40th World Othello Championship, Mito
The exciting hours before it all started
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The welcome reception was a great event, the Japan Othello Association did a great job. There was great food, traditional music and games and you could try on traditional Japanese costume. Everyone had great fun, and ofcourse what people enjoyed most was to meet their Othello firends.
Video of the event by Satoshi Koide can be found here. Additional pictures and video by Chu Chee Chin can be found here |
Guy Plowman and Benkt Steentoft
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Welcome speech by WOF President Tor Birger Skogen
Dear Othello-friends.
It’s a great pleasure to see so many Othello-players here today. This year we are going to celebrate the 40th World Othello Championship, and I’m glad we have the opportunity to arrange the tournament here in Mito, the home city of Mr. Goro Hasegawa who invented Othello in 1971.
The tournament this year will be one of the largest World Othello Championship ever, with more than 80 players from about 30 countries. For some of you this will be your first World Othello Championship, while others already have played in lot of championships. Some of you have also won the World Othello Championship earlier, while others maybe have lost most of your games in prior championships. Either you have ambitions to fight in the top, or are excited and nervous because you haven’t played Othello for so long time, I’m glad that you have come to Mito to take part in this championship. I’m sure you all will contribute to make this a great championship with good memories which will last for a long time.
This year we have invited all member federations to send one extra youth player to the championship. World Othello Federation have started a youth and school project to get more young players to start playing Othello. Therefore, I am pleased to see so many young players here today and I want to send a special welcome to you.
There are many people to thanks today. First of all, I want to thank our sponsors. Without their support this championship couldn’t have been arranged.
I cannot mention by name all people that have contributed in the planning and preparation for this championship, because you are so many. You have all done a great job! But nevertheless, I want to send a special thank you to Benkt Steentoft, Emmanuel Lazard and Trees van Seggelen in World Othello Federation for all their efforts during the last year. I also want to send a special thank you to Hiroyoshi Kudo. I know that you and many of your members in Japan Othello Association have worked very hard to make this event as successful as possible.
I hope we will have many exciting games the next days, and I hope that it will be friendship and good sportsmanship that characterizes all the games. I wish all players good luck in the tournament, and hope you will enjoy the days we will spend together here in Mito.
Thank you!
It’s a great pleasure to see so many Othello-players here today. This year we are going to celebrate the 40th World Othello Championship, and I’m glad we have the opportunity to arrange the tournament here in Mito, the home city of Mr. Goro Hasegawa who invented Othello in 1971.
The tournament this year will be one of the largest World Othello Championship ever, with more than 80 players from about 30 countries. For some of you this will be your first World Othello Championship, while others already have played in lot of championships. Some of you have also won the World Othello Championship earlier, while others maybe have lost most of your games in prior championships. Either you have ambitions to fight in the top, or are excited and nervous because you haven’t played Othello for so long time, I’m glad that you have come to Mito to take part in this championship. I’m sure you all will contribute to make this a great championship with good memories which will last for a long time.
This year we have invited all member federations to send one extra youth player to the championship. World Othello Federation have started a youth and school project to get more young players to start playing Othello. Therefore, I am pleased to see so many young players here today and I want to send a special welcome to you.
There are many people to thanks today. First of all, I want to thank our sponsors. Without their support this championship couldn’t have been arranged.
I cannot mention by name all people that have contributed in the planning and preparation for this championship, because you are so many. You have all done a great job! But nevertheless, I want to send a special thank you to Benkt Steentoft, Emmanuel Lazard and Trees van Seggelen in World Othello Federation for all their efforts during the last year. I also want to send a special thank you to Hiroyoshi Kudo. I know that you and many of your members in Japan Othello Association have worked very hard to make this event as successful as possible.
I hope we will have many exciting games the next days, and I hope that it will be friendship and good sportsmanship that characterizes all the games. I wish all players good luck in the tournament, and hope you will enjoy the days we will spend together here in Mito.
Thank you!
WOC links you really really need
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Tor Birger Skogen
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Round 1
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ROSE Brian 32-32 AUNCHULEE Piyanat WOC 2016, round 1 |
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Round 2 and 3
Ben Seeley
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BERG Matthias 7-57 SEELEY Ben WOC 2016, round 2 |
Janne Peiponen
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Ivory Coast delegation
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Time for lunchLunch was scheduled after round 3. Nine players went to lunch undefeated: Nicky van den Biggelaar {NLD}, Imre Leader {GBR}, Arthur Juigner {CHE}, Yusuke Takanashi {JPN}, Yan Song {CHN}, Hisako Kinoshita {JPN}, Joung-Mok Oh {KOR}, Yasushi Nagano {JPN} and Chun Wan Li {HKG}.
At lunch Ben Seeley and Satoshi Koide (from Othello Graph) were kind enough to teach me how to properly use chopsticks. It is not all about Othello here in Mito!!! |
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Round 4
Yusuke Takanashi won 41-23 against Nicky van den Biggelaar, Imre Leader had a big win 53-11 against Arthur Juigner, Joung-Mok Oh won 33-31 against Hisako Kinoshita, Chun Wan Li lost 21-43 against Piyanat Aunchulee and Yasushi Nagano won 38-26 against Yan Song . Four players with a perfect score of 4 points, Imre Leader in the lead!
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TAKANASHI Yusuke 41-23 VAN DEN BIGGELAAR Nicky WOC 2016, round 4 |
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Round 5
Great games at the top tables: Joung-Mok Oh lost 24-40 against Yasushi Nagano and Imre Leader lost 31-33 against Yusuke Takanashi. Round 6 pairs the two undefeated Japanese players!
Round 6
Yusuke Takanashi lost 31-33 against Yasushi Nagano and now Yasushi is the only undefeated player at the tournament. In the interview Yusuke refers to his game against Zhen Dong in round 3.
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TAKANASHI Yusuke 31-33 NAGANO Yasushi WOC 2016, round 6 |
Yasushi Nagano
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Joung-Mok Oh
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JUIGNER Arthur 32-32 OH Joung-Mok WOC 2016, round 6 |
Round 7
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NAGANO Yasushi 43-21 ROSE Brian WOC 2016, round 7 |
With a 43-21 win against Brian Rose, Yasushi Nagano secured his spot as undefeated player on 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! |
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WOC game of the day by Stéphane Nicolet
My pick of the day would be the game Yasushi Nagano from Japan against Yan Song from China, played on round 4. After 23 moves Black went in b5, preventing the good central move on g5, White had a difficult decision between c2 and c1. Yan San choose c2, but maybe c1 would had been better: both moves are of about equal value, but the sequences after c1 would have been easier to play. As it went, Black took control of the center of the position and struck on move 39 with g7, taking the diagonal and preparing the nice sequence 41-43 with a complicated endgame which he won 38-26. 
Yasushi Nagano - Yan Song
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NAGANO Yasushi 38-26 SONG Yan WOC 2016, round 4 |
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