Last weekend (February 20th-21st, 2010) 146 players enjoyed the 28th edition of the Barcelona Go tournament; including 80 players from Spain, 35 from France, 20 from Romania, 13 from Czech Republic, and more people from several European countries.
The venue was the maths faculty (FME) of the Catalonia Tech University (UPC), which kindly supported the tournament organization. 4 classrooms were arranged to held the tournament. Another room was used by Catalin Tanaru, Romanian 5 dan pro (from Nihon Kiin), who gave lectures and commented games. In another room, players could find the “Baduk Bar”, where all kind of snacks, Spanish “tapas” and drinks were served at cheap prices.
The winner of the tournament was DU Qing 7 dan, Chinese player located in London, who won 5 games out of 5 rounds, taking the 700 euro first prize. Second was Cornel BURZO 6 dan from Romania, with 4 wins, only losing against the winner. Third was Nikola MITIC 5 dan from Serbia. Our local baduk instructor, Lluis OH 6 dan finished 8th. Notice that only 3 Asians were in the Top 10, the rest of them were Europeans!
The first Spanish player was Oscar ANGUILA 4 dan, who finished 15th, only failing against LIU Yuanbo (Chinese 2 dan professional player). Oscar, current Spanish champion, spent 3 months studying baduk in Lee Kibong’s International Baduk Academy in Seoul. Special mention received the young DOBRANIS brothers from Romania, aged 5 and 7; the last one got 4 wins.
In my case, I got 3 out of 5, a quite satisfactory result.
Only one correction: in the results list, Lluis Oh appears on the 9th position.
This is due to the post-tournament correction for Liu Yuanbo, Chinese pro. That is, during the tournament he was set to 4 dan, to avoid entering the top bar. Later his rank was changed to 7 dan again. So Lluis Oh actually was 8th.
Ok, Thanks for the explanation.