Liu Dewei (Belfast) defeated John Courtney, Peter Kasko, and Matei Garcia (all Dublin) en route to overall victory at the April Rip-Off on Saturday. Further down the table, Niall Tuohy (Dublin), Larion Syrotkin (Cork) and Luke McGarvey (Belfast) also managed clean sheets, with three wins from three games. Last year’s champion, Marc Stoehr (Stockholm) stumbled in his first round game against James Hutchinson (Belfast) but recovered his composure to finish in 3rd place, while James himself secured 2nd.
The tournament took place in the Teachers’ Club, scene of countless previous Dublin tournaments, the 2001 European Go Congress among them. Twenty players sacrificed a beautiful spring day to battle over the goban, from wizened veterans to callow debutants. The debutants seemed to have the best of it, with arguably the most impressive performance coming from seven year–old Larion — not content with winning his three tournament matches, he played another ten games, challenging all comers.
Dewei was doubtless pleased to take revenge on John and Peter for his losses in the Top 8. The 2024 Rip-Off is the first tournament win on his palmares, but surely not the last.
The Dublin contingent repaired to M & L Chinese Restaurant to lick their wounds and plot revenge for next year.
The full tournament crosstable follows.
| Pl | Name | Rank | Co | Club | NbW | R 1 | R 2 | R 3 | MMS | DC | SOS | SOSOS |
| 1 | Liu Dewei | 1D | IE | Belf | 3 | 4+/b0 | 7+/b0 | 5+/w0 | 33 | 0 | 91 | 283 |
| 2 | Hutchinson James | 2D | IE | Belf | 2 | 3+/w0 | 5-/b0 | 4+/b0 | 32 | 1 | 94 | 279 |
| 3 | Stoehr Marc | 1D | SE | Stoc | 2 | 2-/b0 | 11+/w0 | 7+/b0 | 32 | 0 | 89 | 276 |
| 4 | Courtney John | 2D | IE | Dubl | 1 | 1-/w0 | 6+/b0 | 2-/w0 | 31 | 0 | 95 | 276 |
| Garcia Matei | 1D | IE | Dubl | 1 | 6-/b0 | 2+/w0 | 1-/b0 | 31 | 0 | 95 | 276 | |
| 6 | Flinter Stephen | 1K | IE | Dubl | 1 | 5+/w0 | 4-/w0 | 0= | 30 | 0 | 91 | 277 |
| 7 | Kasko Peter | 2K | IE | Dubl | 1 | 11+/b0 | 1-/w0 | 3-/w0 | 29 | 2 | 93 | 269 |
| 8 | Tuohy Niall | 4K | IE | Dubl | 3 | 14+/w0 | 13+/w0 | 9+/b0 | 29 | 1 | 81 | 241 |
| 9 | Gawron Piotr | 3K | PL | Dubl | 2 | 10+/b0 | 12+/w0 | 8-/w0 | 29 | 0 | 84 | 247 |
| 10 | Barry Eoghan | 3K | IE | Dubl | 1 | 9-/w0 | 0= | 11+/b0 | 28 | 1 | 84 | 254 |
| 11 | Nulty Stephen | 2K | IE | Dubl | 0 | 7-/w0 | 3-/b0 | 10-/w0 | 28 | 0 | 89 | 266 |
| 12 | Lee Byoung-Ju | 4K | IE | Dubl | 1 | 13+/b0 | 9-/b0 | 0= | 27 | 1 | 82 | 242 |
| 13 | Gociu Tiberiu | 4K | IE | Belf | 1 | 12-/w0 | 8-/b0 | 16+/w2 | 27 | 0 | 80 | 230 |
| 14 | Pham_Minh_Vo Tan | 6K | IE | Dubl | 0 | 8-/b0 | 0= | 0= | 25 | 0 | 77 | 225 |
| 15 | Syrotkin Larion | 11K | IE | Cork | 3 | 19+/b0 | 16+/w0 | 18+/w0 | 22 | 1 | 61 | 189 |
| 16 | Duricek Matej | 9K | IE | Dubl | 1 | 18+/w0 | 15-/b0 | 13-/b2 | 22 | 0 | 67 | 205 |
| 17 | Mcgarvey Luke | 13K | IE | Belf | 3 | 20+/w1 | 18+/b0 | 19+/w0 | 20 | 1 | 54 | 172 |
| 18 | Lafferty Colin | 10K | IE | Galw | 0 | 16-/b0 | 17-/w0 | 15-/b0 | 20 | 0 | 64 | 182 |
| 19 | Lin Yucheng | 12K | IE | Dubl | 1 | 15-/w0 | 20+/w2 | 17-/b0 | 19 | 0 | 58 | 165 |
| 20 | Murphy Martin | 16K | IE | NoCb | 0 | 17-/b1 | 19-/b2 | 0= | 14 | 0 | 50 | 154 |