Othello World Cup 2013, Tokyo, Japan
Othello News in Tokyo
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Tokyo, Japan, 21 January 2013
I was invited by the World Othello Federation to come to the World Othello Championship in Leeuwarden, November last year. That sort of set a trend, cause then I got invited by Megahouse to come to Tokyo to be there at the Celebration in honour of the 40th anniversary of Othello. I met mr. Masato Koide of Megahouse this afternoon and had a short interview with him. if you have an interesting tourney, please feel free to invite me too :) 
the win on draw cube
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January 23rd, welcome party and 1st round pairings
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January 24th, round 1 - 7
Borja Fernandez looked puzzled in his game against Yugo Toki
David Hand won against Jiska Helmes, round 1
interview with Yusuke Takanashi, interpreter Takeshi Murakami
Hideshi Tamenori
judge-meeting
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Registration started a little after 10 this morning. Everybody was very impressed with the venue so near the Skytree Tower. The tournament room is very spacious and has all sorts of special OWC decorations.
Mr. Koide welcomed the players and also explained about the special OWC rules. The toss of a coin will decide which player gets to decide whether he/she wants to choose colour or win in case of a draw. Another rule...., if your cellphone rings, you loose the game. Maybe this rule will give the foreign players a bit of an advantage, cause I heard many people complain that their phone does not work here in japan. Also present today mr Gorou Hasegawa, the inventor of the Othello game. Games on Liveothello..........Livestream 1 and 2...........Results per round results and standings round 1: Not any real great surprises. The WOC 2012 Top 3, Yusuke Takanashi, Kazuki Okamoto and Seiya Kurita, all won their games. Nicky van den Biggelaar (NLD), 4th at the WOC 2012, lost his game against Dominik Nowak (POL). I caught Patrick Aubroeck and Takuji Kashiwabara (FRA) in the lobby as they were analyzing their game. They opened with a tiger variation that some people call the German Tiger, because Matthias Berg from Germany plays it a lot. It was an opening that Patrick and Takuji had played many times before. Takuji made an error in the endgame and Patrick won the game. Table 1: Yun Miyazaki 43 - 21 Tom Schotte Table 2: Tan Kinpiow 30 - 34 Mei Urashima results and standings round 2: 14 players with 2 wins, among them 2 ladies, Mei Urashima (JPN) and Linda Praseptyo (NLD). Borja Moreno Fernandez was impressed by the strong game of his opponent Yusuke Takanashi. Borja got 22 discs, it could have been a bit more if the midgame had been better, but Borja was at a disadvantage from early on in the game. During the lunchbreak I had an Interview with Brian Rose. Table 1: Mei Urashima 50 - 14 Tsoi Chun Yip Table 2: Tetsuya Nakajima 41 - 23 Dong Zhen results and standings round 3:
One very interesting game in round 3 was Hidayat - Kashiwabara. They had played before years ago at European Grand Prix tournaments. Romy had won the toss and choose to play white. The game ended in a draw, too bad Romy won't get a half point, but yes, we are in Japan, so we play by Japanese rule. Seven players with 3 points: Makoto Suekuni (JPN), Tetsuya Nakajima (JPN), Yusuke Takanashi (JPN), Kazuki Okamoto (JPN), Yan Song (CHN) and Mei Urashima (JPN). Table 1: David Hand 22 - 42 Tetsuya Nakajima Table 2: Makoto Suekuni 34 - 30 Matthias Berg results and standings round 4: 4 players with 4 wins: Makoto Suekuni, Mei Urashima, Kazuki Okamoto and Yusuke Takanashi. Table 1: Yusuke Takanashi 36 - 28 Tetsuya Nakajima Table 2: Kazuki Okamoto 39 - 25 Hideshi Tamenori results and standings round 5: I sat next to table 2 to watch the game between Yusuke and Kazuki. They played in the final of the World Othello Championship 