With five straights victories, Tom Chen 5D of Sydney swept the 2015 Australian Digital Championship. Open to players from Australia and New Zealand, the tournament was the first from either country held on the internet (KGS and OGS), and took place during the month of September. The reserve champion in second place was Ken Xie of New Zealand 5D with four victories, beating out third place Xin Lei 3D of UNSW by half a point of SOS. Kudos to the pack of players on four victories, including also Steven Yang of Sydney and Graeme Parmenter of Otago, and thanks to the other 18 survivors who competed through to the end of the tournament. Click here for final results, including SGF game records.
In the second division (handicap stronger than 4k) there was again one player with five victories, the Australian Digital Handicap Champion, Stephen Yang 4D. Second place was Rhys Davies 1D with four victories (except where he went up against Stephen Yang). In this division the peleton starts with Johnny Jiang 1D of Adelaide at third place on three victories, and Yanis Newman-Pache 3D of Southern Cross University Go Club, Harvey Wang 2D of Victoria Go Club, and Graeme Parmenter 4D of Otago University Go Club. Thanks also to the other half-dozen survivors for participating.
In the third division (beginners’ handicap) the winner was Zhenyu Liu 10k (!) of Melbourne University Go Club. Second place was Justin Luafutu 16K from Brisbane Go Club on four victories (crushed by the winner in the third round) and third place was Pan Zhao 8K from Melbourne (also on four victories, also went up against the winner). Thanks to the eleven other competitors who also played through to the end.
Tom Chen wins a free admission to the 2016 Australian Go Congress in January 2016, which handily enough is in his hometown of Sydney. Stephen Yang and Zhenyu Liu win free admission to the 2015 Australian Championships in December 2015 in Brisbane.
– Horatio Davis, Australian correspondent for the E-Journal
