Bailing Cup

Overview: 

Bailing Cup (百灵杯世界围棋公开赛) is a Chinese international tournament created in 2012. It is sponsored by Guizhou Bailing Group, a big Chinese pharmaceutical company. As a major supporter of Go, the company also in the past sponsored the Chinese domestic Bailing Cup which is not to be confused with the international tournament. As it currently stands, Bailing Cup is run every two years, alternating with the Mlily cup.

Tournament Format: 

Bailing Cup is a 64-player knockout tournament. Currently, the seats are decided as follows: 48 seats are selected from an open preliminary tournament (including 4 groups for women only); 12 seats are allocated - China 5, Japan 3, Korea 3, Chinese Taipei 1; 2 seats are reserved to the winner and runner-up of the previous term; and the remaining 2 seats are for wild card players. The semifinals are best-of-3 and the final is best-of-5.

Prize Money: 
Bailing Cup has a prize pool of 4,800,000 CNY. The winner prize is 1,800,000 CNY. The runner-up gets 600,000 CNY. There are significant cash prizes for those losing the earlier rounds: 200,000 CNY for those losing the semifinals; 100,000 for round 4; 60,000 for round 3; 30,000 for round 2; 20,000 for round 1.
Time System: 
Main time: 2 hours 45 minutes; byoyomi: 1 minute, with 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: 
  • Although the prize money is substantial, players do need to take care of their own costs of travel and accommodation. For this reason, the open preliminary tournament is dominated by the Chinese players.
  • Wild card players - term 1: Chang Hao & Cho Hanseung; term 2: Yang Dingxin & Shin Jinseo; term 3: Gu Zihao & Kobayashi Koichi.
Historical Results: 

Term

Year

Winner

Score

Runner-up

Game Records

1

2013

Zhou Ruiyang

3-0

Chen Yaoye

2

2015

Ke Jie

3-2

Qiu Jun

3

Go4Go Collection Note: 
Go4Go has all main tournament games and many preliminary games.