Ing Cup

Submitted by macelee on 2015-12-19 15:39; Last upda ted on: 2016-05-30 08:58

Overview:

The Ing Cup (应氏杯世界围棋锦标赛) is a major international tournament sponsor by Ing Chang-Ki family through their charitable vehicle the Ing Chang‐Ki Wei‐Chi Education Foundation. It is held every 4 years coinciding with the Olympics.

Tournament Format:

The 1st Ing Cup was a 16-player knockout tournament. This was increased to 24 in beginning the 2nd term, with 8 players seeded into round 2 directly. It was expanded again in the 8th term to accommodate 30 players in total (including 2 seats each generously allocated to EU and North American players). The semifinals are best-of-3 and the final is best-of-5.

Prize Money:

The winner's prize is 400,000 USD, by far the largest cash prize in all international tournaments. The runner-up prize is 100,000 USD. There are very generous cash prizes for all participants.

Time System:

In Ing rule, each side has 3.5 hours main time, followed by a special system allowing players to buy 30 minutes of extra time with 2 points. Players can spend a maximum of 6 points for extra time. Players do frequently take advantage of this system. As a result, official game results reported in media often differ from the actual on-board situations.

Ruleset and Komi:

Ing rule with 8-point komi (black wins ties, so this rule in practice is equivalent to a komi of 7.5 points).

Key Players, Events and Statistics:

Before 1988, the only major international Go exchanges were those bilateral competitions between Japan and China. Ing Chang-Ki designed Ing Cup to be the first truly international tournament. However after he publicly announced his intention, Japan quickly put together the Fujitsu Cup to be the first.
Due to a dispute of terms and conditions, China officially withdrew from the 2nd Ing Cup. However, a few oversea Chinese players participated and everyone represented their home cities.
In early years, due to a special accounting method for sekis, the official results can have fractions (for example: ).

Historical Results:


Term	Year	Winner	Score	Runner-up
1	1988	Cho Hunhyun	3-2	Nie Weiping
2	1992	Seo Bongsoo	3-2	Otake Hideo
3	1996	Yoo Changhyuk	3-1	Yoda Norimoto
4	2000	Lee Changho	3-1	Chang Hao
5	2004	Chang Hao	3-1	Choi Cheolhan
6	2008	Choi Cheolhan	3-1	Lee Changho
7	2012	Fan Tingyu	3-1	Park Junghwan
8	2016