On April 23, the second “Quzhou Lanko Cup World Go Open” tournament opened at the Hilton Yilan Hotel in Quzhou, Zhejiang, China, with 48 participants. In the first round, three Taiwanese players competed, with the highlight being the match between Xu Haohong and Yuta Iyama, both at the ninth dan level.
This tournament is planned to be conducted in three stages. The first stage, from April 24 to 27, will have three knockout rounds to determine the top eight players of this tournament. The second stage will be held on June 27 and 29, with the quarter-finals and semi-finals, leading to the selection of the two finalists. The third stage will take place from August 19 to 22, where the final three games will determine the champion.
The organizers have increased the number of participating players from 32 in the first edition to 48 in this edition. Apart from last year’s champions and runners-up (Chinese Go player Gu Zihao and Korean Go player Shin Jin-seo at the ninth dan level), the allocation of slots for participating countries in this edition are as follows: China – 18 players (including one female player and one veteran player), Korea – 11 players (including one female player and one veteran player), Japan – 7 players (including one female player and one veteran player), Taiwan – 4 players, Poland – 2 players, the United States and Canada – 1 player each, and two wild card entries (awarded to Chinese players Li Xuanhao and Jiang Qirun at the ninth and eighth dan levels respectively).
Based on the distribution of players from different countries in the top 16 of the previous edition, 16 seeded players have been selected for this edition, with Taiwan, Korea, and China holding one, five, and ten slots respectively. These 16 players will have byes in the first round and directly qualify for the round of 32. The remaining 32 players will compete in the first round matches, with winners advancing to the next stage.
On April 23, the Chinese Go Association held a drawing ceremony for the first round matchups at the Hilton Yilan Hotel in Quzhou. The pairings are as follows:
• Gu Lingyi (China) vs. Mateusz Surma (Poland)
• Xie Ke (China) vs. Lee Chi Yin (Canada)
• Yang Dong (China) vs. Chae Seong-yi (USA)
• Huang Xin (China) vs. Kang Dong-yoon (Korea)
• Zheng Zaixiang (China) vs. Kim Eunchi (Korea)
• Xie Erhao (China) vs. Kim Jisik (Korea)
• Rui Naewei (China) vs. Lin Junyan (Taiwan)
• Jiang Qirun (China) vs. Lin Lixiang (Taiwan)
• Zhang Tao (China) vs. Sakai Yuki (Japan)
• Tan Xiao (China) vs. Fukuoka Kaitaro (Japan)
• Luo Chuyue (China) vs. Shino Tora (Japan)
• Xu Haohong (Taiwan) vs. Yuta Iyama (Japan)
• Shie Heon-joon (Korea) vs. Ichiriki Ryo (Japan)
• Won Seung-jun (Korea) vs. Takao Shinro (Japan)
• Park Min-kyu (Korea) vs. Ueno Asami (Japan)
• Choi Myung-hoon (Korea) vs. Stanisław Frejlak (Poland)
The first round matches will take place on April 24, with the showdown between Taiwan’s top Go player, Xu Haohong, and Japan’s veteran player Yuta Iyama being the highlight of this round.
The “Lanko Cup” is organized by the Chinese Go Association and follows Chinese Go rules, where the black player has a handicap of 3 and 3/4 points. Each player has a basic time of 2 hours, with an additional 5-minute overtime period that can be used five times for 60 seconds each. The champion of this tournament will receive a prize of 1.8 million Chinese yuan (approximately $248,000 USD), while the runner-up will receive 600,000 yuan (approximately $82,800 USD).