspiring candidates play a series of qualifying matches. As of 2008, these matches are held in the form of the Ladder Tournament which runs through the year and finishes at the end of November. The strongest performers advance to an eight-player league, known as the Top 8. As the four highest finishers in each year’s Top 8 automatically qualify for the following year, only four new candidates will qualify via the Ladder. Finally the two highest finishers in the Top 8 play a three-game series to determine who will be champion. The Championship was first held in 1990, with Noel Mitchell as the debut Champion and only four players have held the title since - Noel (a colossal fifteen times in all), Stephen Flinter (twice), Ian Davis (twice) and Claas Roever
World Amateur Go Championship
The Top 8 also serves a second purpose, determining who will represent Ireland at the World Amateur Go Championship. Held annually in Japan under the aegis of the International Go Federation, the WAGC represents a rare honour for any amateur go player. Sixty-eight nations have sent players in recent years although victory has always gone to the Asian powerhouses, China, Korea and Japan. The Irish representative is determined by the Japan Points system - points are awarded year on year according to finishing position in the Top 8. The player with the highest cumulative total in any given year becomes the Irish representative. Their Japan Points total is then reduced to zero, meaning that the honour rotates. The 2009 representative was Brian Gallagher.
Korean Prime Minister’s Cup
Befitting their status as the superpower in international go circle, Korea established its own international amateur event in 2006, the Korean Prime Minister’s Cup. Already comparable in scale to
the WAGC, it can be expected that it will rapidly come to equal it in prestige. The Irish representative is determined by the Korea Points system. Initially awarded in a similar fashion to Japan Points (with additional points for games won at the Irish Go Congress), from 2009 Korea Points will be awarded for performance in all Irish tournaments. The 2009 representative was Olivier Deme.
World Mind Sports Games
Intended as a mental equivalent to the Olympics, the first World Mind Sports Games was held in Beijing in 2008. It is unclear what the future of the WMSG is, and no formal system has yet been
established for selecting the Irish team to compete in the Go events. The sole Irish competitor in 2008 was John Gibson.
Irish Online Championship
Also inaugurated in 2008, the Irish Online Championship took the form of a single-elimination knockout tournament on the Kiseido Go Server. Claas Roever emerged from a field of 16 to become the debut Irish Online Champion. In 2009 we switched to an Online Interprovincial Team Championship, which we aim to repeat in 2010.
