American Go E-Journal

Super-Go Tournaments between professionals from China and Japan were quite popular back in the 1980s. The legendary Nie Weiping earned his nickname as the “Iron Goalkeeper” when, as China’s last remaining player in the first three Super-Go events, he defeated all the remaining Japanese players, a sequence of 11 consecutive wins. This year France and Germany are attempting to rekindle this national excitement with the Élysée Cup, a friendly online team tournament occasioned by the “année franco-allemande/Deutsch-französisches Jahr” celebrating the French-German friendship. Organized by the French Go Federation and the German Go Federation, the tournament — played on KGS — follows the model of the previous Super-Go tournaments, with each country fielding teams comprised of eight top players each. The two lowest-ranked players begin, with the winner continuing to play the next strongest opponent from the other team until there are no more opponents left. If the last player of a team is defeated it has lost the tournament. In addition to national bragging rights, the winning team will collect 200 Euro. France’s Toru Imamura scored the first win on June 29, defeating Jun Tarumi by resignation; His next opponent will be Lukas Kraemer on a date to be determined. The French team includes Motoki Noguchi 7d, Thomas Debarre 6d, Rémi Campagnie 6d, Benjamin Papazoglou 5d, Tanguy Le Calvé 5d, Antoine Fenech 5d, Frédéric Donzet 5d, Toru Imamura 4d and Benjamin Dréan-Guénaizia 5d (Substitute Player). The German team includes Pei Zhao 6d, Jin Zou 6d, Benjamin Teuber 6d, Franz-Josef Dickhut 6d, Christoph Gerlach 6d, Johannes Obenaus 5d, Lukas Kraemer 5d, Jun Tarumi 5d and Yi Zhang 5 Dan (Substitute Player).
– Jan Engelhardt, German correspondent for the E-Journal