This year the Spanish championship took place in San Xenxo, a touristic resort in Galicia, northwest of Spain. The first thing to notice is the low number of participants of this edition, since San Xenxo is 600 km to the closest club (Madrid), and almost 1000 km to the other spanish clubs. Besides, bad weather caused many players to arrive late, which forced the organizers (mainly José Luis Argudo, "Dani", at who we congratulate for his nice work) start the tournament at 18:00.
However, there was a good last-minute surprise that compensated this lack of participants. Mikami took Yuki Shigeno, 2 dan professional to take part in the tournament. You might be aware that she lives in Italy, and she is doing a nice work promoting go all over Europe.
Other remarkable facts was the return to the go competition of basque player Miguel Ángel Antolínez. Two years ago he used to play as shodan. But after getting used to play go on internet, where he has a 1k* and 1d* accounts, there was consensus to let him play as 3-dan. He did ok, winning 3 games, and therefore confirming his new ranking acquired at the go servers.
About the results, most important one is that César Sánchez won his 4th Spanish title in a row. This is by itself a really impressive mark. Winning 4 champs in a row would be very difficult even if he was 2 stones stronger that the rest of his opponents.
After the 4th round, it was clear that this year's title had to be fought between César and Dimas Cabré. Both had won against Joan Pons, who seemed to have improved a lot, after Mikami words, along the last year (he took part in the World Amateur Go Championship). However, the great surprise came in round #2, where Mikami won his game to Shigeno, using a one-stone handicap. Well, this should be a proof to all European strong amateurs that Mikami is really strong. He has proved it many times, and we feel that his only presence should be enough to some players to come to Spanish tournaments.
In round #5, there was the biggest upset of all the tournament. Joan Pons beat Mikami. He kept on starting bad on tournaments, losing games that he should win, and then winning games that let's say, where difficult for him. Last year, you may remember, he defeated a chinese professional, Ma 4p, in the last round, making the title go to César Sánchez instead of Dimas. Therefore, this result made things still interesting for the last round., where there could be a third candidate to the final victory.
So, on Saturday morning, the final was played in round #6. César against Dimas. A beautiful game, of which Joan Pons may post here an sgf record. César won with white by 10 points, including komi.
These are the results. The McMahon bar was set at 2-dan. Both Mikami and Shigeno gave a 2-stone handicap to their opponents.
Campeonato de España 1996 p nom cat club/c pp mcm som p.amador resultats 1 Mikami Masaru 6d mad/JP 5 22 122 7/5 5+ 2+ 3+ 7+ 6+ 4- 2 Yuki Sigeno 2p mln/JP 5 22 121 -6/0 4+ 1- 7+ 5+ 3+ 8+ 3 César Sánchez 4d mad/ES 4 21 122 2/4 8+ 7+ 1- 4+ 2- 5+ 4 Joan Pons 3d bcn/ES 3 20 124 1/3 2- 6+ 5- 3- 7+ 1+ 5 Dimas Cabré 3d bcn/ES 3 20 123 0/3 1- 8+ 4+ 2- 9+ 3- 6 M. Angel Antolínez 3d blb/ES 3 20 113 -6/2 7- 4- 11+ 8+ 1- 9+ 7 Paco G. dl Banda 4d sct/ES 2 19 119 -12/1 6+ 3- 2- 1- 4- 11+ 8 Tanabe Masahiro 4d mad/JP 2 19 117 -14/0 3- 5- 9+ 6- 10+ 2- 9 Kyose Takashi 2d mad/JP 3 19 102 -8/0 11+ 10+ 8- 12+ 5- 6- 10 Salvador González 3k mad/ES 3 15 80 2/1 20- 9- 12+ 11+ 8- 13+ 11 Sergio Ibañez 3k mad/ES 2 14 101 -3/1 9- 13+ 6- 10- 14+ 7- 12 Ma Jesús Rodríguez 5k mad/ES 4 14 69 1/1 15+ 14+ 10- 9- 19+ 17+ 13 Marc Gonzàlez 5k bcn/ES 4 14 68 -1/1 14+ 11- 15+ 16+ 17+ 10- 14 Ignacio Cernuda 4k mad/ES 3 14 59 -13/0 13- 12- 16+ 18+ 11- 19+ 15 Dani 9k mad/ES 4 10 45 1/1 12- 16+ 13- 19+ 18+ de+ 16 Pablo Nolla 10k mad/ES 3 8 50 -1/1 17+ 15- 14- 13- de+ 18+ 17 Juan Blanco 10k mad/ES 2 7 45 -10/0 16- 18+ 19- de+ 13- 12- 18 Enrique Martín 12k mad/ES 2 5 43 -4/1 19+ 17- de+ 14- 15- 16- 19 Fernando Avanzini 13k mad/ES 2 4 50 2/1 18- de+ 17+ 15- 12- 14- clubs: mad: Madrid mln: Milano bcn: Barcelona blb: Bilbao sct: Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canarias) pp: number of wins mcm: mcmahon points som: som of opponents' macmahon points
The Amador points (P.Amador) are used by the Spanish Go Association to regulate ranks. The first number are the Amador points, the second is the number of significative games. If the number is positive, then the player may be promoted. If the number is negative and inferior to the number of games played, the player keeps his/her rating. They are called Amador after Alberto Amador, who set this system many years ago.
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marc gonzalez i carnicer | ee02861@els.url.es
bulma@NNGS | bulma@IGS | http://www.els.url.es/~ee02861
"is there something you lack, when i'm flat on my back? " // elastica