Korean Ambassador's Cup in Kiev, Ukraine

19 from 20 best Ukrainians (according to the local rating list) took part in the competition, but they were not able to win it. They allow few Russian players to take part in the tournament and together with Ilya Shikhin ("roln111" on KGS) we got the first and second places, without losing a single game to Ukrainian masters.

106 players took part in the Ambassador’s Cup in Kiev and it was the biggest event in the history of Ukrainian Go. LG was the official sponsor and they announced some attractive prizes for top 8 players of the final standing. Also they paid travel expenses and hotel fees for players outside of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

Most of the players were not able to play for top prizes, because of the Mac-Mahon system, but even double digit kyu players competed for prizes for best under 12 and under 18 juniors, best female, best veteran. Also they gave prizes for everyone, who scored 4, 5 or 6 wins.

Much more players decided to take part in the competition, but the organizers accepted only 53 pairs, because the playing hall was not big enough. We played in LG Studio in the center of Kiev. They use it for holding the free classes such as photography, cooking, psychology and others courses for everyone, who buy electronic or other items, produced by LG company. I would like to wish the LG company to sell more and more TVs, DVDs, video sets and other things, so it will be necessary to make the studio larger. So, next time (the ambassador promised to make the tournament regular) they can accept more than 106 players.

Here you can see the list of the winners.
1. Alexander Dinerchtein, 1-dan pro (Russia) 6 from 6
2. Ilya Shikshin, 6-dan (Russia), 5 from 6
3. Dmytro Bogatskij, 6-dan (Ukraine), 4 from 6
4. Arkadij Bogatskij, 5-dan (Ukraine), 4 from 6
5. Dmytro Galchenko, 5-dan (Ukraine) 4 from 6

This time the results were quite normal. 7-dans beat 6-dans, 6-dans defeated 5-dans, 5-dans defeated 4-dans and only in the middle of the tournament table we can meet some sensations. They were mainly showed by the players, who are regularly playing Go on the internet. The organizers did not allow them to enter the tournament with the current Go servers ranks, forcing them to use the official Ukrainian or European ratings. So, we can see some kyu players, who crushed even 4-dans!

Nowadays there are so many possibilities to play Go on the internet. I noticed that experienced KGS or Cyberoro players showed much better results, than people, who study Go only by reading books. It's a good tradition.

I reviewed some games played by dan and top kyu players and was surprised that most of them don't know new fuseki/joseki patterns at all. For example, some of low level dan players never saw the 2nd line keima answer to keima kakari to hoshi. "How to answer it?", they asked. I suggested them to review recent pro games on Go4Go. We can find so many new plans, which were not explained in Ishida's "Dictionary of basic josekis". It's strange to see, that people still trust this book, which was written more than 30 years ago.

It was a great tournament! Nice organization, good prizes, free banquets and lot of other positive things. Maybe next time they can make the tournament "more international" and invite some European masters?

P.S. Commented games from the tournament will be published soon on http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/alex/

Alexander Dinerchtein