There is a new Chinese tournament for the new year called Luoyang Longmen Cup Chinese Qisheng tournament.
Qisheng is the Chinese alternative of 'Kisei' or 'Go sage'. Luoyang is a city in central China. Longmen is apparently a reference to the city's local World Heritage Site Longmen Grottoes, the home of thousands of Budda statues.
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). Top players from that city includes Zhou Heyang and Shi Yue.
There was a Qisheng tournament back in 2000's. But it lasted for a just a few years before its sponsor running into financial difficulties. This time the tournament is probably there to stay because it is sponsored by the local government, which is unlikely to run out of money any time soon :).
The main tournament is participated by 32 top players. It is the largest tournament in China by prize money (600,000 CNY, roughly 96,000 USD). I have created a new entry called 'Chinese Qisheng' in the Go4Go database and the old tournament will from now on be referred to as 'Chinese Old Qisheng'.
Just went through most round 1 games. There are a number of extremely exciting games involving big dragons (such as this one:
, see move 137 what a tesuji!). Maybe high prize money has played a big role in it?