40th World Othello Championship, Mito

Links you really absolutely need
Todays Japan Times had an article on the World Othello Championship and there was also an article in the Ibaraki Shimbun. Team Ivory Coast was very proud to have one of their players in the Japanese newspaper.

Round 8

With a 43-18 win against Brian Rose, Yasushi Nagano secured his spot as undefeated player at day 1 of this WOC. Right behind him 3 players with 6 points: Ben Seeley, Yusuke Takanashi and Hisako Kinoshita.
Very good first day of tournament for female player Hisako Kinoshita. It would be great to have a lady in the semis! A very tough opponent for her in round 8, she had to play against Yasushi Nagano. I met a lot of players at the first day of tournament that really praised the strong play by Hisako. Yasushi won the game but I am sure there will be more wins for Hisako today.


KINOSHITA Hisako 22-42 NAGANO Yasushi
WOC 2016, round 8
​Another interesting game was between Arthur Juigner and Masaki Wada. These are the two juniors players that are most likely to make it to the junior final. Arthur won the game 36-28, but, in a final anything can happen. Masaki Wada surprised his opponent with a gift and a nice card. What a very cool thing to do!


JUIGNER Arthur 36-28 WADA Masaki
WOC 2012, round 8


SEELEY Ben 30-34 KINOSHITA Hisako
WOC 2012, round 9

Round 9

Ben Seeley seemed sort of unfocused during his game against Hisako Kinoshita at table 3. I saw him get up several times and he appeared to be more interested in the games around him than in his own game. Ben was winning the entire game but gave away the game at six empties and lost 30 - 34. He dropped from a shared 4th place to 9th place. 
The main attention went to table 1: Yasushi Nagano against Oskar Eklund. The games was aired on livetv and afterward the players were interviewed in the LiveStudio. Live commentary during the games will be done by a game by Satoshi Koide, Yuji Miyazaki and former World Champions Takeshi Murakami, Kunihiko Tanida and Makoto Suekuni. This really is the next thing in tournament coverage.
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Round 10

During round 10, I was interviewed by Satoshi Koide and Makoto Suekuni. It was nice to be part of this new technical development in tournament coverage. My advise to you, apart from "play on the board" is, wear pink, looks great on screen" :)

​Piyanat Aunchulee is slowly moving towards the semifinals.
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Top 4 WOC after 10 rounds:
1.Yasushi Nagano {JPN} 10  
2.Yusuke Takanashi {JPN} 9
3.Piyanat Aunchulee {THA} 7.5 and Bo Xiang Koh {SGP}
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LiveTV: Makoto Suekuni, Trees van Seggelen and Satoshi Koide


AUNCHULEE Piyanat 33-31 MITSUYA Nobuaki
WOC 2016, round 10


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Linnea Widman, Benkt Steentoft and Rikard Fahleson

Round 11

Top 6 WOC after 11 rounds: Yasushi Nagano leads with 11 wins, right behind him with 10 points Yusuke Takanashi. Four players with 8 points: Ben Seeley, Yan Song, Hisako Kinoshita and Meng Joo Lai. Round 12 and 13 will decide their fate.
Two more rounds to go!!!!!

Round 12

A thriller game at table 1 between Ben Seeley and Yan Song. The tournament is clearly dominated by the Asians and the last hope of the Western world was Ben Seeley! Unfortunately he lost and timed out.  Best European after 12 rounds is Tom Schotte from Belgium
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The top three teams: Japan, China, Singapore


SEELEY Ben 28-36 SONG Yan
WOC 2016, round 12

Round 13



SEELEY Ben 28-36 SONG Yan
WOC 2016, round 12
Piyanat Aunchulee won 33-31 against Ben Seeley, a key game for a place in the finals. A very good game in the last round for Matthias Berg who won against Yusuke Takanashi 25-39. Hisako Kinoshita lost against Yan Song and Yasushi Nagano won 50-14 against Tom Schotte. Winner of the Swiss rounds is Yusushi Nagano, what a wonderful achievement to win all games in this very strong field of players. Best European player after 13 rounds: Matthias Berg from Germany.

Semifinal players:
Yasushi Nagano - Piyanat Aunchulee
Yusuke Takanashi - Yan Song

Semifinal players Ladies: 
Hisako Kinoshita - Joanna William 
Veronica Stenberg - Zhen Dong

Junior finalists:
Arthur Juigner - Masaki Wada
Crosstable after 13 rounds can be found here