Our profile of Zhou Heyang 8-dan in the New Kids section demonstrated that he is a hard man to shift once he is in front. But even by that standard his success in the 2nd Qisheng final was stunning - a 4-0 romp over holder Chang Hao 9-dan. Holding a 3-0 lead after the first games in April, he made sure the resumption was a short one with victory at Ningbo on 22 May 2000.
This will guarantee him even more international exposure as he can look forward, at least, to a match between the Chinese and Korean Kiseis (i.e. Qisheng and Kiseong).
Here are the games so far in downloadable sgf format.
Older News From 17 April 2000: ZHOU IS THE MAN IN FORM
Zhou Heyang 8-dan showed his victory over Yi Ch'ang-ho in the Fujitsu Cup was no fluke when he overcame another big name in the first game of the 2nd Qisheng final on 15 April. His victim this time was holder Chang Hao 9-dan.
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Older News From 27 March 2000: ZHOU TO MEET CHANG
Zhou Heyang 8-dan is to renew his long-time rivalry with holder Chang Hao 9-dan in the final of the 2nd Qisheng. He won the 3-game final of the Challengers' Section on 27 March 2000 when he bested Shao Weigang 9-dan 2-1.
Shao has been in good form this year, but strangely lost his way in the final game of the playoff. He was already in trouble by move 42 (the sealed move), and then went from bad to worse. The three games of the playoff are given here in sgf format.
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.
