13 Japanese players are competing in this year's Fujitsu, out of 32 total competitors, where they had previously been sending 7. Every major title holder since 2008 is appearing. It seems safe to say that they're anxious for a good showing. Their last victory was Kobayashi Koichi in 1997, while their last good showing was 2007, when Yoda Norimoto and Cho U played for third place, with Yoda winning.

The full list: Cho Chikun, O Meien, Ogata Masaki, Yuki Satoshi, Yamada Kimio, Hane Naoki, Takao Shinji, Yamashita Keigo, Cho U, Iyama Yuta, Sakai Hideyuki, Fujii Shuya and Seto Taiki.

The tournament will be held from April 7th to 17th, with one round every other day.

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How is it the Japanese can increase their number of entrants just like that? Is it because a Japanese company is sponsoring the tournament? Are the other countries also allowed to enter more players than before?

I don't actually know how this is decided, but I suspect it's up to the sponsors, not the Nihon Ki-in or Kansai Ki-in. If that's true, the headline is slightly misleading.

In general, sponsors have control over how individuals qualify for a tournament. In general, some players may be seeded. For instance, Lee Changho lost in the first round of the 2nd BC Card Cup, but was seeded into the 3rd. This is in addition to the players who are seeded for last year's performance.

I believe that some of the Chinese and Korean tournaments give more seeded spots to their own players, but I haven't rigorously verified that. I could easily be wrong. Moreover, even if they do that, I don't know if any of them do it to the extent that the Fujitsu is currently doing.

A last point: where there are open qualifiers, that tends to favor the home team, because they field more players--Korea probably has three times as many competitors in the BC Card Cup qualifiers as does China (estimate).

China and Korea each have 7 players in the Fujitsu. Then Chen Shiyuan from Taiwan, Artem Kachanovskyi from Europe, Fernando Aguilar from South America, and Andy Liu from North America will also appear. I think it's a shame that Taiwan is only fielding one player.

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yes it is true. it is upto the sponser to set the number of players from each country.


BC card Cup is an open for everyone. any professionals or amature if they are intrested can enter.
since it is held in korea it is easier for korean professionals to enter.

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It has been reported that the number of total entrants is increased by 8, from 24 to 32. So it looks like 6 of the new slots went to Japan while Korea and China presumably split the other 2. Note that the last year's top 3 finishers are seeded, giving Korea and China 1 and 2 (respectively) additional entrants.

Looking forward to Jie Li playing in the Fujitsu for the US. Jie Li fighting!

ETA: Oops it's actually Andy Liu, Jie Lie was last year.

As far as I know, only the Nongshim and Jeongganjang cups require an equal number of players from each country.

http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/fc.html

Andy Liu appears to be the representative. I checked same info on nihonkiin page. Are you thinking of a different tournament?

I thought Jie Li would go because he won the qualifier: http://www.usgo.org/tournaments/Fujitsu/2010/ I don't know what happened...

You have to look for the 2011 qualifier. The pages are named for the years the main tournament will take place. So yes, the 2011 qualifier took place in 2010. Sorry about that. It's not really straightforward one way or another.

http://www.usgo.org/tournaments/Fujitsu/2011/

Andy Liu's opponent in the first round is Choi Cheolhan 9d.

They made pairing on March, 8. I saw it published on Korean websites long time ago.
First round was scheduled on March, 9. What happened with it? I understand the reason for moving round 2 because of tsunami, but it's hard for me to understand the reason of moving round 1.
Go players read far ahead of others?

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Are you sure about that Breakfast? The second week of April has been the usual start date for several years.

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eeek

good luck Andy !!!

Yes, my mistake.
First time I see the pairing made in advance (in 1 month!). Usually they have only 1 day to prepare

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