Rujun (Larry) Ding 6d of Palo Alto, California beat Qipeng Luo 7d of Champaign, Illinois in the final round of the Open section to win the Tenth Annual San Diego Go Championship with a record of 5-0. Ding won a ko fight at the end of the game to pull ahead for a 7-stone victory. Kyle Fenimore (NY) and Mani K Sanford (MI) placed second and third with 4-1 records in the 18-player Open section.
The 2021 SD Go Championship had its largest turnout ever with 73 players, representing 17 states, competing. Among the 32 players from California, 21 were from the San Diego Go Club. This was the second year that the tournament was held online due to the pandemic, with one game per week over five weeks. AGA membership was required of all players and there is hope that since the AGA Board has approved online ratings, that the tournament will be rated by the new AGA online rating system.
In the Handicap division there were eight sections. The winners were:
1) 3d-1.5d Patrick a Ferl (CA)
2) 1k-1.5k Wanqi Zhu (IL)
3) 1.6k-2.3k Michael Mei (CA)
4) 2.8k-3.7k Jerry Young (TX)
5) 4.2k-5.5k Duncan Harris (MI)
6) 5.7k-6.5k Juliet Zhang (NJ)
7) 7.3k-10k Terri Schurter (NJ)
8) 11.5k-25k Lewis Lin (NY)
All winners were awarded a redesigned 2017 Go Congress San Diego Go Club T-Shirt. This was the fourth online tournament organized by the San Diego Go Club during the pandemic. The club will continue to provide opportunities for online go competition as long as it is unsafe to play face-to-face. Hopefully, by Thanksgiving weekend SDGC will be able to hold the 4th Annual California State Go Championship in person.
-report and photo provided by Ted Terpstra