2012. The game started very quick and then there was a sort of stare-down for a couple of minutes. I think Yusuke was affected by the high temperature in the tourney room and he told me later that that was the case. Two players with 5 wins: Makoto Suekuni and Kazuki Okamoto Table 1: Makoto Suekuni 44 - 20 Mei Urashima Table 2: Kazuki Okamoto 40 - 24 Yusuke Takanashi Round 7 will be played tomorrow. There was a judge-meeting that took almost an hour about time-out at table 4 in the match between Tetsuya Nakajima (JPN) and Chen Kai (CHN). The judges reproduced the game at move 59, where the Nakajima had 3 seconds and 9 discs to flip. The player was unable to flip the remaining discs in time and thus lost the game. At move 30 Makajima had only 1 minute left on the clock so time was an issue at this game almost from the start. results and standings round 6:
For the dutch a crucial game between Nicky van den Biggelaar and Patrick Aubroeck. Patrick won this game and with 4 wins after the 6 rounds of the first day he is the best Dutch player. But I am sure Nicky will come back strong on the second day. Table 1: Makoto Suekuni 26 - 37 Kazuki Okamoto Table 2: Yusuke Takanashi 45 - 19 Chen Kai Leader with 6 wins is Kazuki Okamoto. There are 5 players with 5 wins: Makoto Suekuni, Yuta Esaki, Yusuke Takanashi, Martin Ødegard (NOR) and Matt Vinar (AUS) 
Mei Urashima
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KASHIWABARA Takuji 25 - 39 AUBROECK Patrick Othello World Cup 2013, round 1 
Patrick Aubroeck and Takuji Kashiwabara
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KASHIWABARA Takuji (winner) 32 - 32 HIDAYAT Romy Othello World Cup 2013, round 5 
Romy Hidayat
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KAI Chen (winner)- NAKAJIMA Tetsuya Othello World Cup 2013, round 5 
Chen Kai
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January 25th, round 8 - 13
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results and standings round 8:
Table1: Yuta Esaki 26 - 38 Makoto Suekuni Table 2: Kazuki Okamoto 39 - 25 Seiya Kurita Kazuki leads with 8 wins and 7 wins for Makoto results and standings round 9: Table 1: David Hand 26 - 38 Kazuki Okamoto Table 2: Tomoya Toda 14 - 40 Makoto Suekuni Kazuki Okamoto is still undefeated, Makoto Suekuni has 8 wins (only lost his game to Okamoto). Two players with 7 wins: Yusuke Takanashi and Dominik Nowak (POL). Best lady with 6 wins is Mei Urashima. results and standings round 7:
Leader with 6 wins after the 6 rounds on day 1 is Kazuki Okamoto. There are 5 players with 5 wins: Makoto Suekuni, Yuta Esaki, Yusuke Takanashi, Martin Ødegard (NOR) and Matt Vinar (AUS). I talked with Matt before the start of round 7. We played online Othello games at VOG a long time ago, nice to finally meet each other here in Tokyo. There are not many on the board players in Australia, at the national championships there are usualyy just 2 opponentn that give Matt any competition. Matt said that here at the OWC it is really very different. The players are all very very strong and that makes this tourney such a great event. Five wins out of six was more than Matt had expected, the win against Hadeshi Tamenori in round 6 (35 - 29). I talked with Choon Foong Lee from Singapore, he lost his game in round 7 against Ryo Shinahara. Choong said he played a bad game and the young boy played very well and took advantage of all his opponents mistakes. The Singapore players play and practise a lot, but according to Choong they lack international experience. The Othello World Cup offers them a great opportunity to play against the best of the world. There was a group of 15 schoolchildren that came in to watch the tourney for a moment. Some of the kids were interested so see that some kids were playing in the tourney too. Table 1: Matt Vinar 10 - 54 Kazuki Okamoto Table 2: Yusuke Takanashi 29 - 35 Makoto Suekuni Kazuki Okamoto has 7 out of 7. Makoto Suekuni and Yuta Esaki both have 6 wins. 11 players have 5 wins. The top 14 has 8 Japanese players. results and standings round 10:
I asked Patrick Aubroeck about his game15 - 49 game against Hideshi Tamenori. They played book untill move 24 but then Hideshi played a variation and Patrick failed to come up with the right response. For Patrick this is a great opportunity to play against the best Japanese players. He wanted to win at least 6 games out of 13 and he allready has his 6 points. Another 3 wins? Anything can happen. Nicky van den Biggelaar, the number 3 of WOC 2011 and number 4 of WOC 2012 won 24 - 40 against Borja Fernández. He now also has 6 points. Table 1: Dominik Nowak 25 - 39 Kazuki Okamoto Table 2: Makoto Suekuni 38 - 26 Yuji Miyazaki Kazuki Okamoto has 10 points, it seems he is too strong to beat. Makoto has 9 points and Yusuke has 8. Another 6 player have 7 points. There are still a lot of players that have a chance to make it to the finals. Kazuki Okamoto has qualified for the last 8. results and standings round 11: Francesco Marconi (ITA) had a very bad first day with only 1 win at round 6. His italian friends called it an "incubo", nightmare. Francesco came out of the tourney room after round 10 with a sad face and told me he was very sorry...... his opponent lost :). He now has 5 points, so his friends can start smiling. Round 12 will be hard, he will play against Makoto Suekuni Table 1: David Hand 27 - 37 Makoto Suekuni Table 2: Tomoya Toda 36 - 28 Yusuke Takanashi Kazuki Okamoto and Makoto Suekuni have qualified for the last 8. There are 4 japanese players with 8 points and 9 players with 7 points. It is very quiet in the lobby, the decision is near. results and standings round 12: The qualified players play at the lower tables in order to let the remaining players fight among themselves for the last 6 spot in the top 8 Table 1: Seiya Kurita (winner) 32 - 32 Yusuke Takanashi Table 2: Tomoya Toda 35 - 29 Hideshi Tamenori results and standings round 13: Table 1: David Hand 24 - 40 Yusuke Takanashi Table 2: Junya Ito (winner) 32 - 32 Hideshi Tamenori Playoff between David Hand and Hideshi was won by David Hand 37 - 27 Top 8 Players that will play in the finals tomorrow: Kazuki Okamoto JPN Makoto Suekuni JPN Tomoya Toda JPN Seiya Kurita JPN Yusuke Takanashi JPN Arnaud Delaunay FRA Junya Ito JPN David Hand GBR Under twelve winner with 5 wins is Yugo Toki (10) Also 5 wins for Arthur Juigner and Ryo Shinohara, it was an exciting tourney and all the boys played very well. 
Yugo Toki with his father
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Matt Vinar
Choon Foong Lee
Sotashi Kurahashi, Ryo and Yun Shinohara,
Patrick Aubroeck
visiting schoolkids
Dominik Nowak
Yuji Miyazaki
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David Hand - Hideshi Tamenori
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TAMENORI Hideshi 27 - 37 HAND David Othello World Cup 2013, play-off |
January 26th, finals, 8stars Othello Tournament, Grand Othello Tournament and Victory Dinner
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Two European players in the top 8, and frenchman Arnaud Delaunay even made it to the last 4. As expected, the top 3 of the 36th World Othello Championship in the Netherlands, Yusuke Takanashi, Kazuki Okaoto and Seiya Kurita also made it to the top 8. Lots of players tipped Yusuke Takanashi as the winner at te start of the tourney but Kazuki Okamoto had not been beaten yet in this tourney. Seiya Kurita (2431*) won the quarter final against Yusuke Takanashi (2567), Arnaud Delaunay (2192) took out Tomoya Toda (2238), Kazuki Okamoto (2396) was too strong for David Hand (2208) and Junya Ito (2300) defeated Makoto Suekuni (2393). Junya Ito defeated Arnaud Delaunay in de semi-final. They had played against each other in round 1, that time Arnaud had won. In the final Junya Ito played 2 - 0 against Kazuki Okamo. They had notmet in the preliminary rounds. The OWC first winner...... Junya Ito!!!
