The next stage of the 3rd Qisheng will take place in Kunming, Yunnan Province, at the Kunming World Flower Garden Hotel. From 20 to 24 April 2001, twelve players will first battle to see who joins Zhang Wendong 9-dan and Ding Wei 7-dan in the last eight (Zhang and Ding played their Last 16 games in early January in Shanghai.) They will then whittle themselves down to the last four.
The semi-finals will each be best-of-three matches and will take place from 30 April to 5 May. The final will be a best-of-seven.
The remaining games of Round 1 of the current stage - the Strongest Players Tournament - are:
Chen Zude 9d - Yu Bin 9d
Zhou Heyang 8d (holder) - Ma Xiaochun 9d
Wang Lei 8d - Hua Yigang 8d
Wang Yuhui 7d - Shao Weigang 9d
Luo Xihe 8d - Nie Weiping 9d
Wang Qun 8d - Qiu Jun 6d
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OLder News From 8 January 2001: QISHENG DOWN TO LAST FOURTEEN
The games of the Last 16 stage of the 3rd Qisheng are now under way, but - unusually for China - will take place piecemeal, on various dates and in various locations, in most cases undecided so far...
Two games have so far been completed. Zhang Wendong 9-dan beat Cao Dayuan 9-dan on 6 January 2001, whilst Ding Wei 7-dan put paid to the hopes of Chang Hao 9-dan on 7 January.
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Older News From 2 December 2000: DOWN TO LAST 16
We find reporting of the Chinese events extremely patchy - regional interests seem to come into play - and so have missed some early results of the Qisheng, but as a result of the latest stage on 29 November, we are down to the last 16, with seeds joining in.
The draw, nostalgically filled with veterans (make of that what you will), is:
Upper half
Zhou Heyang 8d - Ma Xiaochun 9d
Wang Lei 8d - Hua Yigang 8d
Zhang Wendong 8d - Cao Dayuan 9d
Wang Yuhui 7d - Shao Weigang 9d
Lower half
Luo Xihe 8d - Nie Weiping 9d
Wang Qun 8d - Qiu Jun 6d
Yu Bin 9d - Chen Zude 9d
Ding Wei 7d - Chang Hao 9d
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Older News From 11 November 2000: LADDER STAGE COMMENCES
The ladder-type stage of the 3rd Qisheng tournament, in which the winners of the various dan tournaments play each other, starting at the bottom end, began on 11 November 2000 at the Chinese Go Association headquarters in Beijing.
Shi Jinbo 2-dan made sure the form book stayed intact by defeating Wang Lei 1-dan. Shi, still a law student at Shanghai University, is going to have to decide on a career soon, especially if he keeps progressing. His next opponent is Zhang Wenyue 3-dan on 12 November.
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Older News From 4 November 2000: EXPERIENCE WINS IN PRELIMS
When most of the smoke cleared in the preliminary stage of the 3rd Qisheng tournament, on 28 August 2000, it looked as if experience counted more than youth at the upper end of the scale.
Down at the lower end, in Beijing, the 1-dan tournament was won by Wang Lei (he also won last year ) and the 2-dan tournament by Shi Jinbo.
In Lanzhou Zhang Wenyue won the 3-dan event, in Hangzhou. Lin Feng won the 4-dan event (he won the 3-dan one last year) and in Zhenjiang Huang Yizhong won the 5-dan final (he too won the lower dan final last year).
Tianjin hosted the 6-, 7- and 8-dan events. The 6-dan event left Qiu Jun and Lin Zhaohua to play off. Wang Haijun (until recently the holder of the world record for simultaneous games) won the 7-dan but there is also a place for the runner-up, to be decided by a play-off between Wang Yuhui and Wang Yimin. Both Fang Tianfeng and Hua Yigang emerged from the 8-dan section.
On 15 October, the four 9-dans who will join the seeds and the winner of the play-off between the dan champions were decided. The results were:
Nie Weping 1-0 Zheng Hong
Zhang Wendong 1-0 Wu Zhaoyi
Cao Dayuan 1-0 Wang Jianhong
Chen Zude 1-0 Liang Weitang
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Older News From 27 July 2000: 3rd TERM TO BE TRULY NATIONAL
The 3rd Qisheng tournament gets under way in Shanghai on 26 August and really can claim to be a national event. Running for almost a full year and still following roughly the original (but now abandoned) format of the Japanese Kisei (same word as Qisheng), it will initially span four stages. Beijing will host the 1-dan and 2-dan tournaments. Lanzhou will then take over for the 3-dan event. Hangzhou takes on the 4-dan event and Zhenjiang the 5-dan final. Moving back up to the north east, Tianjin hosts the 6-, 7- and 8-dan events, while the venue of the 9-dan event, which will be televised, has yet to be decided.
Do go players qualify for frequent flyer air miles?
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.
