Chinese Qisheng

Submitted by macelee on 2014-01-07 22:31; Last upda ted on: 2018-10-07 18:31

Overview:

When it started in 2013, the full name of this tournament was Luoyang Longmen Cup Chinese Qisheng tournament (洛阳龙门杯中国棋圣战). Luoyang is a city in central China's Henan province. Longmen is apparently a reference to the city's local World Heritage Site Longmen Grottoes, the home of thousands of Budda statues. Qisheng is the Chinese equivalence of 'Kisei' meaning 'Go sage'. The tournament came to a stop after two years, but re-emerged as Baiyunshan Cup (白云山杯), a reference to the local tourist site White Cloud Mountain National Forest Park.

The city of Luoyang has Go-playing traditions. Back in 2005, it celebrated becoming an 100-dan city (the total ranks of its professional players). Famous players from that city includes Wang Jianhong 9-dan (former national champion and WAGC winner), Shi Yue 9-dan and Zhou Heyang 9-dan (both former Chinese No. 1).

There was another Qisheng tournament back in 2000's. But it lasted for a just a few years before its sponsor running into financial difficulties. That old tournament is referred to as 'Chinese Old Qisheng' in Go4Go database.

Tournament Format:

The tournament is open to all Chinese professionals. It has several preliminary stages - players enter different stages based on their official Chinese ratings. 6 players passing through the preliminary and those with high-enough ratings enter the single-elimination main tournament to decide the challenger, who will in turn compete with the previous winner in a 'best-of-three' title match.

Prize Money:

Winner: 800,000 CNY; runner-up: 200,000 CNY (as of year 2017)

Time System:

2 hours each side followed by the normal 1-minute 'byoyomi', with each player having 5 opportunities to go beyond 1 minute.

Ruleset and Komi:

Chinese rule with 3 and 3/4 stones komi (equivalent to 7.5 points).

Key Players, Events and Statistics:

Being a 'local boy', Zhe Heyang 9-dan benefited from the wild card system.

Historical Results: