Hereby I want to remind you some historical facts about World Championships. The first World Championship was played in 1989 in Kyoto, Japan. At that time, there were players from three countries (Japan, USSR, Sweden) that were the first members of The Renju International Federation. Ever since more countries have joined RIF and participated in World Championships.

The World Championship festival has traditionally two parts - one is the A-final where the World Champion title is decided, other part is the big International Open Tournament (B-tournament) where every renju fan may take part in. Usually about 60 players play in B-tournament. However, RIF decided to make the Renju World Championship festival even more attractive by adding International Qualification Tournament (QT) and Women Tournament (WT) into the festival program since 1997.

So, the World Championship consists of 4 tournaments now – QT, AT, WT, BT.

Here is the list of former World Championships:

1989 Kyoto Japan 1. Shigeru Nakamura (Japan)

2. Hideki Nara (Japan)

3. Toshio Nishimura (Japan)

1991 Moscow USSR 1. Shigeru Nakamura (Japan)

2. Makoto Yamaguchi (Japan)

3. Aldis Reims (Latvia)

1993 Arjeplog Sweden 1. Ando Meritee (Estonia)

2. Hideki Nara (Japan)

3. Aldis Reims (Latvia)

1995 Tallinn Estonia 1. Norihiko Kawamura (Japan)

2. Ando Meritee (Estonia)

3. Dmitri Ilyin (Russia)

1997 St.-Petersburg Russia 1. Kazuto Hasegawa (Japan)

2. Ando Meritee (Estonia)

3. Takashi Sagara (Japan)

These are the facts from the history. You can see the Japanese domination in every World Championships. Therefore, everybody expected Japanese delegation to show a good result in Beijing in 1999, too.

But when the Japanese delegation arrived to Beijing, it became clear that the great Shigeru Nakamura did not join the delegation and will not participate in World Championship A-final. Naturally, Japanese hopes were put on Kazuto Hasegawa as he was the current World Champion.

Before the A-final could begin, the International Qualification Tournament was played. This tournament had to decide the 5 people who will have the right to play in A-final. Previously, 7 people already had the place in A-final and so they skipped the QT – Kazuto Hasegawa, Norio Nishizono, Takashi Sagara, Yoshimi Hayakawa, Zhang JinYu, Ants Soosyrv, Ando Meritee.

There were three Taiwanese players in The International Qualification Tournament among the 20 players from 8 countries - 李士文, 張益豐, 陳鎮國. It was the first serious international tournament for them, therefore they may have been under heavy pressure and being nervous. I still remember my first big tournaments 10 years ago and how nervous I was at those times. As expected, Taiwanese players did not have much chance to fight for the top 5 places that would have given the right to play in A-final. Even though 李士文 had a good start – he got 2 points from 3 games, he did not have strength to fight the tournament till the end and got 3 points from 7 games totally. The best among the Taiwanese became 張益豐, he had a weak beginning in that tournament but finally ended on 9^th place with 4 points from 7 games. 陳鎮國 was almost playing in same style as 張益豐 (weak start, better finish) but he lost his last game to strong Russian player Filippov and got totally 3 points from 7 games.

Here are the final standings of the Qualification Tournament:

1. Mihail Kozhin Russia 6

2. Vladimir Sushkov Russia 5

3. Stefan Karlsson Sweden 5

4. Igor Sinyov Russia 4.5

5. Pavel Makarov Russia 4.5

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6. Petter Gardstrom Sweden 4.5

7. Sergei Filippov Russia 4

8. Andrey Hramov Uzbekistan 4

10. Albert Pogosyan Armenia 3.5

11. Artis Gaujens Latvia 3.5

12. Dong Li China 3.5

13. Tong Liu China 3

15. Wei Chen China 3

16. Tord Andersson Sweden 3

18. Juris Skuskovniks Latvia 2

19. Peeter Tamm Estonia 1

20. Aleksey Kobzev Armenia withdraw

Russian players dominated completely in that tournament. Only Swedish players Stefan Karlsson and Petter Gardstrom could show some resistance against Russian power.

Mihail Kozhin is the strongest player in Russia, very talented player and also very experienced. He is also the author of the famous theory book “Click of Stones”. In International Qualification Tournament he showed very powerful result and won the tournament confidently. In past, in earlier World Championships Kozhin had always failed to show good result and now almost everybody believed that this time Kozhin will finally prove his skill and make the success in A-final of 1999.

As soon as the QT was finished and people were congratulating Mihail Kozhin, an interview was made with him.

Kozhin: Thank you!

Kozhin: In the beginning of the tournament I was very nervous, especially in the second round when I played with Makarov. Eventually I managed to find the only defense move that was very difficult to see. After that particular game the internal tension in me eased up and the rest of the games I played more stable. Briefly saying, the tournament was quite successful for me. In addition to that, I believe that QT is quite good training before the A-final.

Kozhin: There has been a tradition of Japanese Meijin being the World Champion each time when he has participated. In other case the winner has been from Europe. So, this time the Europeans have the good chances. Personally, I try to show a stable playing style as in last two Russian High League tournaments.

Kozhin: I think that in top three there will be one player from Japan, Estonia and Russia.

Kozhin: Before I thought that theoretical preparation and the skill to sense deeply the position were they keys of success. Since there are no weak players in WC, psychological factors seem to be decisive in equal struggles. Russian renju players have many times lacked the psychological confidence (except Dmitri Ilyin, maybe).

During 1991-1997 I was in rather good shape but my failures were only caused by psychological factors – I just could not cope with pressure. After the WC in Sankt-Petersburg in 1997 I changed radically my system of preparation and I hope to play more successfully this time.

Kozhin: Thank you!

Part 2

When the Qualification Tournament was finished, all 12 finalists became clear. Russians had recovered from last World Championship (1997) failure and they were represented in A-final with 3 players coming from QT. Here is the list of all finalists:

Japan: Kazuto Hasegawa (The World Champion of 1997)

Yoshimi Hayakawa

Takashi Sagara

Norio Nishizono

Russia: Mihail Kozhin

Igor Sinyov

Vladimir Sushkov

Pavel Makarov

Estonia: Ants Soosyrv

Ando Meritee

Sweden: Stefan Karlsson

China: Zhang Jin-Yu

This time, it was really hard to predict the skill and final results of those 12 players. The 5 players never played in World Championship finals before, so nobody knew what they might be able to do in finals for the first time. I try to describe and evaluate those 12 players as they were before the beginning of that tournament.

He has played renju for a long time but yet he didn’t show any top results in serious competitions until the last World Championship in 1997 where he got the first place. As he had to try to defend his Champion title, he must have had lots of pressure. We all knew he was very strong player, but sometimes his play style had some weaknesses. Two years ago, the d11 was his lucky opening and actually that gave him the champion title in 1997. This time everybody had prepared that opening, so it would have been hard for him to show any surprises there. I believed though that he will manage to fight a place among the top three, especially because Nakamura was absent and the competition was weaker because of that.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Hasegawa, 1:1.

He is a great renju veteran. He has played renju for 43 years. He really has lots of experience and knowledge about renju. He is probably the most important key person for Japan renju. However, his play style is very strange. He can sometimes play very strong and win against the world best players, but in the other moment he loses to really weak players. He is the man who likes to enjoy the game itself more than trying to show a successful results in the tournaments. It was a big surprise for everybody that he managed to pass the Japanese pre-selection for World Championship and he got the direct place to A-final. Nobody could predict his result in A-final. He could show a very good or very bad result. However, I didn’t think he would get a place among top 5.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Hayakawa, 2:1.

He is also a famous Japanese player. People in the world know his name well because of the renju book that was made from his articles from the Renju Sekai magazine about 15 years ago. He was a very good player at those times. But the he didn’t play for a long time and appeared in renju arena again in 1993 when he joined the World Championship. The year 1997 was a very big success for him, he played the World Championship in very strong and impressive style. I admire his skill to play with black stones. He got the third place in WC’97. I personally considered Sagara to be the most dangerous Japanese competitor for me.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Sagara, 1:1.

Nishizono was another newcomer for the World Championship finals. Indeed, we all knew about his remarkable success in recent years. He had won the Meijin-sen tournament in Japan and challenged Nakamura for the title of Japanese Meijin. Even though he lost to Nakamura that match, we believed Nishizono could be very dangerous competitor in finals. He had good psychological maturity, but he seemed to have too careful playstyle sometimes. Being too careful in the games does not give that much chance for your own win, so I considered this as his disadvantage.

I didn’t know what place to predict for him. I believed he was in about same level as Hasegawa.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Nishizono, 0:0.

I know Russian players very well. In past, I used to play a lot against Russian players and naturally I had met Kozhin for several times. In my opinion he is surely the strongest player in Russia. He has been Russian Champion for several times. People also know him as the author of the renju book “Click of Stones”. Although he was very talented player, he seemed to have problems with psychological sides. He really played very bad in previous World Championships although he had taken part in almost every World Championship in past. This time people expected him to show a successful play in finals because he had won the QT just before with very powerful score. However, I personally didn’t believe that his psychological problems were solved so well that he could get to the top of the A-final.

He was already a top player when I just began to learn renju 12 years ago. Of course, in those times he won against me more than I won against him. However, in past 7 years I have not lost to him any game but won all of them. Yet, I cannot remember the total score between him and me because I lost nearly every game to him about 9-11 years ago when I was weaker player. I can only say some approximate numbers, I hope it is right.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Kozhin, 5.5 : 5.5.

Igor Sinyov is a great player with long playing experience. But he is also one of the most unstable players. Sometimes he can win nearly all games in the tournament, sometimes he loses most of the games. In the previous World Championships he has failed completely (1991 – 11^th place, 1997 – 9^th place). He has the same weakness as Kozhin – the psychological strength is unstable. Whenever he plays against me, I can feel he is afraid and therefore he doesn’t play in full strength. But he is still very powerful sometimes. Once he had even 9 dan according to the Russian kyudan system. He as another activity for renju too – he is collecting the renju games and inputting them into the renju database. There is a demo version of this database available in Internet called Datafree.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Sinyov, 6.5 : 3.5.

Sushkov is a young player. He is about 20 years old. He has lots of talent, but he always felt some kind of pressure because another young player from the same city, Alexander Klimashin, was always above him. So, Suhkov didn’t believe in his own success for a long time. Fortunately, he got over that pressure in past 2 years. He has performed very successfully in Russian strong tournaments and he got the second place in European Championship 1998. Even though he is not very matured player, he is a dangerous opponent for everyone.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Sushkov, 5 : 2.

He is the man who surprises me most. I remember I first met him in Russia 9 years ago. He was just an average player, I hadn’t even heard of him before. We played a gambling opening d5, and he beat me as black. I was so surprised. Another time we met in Russia again, 4 years later, that time I was more careful and I won the game as black in another gambling opening, i9. After that he kind of disappeared from renju arena for a while. We thought he does not play renju anymore, but suddenly, in last 2 years he has shown a serious interest towards renju again, he joined several Russian renju tournaments and was very successful there. Of course, most of the players believed he was just lucky. But when he also passed the Russian Qualification tournament for the right to play in International QT, people started to think of him as a renju veteran who returned to renju with the new spirit and strength. People became even more confused when they saw that Makarov passed the International QT as well and got the right to play in the A-final.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Makarov, 1 : 1.

I grow up in my renju career together with Ants, side by side. We learned a lot about renju together. He knows so much about me just as I know so much about him. The games with him are really hard always. He is my most difficult opponent, I believe. I have played with him hundreds of training games, I think. We have learned a lot from each other’s play style. He is more peaceful player, he doesn’t like aggressive play style. He often plays the games in defense. He never won any high titles in tournaments yet even though he has played renju for 12 years. Sometimes he just lacks confidence or fighting spirit, but I believe he is one of the world top players. Usually he didn’t get the first places in tournaments because he and I joined the same tournaments together and in that case he has to overplay me to get the first place. He has played quite stable in previous World Championships. I assumed he might get the place in top 3 in this WC. I never counted the game results between us, there are too many games we played in past. So I just used the renju database statistics to check the approximate score.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Soosyrv, 24.5 : 12.5.

He is surely the best renju player in Sweden. He has been Swedish Champion in many years and he has also shown good results in other International tournaments in recent years. In past, I didn’t believe Karlsson is a talented player. He just seemed to be a hard working player who studies a lot in order to get a good result. But recently, in last 3 years he has shown remarkable progress. It is hard to explain what was the key of his success. Perhaps he just reached to the new level of understanding in renju.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Karlsson, 11 : 3.

We didn’t know much about that player before the World Championship. China had a right for one place in A-final because China was the host of the WC, so China Renju Federation chose Zhang Jin-Yu to represent their country in the finals. He is a talented player, but without any experience of International competitions. I assumed he would get the last place in the finals. However, it was expected that he would use the gambling style therefore the players had to know lots of theory to avoid traps in games with him.

My earlier score with him before the tournament – Meritee-Zhang, 0 : 0.

The tournament system for A-final is the “round-robin system”. That means, all players meet each other during the tournament. So, the A-final has 11 rounds. There was a rule that players from the same country should not play with each other in last three rounds. The special pairing system was used for that. The time regulation was two hours without control moves, and when 2 hours are over then the bayomi will begin, 30 minutes for 30 moves. Each player has to record his own game and there were also assistant referees available who would also record each game in A-final. It was not allowed to talk to each other in playing area, it was not allowed to exit the tournament room during the game without referee. For the first time in the WC history the audience was prohibited to enter the A-final hall for watching the games. The games were displayed in demonstration boards in the other room.

In July 30, The Opening Ceremony was held. For me it was a special day because July 30 is also my birthday. I was so happy that some of my friends had remembered it, Igor Sinyov and his wife gave me nice birthday cake, “ando 25” written on it.

The bad news was, the organizers had changed the tournament schedule for several times and as a result, the first round of the A-final was supposed to be played in the same day afternoon. Most of the players had counted on free afternoon, some of them wanted just to relax before the tournament, some of them wanted to study and prepare for the games. However, now nobody had time for anything, the first round began almost right after the Opening Ceremony was over.

The first round. I had to meet Norio Nishizono in the first round. I never played with him before, so I was very excited. Although I felt some pressure and felt nervous a little, I still played my best moves and won the game quite soon. I was relieved to get easy win against the player who had recently become very strong and famous in Japan. As my game was finished early, I had time to look around and see the other players’ games. Two very dramatic things happened. Ants Soosyrv, my countrymate, he suffrered the high blood pressure which was caused by the local climate and unfamiliar food and he nearly fainted during the game. He was taken to the other room for recovery. The local paramedic helped him. However, he didn’t get his strength back, so he just put few quick moves on the board and lost fast against Hayakawa.

Another dramatic incident was the game Kozhin-Sinyov. The game had lasted about 5 hours I think and the board was almost full of stones and suddenly Kozhin made a fatal mistake. Being in big time-trouble he took a stone and wanted to put it on the board, as soon as he touched the board with the stone, he realized he had missed the opponent’s 4x3 threat. According to the new WC rules this year, whenever the player touches the board with a stone, he has to submit move there and cannot move back. So, Sinyov was very lucky, he simply put 4x3 in the next move. The first round must have been a big pressure for all 12 players, those incidents prove it. More surprises happened in the first round. Makarov beat the World Champion Hasegawa, that was a big surprise. Another surprise was Zhang’s draw against Sagara.

According to the first round results, I predicted this WC will be extremely tough and probably more equal than ever before.

Fortunately, players could get rest after the first round. The second round was about to be played in the next day morning.

As the player’s emotional pressure was smaller by the second round, so there were no surprise results in that round.

On the third round I played with Sinyov. As usually, he was very nervous and played fast and I didn’t have to put much efforts into that game because he played a losing variant against me that he thought is all right to play. Another interesting game in that round was the fight between Makarov and Kozhin. Poor Kozhin, he had decided to play gambling d1 opening against Makarov but the latter was confident enough to win, so Kozhin lost the third game in a row. After this game Kozhin had lost the chance to show any success in this WC. Although he played successfully in QT, the A-final pressure was too hard for him once again.

The fourth round was very quiet round. Nothing special happened there. There were 3 draws in that round.

On the 5^th round Hasegawa won against Hayakawa and it seemed that he is going to repeat his success from the previous WC, he had 4 points from 5 games. Kozhin got his first victory in this tournament against Zhang. Karlsson won the important game against Soosyrv, it was the key point in his success in this WC. I played with Makarov, I couldn’t win easily and at some point I was really concerned if I am able to win that game at all. Finally, he made a big mistake and I got the win.

In the 6^th round Hasegawa lost a game to Karlsson, that was a big relief for me because he was on the second place at that time after me. For Stefan Karlsson, this game was extremely important win. Now he had fair chances to get a medal if he would continue in same manner. In this round, Ants Soosyrv health condition was so much bad, so he stayed in his hotel room and skipped the game with Makarov. I was really sad about him because I knew that Ants was good enough to fight for the places in the top three, but now he had to give up his chances for medal because of the health problems.

The standings after the 6^th round:

1. Meritee 6p 5. Sinyov 3.5p 9. Hayakawa 2p

2. Karlsson 4.5p 6. Makarov 3p 10. Soosyrv 1.5p

3. Hasegawa 4p 7. Sagara 2.5p 11. Sushkov 1.5p

4. Nishizono 3.5p 8. Kozhin 2.5p 12. Zhang 1.5p

This was the most equal fight that has ever been in the World Championships. The gap between the second and the last place was only 3 points after the 6^th round. The medals had not been decided yet, everything was still possible. The standings looked quite normal except some surprises – Makarov’s 6^th position seems to be above his true skills, Soosyrv’s 10^th position was sure evidence of failure.

My weakness appeared in the 7^th round. I thought I can win Zhang easily without big efforts, but I was wrong. He played very well and I couldn’t get more than the draw from that game. Ants was still very weak, he almost couldn’t sat on his chair during the game. So, whenever it was opponent’s turn to make a move, he took a rest on the floor. Hasegawa obviously underestimated Ants’ ability to fight under such conditions, so he played fast and not very focused against Ants. As a result, Hasegawa failed to win in i10 opening as black and around 60-70 moves Ants won as white. It was Hasegawa’s second consecutive loss. With that loss, Hasegawa practically lost his chance to get a high place in this tournament.

The 8^th round is to be remembered. There I got my only loss in the tournament, against Hayakawa. So embarrassing, I lost the game so fast. I got sleepy and missed a simple trap. Both Sinyov and Karlsson won their games and now it began to look like Europeans were going to take the three top places in this WC.

In the 9^th round Karlsson and Sinyov played with each other. Before that round, the gap between Karlsson and me was only half point. It seemed that Karlsson nearly defended against Sinyov whereas I was having difficulties in the game against Sagara. It already seemed that I was going to lose the game to Sagara and Karlsson would win his game against Sinyov and in such case Karlsson would pass me by half-a-point.

However, in the next hour everything changed. Sinyov managed to win his game after all and Sagara made several big mistakes against me and let me win. Ants Soosyrv began to make his final efforts to raise from the bottom of the tournament standings, he beat Nishizono very fast.

The 10^th round. Important games Meritee-Karlsson, Hasegawa-Sinyov. I had prepared well for my game and I won my game very easily. Sinyov was too nervous against Hasegawa and he couldn’t find black win against Hasegawa’s gambling 14^th move in d11 opening. Hasegawa won that game and approached to leaders group.

The standings before the last round: Meritee 8.5p, Sinyov 6.5p, Karlsson 6p, Hasegawa 6p.

Stefan Karlsson had played his best tournament in this WC. The last round offered him a great opportunity to reach to medal. Unfortunately he caught a cold in that evening and he was very weak because of that. We all worried if he was able to fight in last round or not. However, he proved that he is a good fighter no matter the health problems. He beat Makarov as white in i11 opening. I played with Hasegawa in the last round. I wanted to win very much and he knew that. He seemed to be very nervous and insecure. He played the variant he wasn’t sure of. As a result, he lost very fast. Some hours passed, Sinyov and Nishizono were still playing with each other. After some calculations it became clear that draw is enough for Sinyov to reach to the second place in the tournament. Sinyov had chosen quite equal pattern in d3 opening as black. His attack faded very soon and Nishizono took over the advantage in the middle of the game. Nishizono kept attacking all over the board. Karlsson was standing nearby their game and watching that game. His final place depended on that game. If Nishizono had won then Karlsson would have gotten the 2^nd place. If draw then Karlsson is the 3^rd and Sinyov is the 2^nd place. Finally. Sinyov managed to defend his position and achieve the draw against Nishizono. Kozhin had made a powerful play in the second half of the tournament but he couldn’t beat Soosyrv in the last round. Kozhin was too nervous and therefore he chose a very bad variant in i11 opening. Ants Soosyrv played in a bit different style than the book says, and that confused Kozhin. As a result, Ants won that game as black.

Zhang played a draw game against Hayakawa in the last round and he got 4.5 points totally in that tournament. It was above all expectations. Nobody thought he would get so many points. However, Zhang proved that he had prepared well for this tournament and he was not afraid of the psychological pressure too much.

The final standings:

1. Ando Meritee, Estonia 9.5p

2. Igor Sinyov, Russia 7p

3. Stefan Karlsson, Sweden 7p

4. Kazuto Hasegawa, Japan 6p

5. Ants Soosyrv, Estonia 5.5p

6. Mihail Kozhin, Russia 5.5p

7. Vladimir Sushkov, Russia 5p

8. Yoshimi Hayakawa, Japan 4.5p

9. Jinyu Zhang, China 4.5p

10. Norio Nishizono, Japan 4.5p

11. Pavel Makarov, Russia 4p

12. Takashi Sagara, Japan 2.5p

Seven hard days of playing were over, the world top had become clear. This time there were no Japanese in top three. It must have been a big shock for Japanese delegation. However, I remember Sagara’s words before the beginning of the WC – he predicted the Japanese weakness in this championship. European players Karlsson and Sinyov showed the very good result, they made their best tournament in their renju career.

The next World Championship will take place in Kyoto (Japan) in 2001. Right now we don’t know whether Nakamura will participate there or not. He said in the Interview that he would not participate in 2001 WC because of his job. We will see.

Anyway, I believe that Japanese will prove their high skills in the next WC especially because it is their country that hosts the next WC. I also predict a good performance of Chinese and Taiwanese renju players in the next WC.

About myself, I will try to learn more and do my best to keep my play in the good level and show a good result in the next World Championship.