Ing Cup

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

Game Records

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

Go4Go Collection Note: 
Go4Go has all main tournament games and a small number of preliminary games from the qualifying tournaments of several countries.

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