Despite his youth - he was born in 1976 - Chang Hao 8-dan became the first go sage of modern times in China when he defeated Ma Xiaochun 9-dan in June. The first Qisheng (go sage) tournament, modelled on the Japanese Kisei, went the full stretch
to end 4-3. The final game took place on 11 June in Shanghai and was won by only 1.75 points after 288 moves.
The final was billed as the battle of the two dragons, referring to the fact that both players were born in the Year of the Dragon - Ma in 1964. In Chinese mythology the dragon is also associated with a pearl. Chang Hao was delighted to capture the first jewel in his crown.
The Qisheng is now the largest scale Chinese tournament and the richest domestic event. It began on 26 August 1998, the anniversary of former vice-premier Chen Yi's birth in 1901. Chen, who died in 1972, was probably modern China's most important patron of go, although he once famously said, "If you do that sort of thing (play go) you cannot achieve revolution" and threw his go board into the Yangzi River. His two sons were guests of honour at the opening ceremony.
In Term 2, Cao Dayuan has won the 9-dan final (and netted 10,000 yuan) by beating Nie Weiping. In the semis, Cao beat Chen Linxin, while Nie beat Song Xuelin.
The All-dan Championship final is to be between Wang Hongjun 7-dan and Dong Yan 6-dan.
For the record, in Term 1 the winners of the various sections were as follows. The event began on 26 August 1998 and attracted 176 players.
1-dan: Wang Lei
2-dan: Chen Jia
3-dan: Lin Feng
4-dan: Huang Yizhong
5-dan: Kong Jie
6-dan: Dong Yan
7-dan: Wang Hongjun
8-dan: Wang Runan
9-dan: 1. Nie Weiping, 2. Song Xuelin, 3. Cao Dayuan, 4. Chen Linxin
The seeds to the Strongest Players section were Ma Xiaochun, Zhou Heyang, Luo Xihe, Zhang Xuan, Qiu Jun, Yu Bin, Liu Xiaoguang, Shao Weigang.
Here are some games in sgf format from the first final. Right-click and choose "save
link as" to download onto your machine.
The structure is exactly the same as for the Japanese Kisei (also meaning go sage). There are four stages:
competitions for each dan level from 1 to 9;
play-offs among the dan championship winners;
a Strongest Players knockout for the play-off winners and seeds;
a seven-game final.
There are some differences because of the size of China. The first stage in term 1 was held simultaneously five cities: Fenghua in Zhejiang Province (but more specifically Xikou town), Tianjin, Chongqing, Taiyuan, and Xi'an.
The seeds for the Strongest Players section are the top four of the previous event, the world women's champion, the winner of the national individual championship and the top three so far unaccounted for in the Elo-type rankings. Part of the event is televised.
First prize is 300,000 yuan, the highest by far for a domestic tournament. The winner also takes the Xikou Cup. Second prize is 80,000 yuan.
Komi is 2.75 (Chinese rules).
Qisheng means Go Sage and has traditionally been regarded as a supreme accolade for a goplayer. It goes back almost 2,000 years to Han times in China. It is also used as Kisei in Japan and Kiseong in Korea. The tournament is sometimes known as the Chinese Kisei, even in Chinese, because of the preeminence of the Japanese Kisei tournament.
