Ma Xiaochun 9-dan set up a dream match for himself by winning the first Chinese Agon-Kiriyama Cup on 16 October. He defeated Zhou Heyang 8-dan and now goes on to play a match between the winners of the respective events in China and Japan.
The winner of the Japanese event was Kobayashi Koichi 9-dan. Recent Chinese go history is dominated by their motto: Beat the Japanese 9-dans. There were great celebrations when they achieved their first victories.
But there was one nut they found almost impossible to crack, and that was Kobayashi Koichi. They have notched up a few wins now, but Kobayashi, in a slump during the long illness and death of his first wife, is now back close to top form and he is still the prime target for the top Chinese players.
TOURNAMENT RESULTS 1999
Stage 1 (July): Nie Weiping 9-dan, Shao Weigang 9-dan, Zhang Wendong 9-dan, Chen Linxin 9-dan, Li Yachun 7-dan, Guo Li 4-dan, Liu Xing 3-dan and Duan Rong 6-dan were the last eight of the first stage held over 3 days in July. They joined Ma Xiaochun, Liu Xiaoguang, Chang Hao, Zhou Heyang, Hu Yaoyi, Yu Bin, Yang Hui and Qiu Jun.
Stage 2, Round 2 (August): Gu Li 1-0, Chang Hao, Zhou Heyang 1-0 Duan Rong, Ma Xiaochun 1-0 Shao Weigang, Nie Weiping 1-0 Yu Bin.
Semi-finals (September): Zhou Heyang 1-0 Gu Li, Ma Xiaochun 1-0 Nie Weiping.
HOW DOES THE CHINESE AGON-KIRIYAMA CUP WORK?
The Chinese Agon-Kiriyama Cup is the Chinese counterpart to a Japanese event that in 1999 replaced the ACOM Cup, an event more properly called the All-Japan Quickplay Open Tournament.
It is a knockout tournament in which 144 players participated in the first term. As usual in China, each round is played in a single venue at the same time. The top eight players from Stage 1, held over three days, join seeds in Stage 2. The eight seeds are taken from the winners of the main tournaments and the biennial ranking list. These 16 players play a straight knockout down to a one-game final.
Top prize is 150,000 yuan (about half the value of the Japanese first prize). Second prize is 50,000 yuan. The winner of the Japan-China match gets a further 200,000 yuan.
The sponsors are the Buddhist sect Agon-shu. See under the Japanese Agon-Kiriyama Cup for further details of this.
Agon is the Japanese form of the Sanskrit Agama, referring to teachings of the Smaller Vehicle doctrine. In Chinese it is Ahan and Kiriyama is Tong-shan.