* World Othello Federation rating 16th December 2012 |
the quarter finalists: Junya Ito, Makoto Suekuni, Arnaud Delaunay, David Hand,
Kazuki Okamoto, Seiya Kurita, Yusuke Takanashi, Tomoya Toda
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The Quarter Finals
Arnaud Delaunay - Tomoda Toda
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DELAUNAY Arnaud 37 - 27 TODA Tomoda |
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HAND David 30 - 34 OKAMOTO Kazuki |
David Hand - Kazuki Okamoto
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Junya Ito - Makoto Suekuni
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ITO Junya 32 - 32 SUEKUNI Makoto Makoto lost on time, he had the right to win in case of a draw |
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TAKANASHI Yusuke 28 - 36 KURITA Seiya |
Yusuke Takanashi - Seiya Kurita
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The Semifinals
Junya Ito
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ITO Junya 36 - 28 DELAUNAY Arnaud |
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OKAMOTO Kazuki 35 - 29 KURITA Seiya |
Seiya Kurita
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Play-off 3rd 4th place
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KURITA Seiya 35 - 29 DELAUNAY Arnaud |
Seiya Kurita - Arnaud Delaunay
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Ladies Final
Mei Urashima - Joanna William
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URASHIMA Mei 24 - 40 WILLIAM Joanna |
The Finals
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OKAMOTO Kazuki 25 - 39 ITO Junya |
Junya Ito - Kazuki Okamoto
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Junya Ito - Kazuki Okamoto
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ITO Junya 43 - 21 OKAMOTO Kazuki |
The results of the finals
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Junya Ito won all his games on the final day. He qualified for the semifinals with a 7th place (9 wins). Check his games in round 1 - 13 here.
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Othello 8stars (results)
Final 8star Othello: Dominik Nowak (POL) - Tetsuya Nakajima (JPN) was won by Nakajima
Tom Schotte (BEL) battled for third place in 8star against Karsten Feldborg (DEN) and won
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Grand Othello (results)
Final Grand Othello: Matt Vinar (AUS) - Nicky van den Biggelaar (NLD)
Takamune Iijima - Masaki Takizawa (third place)
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January 27th, Othello Team Competition
Sunday 27th, last day of the tourney, there was a Team Competition, Team World against Team Japan which was won 4 -1 by Team Japan
Open Category: Yusuke Takanashi (JPN) winner - Nicky van den Biggelaar (NLD
Men : Makoto Suekuni (JPN) winner - Dominik Nowak POL)
Women: Mami Yamanaka (JPN) winner - Siew Kun Yap (MYS)
Pair: Mei Urashima / Seiya Kurita winners - Yan Song (CHN) / Joanna William (IDN)
Under 12 : Satoshi Kurahashi (JPN) - Arthur Juigner (FRA) winner
Also on Sunday: Mini Othello under 12 and Simultaneous Othello exhibition.
Open Category: Yusuke Takanashi (JPN) winner - Nicky van den Biggelaar (NLD
Men : Makoto Suekuni (JPN) winner - Dominik Nowak POL)
Women: Mami Yamanaka (JPN) winner - Siew Kun Yap (MYS)
Pair: Mei Urashima / Seiya Kurita winners - Yan Song (CHN) / Joanna William (IDN)
Under 12 : Satoshi Kurahashi (JPN) - Arthur Juigner (FRA) winner
Also on Sunday: Mini Othello under 12 and Simultaneous Othello exhibition.
Mini Othello 6 x 6 Champion Yugo Toki
Takeshi Murakami (World Othello Champion 1996, 1998 and 2000) and Hisako Hoshi (Female World Othello Champion 2005) played simultaneous Othello
