During the weekend 18-19 December was held the first renju tournament in Hungary - Budapest Open. Before an article will be published about this event, you'll find results on the Hungarian Renju Page.
FESTLAND - WINNER OF OPEN SWEDISH TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
The annual Open Swedish Team Championship was held in Stockholm, 20-21/11 and was won by a superteam FESTLAND consisting of Ants Soosõrv (EST) at the first table, Samuli Saarenpää (FIN) at the second and Marko Pellikka (FIN) at the third table. The silver medal and the title of Swedish team champion went to STORK 1 with Stefan Karlsson (SWE), Joachim Gaulitz (SWE) and Martin Carlsson (SWE). Jönköpings first team gained the third place and had the following members: Göran Holgersson, Peter Jonsson and Rickard Sandström. The total amount of teams was nine. The final standings you'll find in "articles".
OPEN SWEDISH TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP 2004
During the coming weekend, 20-21/11 will be played Open Swedish Team Championship in Stockholm. The number of registered teams is nine of which six are domestic, one from Estonia and two teams from Finland. Every team has three members and a right to have a reserve player. The tournament system is round robin and time per game (renju) is 40 min (in case of gomoku 4 games and 10 min per game).
SWEDISH CUP 2004
Today the 14th of November was played the third and final game in Swedish Cup 2004. Stefan Karlsson continues the tradition of holding the title of Swedish Cup champion since year 1999 after subduing the ruling Swedish Champion Joachim Gaulitz in a rather short game in D11. Joachim did manage to make history in spite of the loss. Stefan lost his very fist game in Swedish cup since '98 against Joachim in the first round. Thereby Joachim stopped Stefans row of 33 matches without defeat in Swedish cup games.
SWEDISH CUP 2004
The Swedish cup final is played between Stefan Karlsson and Joachim Gaulitz. Joachim won the first match and Stefan the second. The champion is clear after best out of three matches. The third and decisive game will be played on Sunday the 14th of November.
SWEDISH CHAMPIONSHIP IN GOMOKU WITH FORBIDDEN ZONE, 9-10/10-2004
During the weekend 9-10 october was held the Swedish Championship in gomoku with forbidden zone. The tournament took place in a small town of Högsjö and gathered totally 33 players that is more players than a competition in Sweden has had for several years. The grand old master Peter Jonsson became the winner with 7.5 points, before Björn Lind and Anders Bertilsson. See the final standings in "articles".
HELSINKI OPEN, 25-26/9-2004
During the weekend 25-26/9 was played Helsinki Open. The renju tournament gathered 18 participants. A very equal fight for the first three places ended with the final result of Ando Meritee as a winner, Johann Lents at silver and Tunnet Taimla at the third place. All results are presented under "articles". A full article and some pictures will be published during the week (40).
SWEDSIH CUP SEMIFINAL
On Saturday the 18th of September was played the second semifinal of Swedish Cup 2004. The match took place in Bålsta and was held between Joachim Gaulitz and Petter Gardström. The ruling Swedish Champion Joachim won 2-0 and will thereby meet Stefan Karlsson in the cup final. The final will be played at latest in December.
KAREPA RENJUCAMP IN ESTONIA, 16.-25.8.2004
The annual renju camp at Karepa in northeast Estonia was held from the 16th to the 25th of August and gathered around 30 renjufans in a deep forest. This year the camp was divided into two parts in order to shorten the tournaments and thereby increase the number of participants. It also made it possible for players to try to play with two different rules: the first tourney was played according to Sakata rules and the second one with Tarannikov rules. Additionally a blitz tournament was held in the very beginning of the renju camp. All results you'll find in Renju Newsletter No 36. An article about the camp and some pictures will be published during this week (36).
CZECH OPEN, 16.-18.7.2004
Another wonderful renju trip is a history. During 16.-18.7. was played Czech Open in Pardubice. There were played two tournaments - the first one with RIF rules, 40 min per game, round robin and the second tournament was a gomoku tourney with swap rules, 15 per game. Both competitions gathered players from five different countries - Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Czech Republic and Estonia. Renju tournament lasted for two days and had 8 participants. Gomoku tournament was played on Sunday the 18th and it had 19 participants. The whole event was a part of international festival of chess, bridge and other mind sports that started on the 15th of July and will end on the 1st of August.
Stefan Karlsson was without a doubt the favourite before the tournaments. He succeeded to live up to the expectations and won both tournaments. He experienced though one loss - in renju tournament against Ales Rybka, who achieved the second place. The top three in renju tournament was: Stefan Karlsson (SWE), Ales Rybka (CZE), A'kos Kiszely (HUN) and three best in gomoku: Stefan Karlsson (SWE), A'kos Kiszely (HUN) and Petr Neuman (CZE).
ALEKSANDER KADULIN IS EUROPEAN CHAMPION 2004
On Friday the 18th of June was finished the 7th European Championship in renju. The new champion is a 13 year old Aleksander Kadulin from Podyuga. The second place was achieved by Johann Lents, Estonia and bronze went to another player from Podyuga - Pavel Vershinin. The final had totally 26 participants and B tournament over 30 players. You can read more about the tournament under "articles".
During 1-5 May was held the 5th Team World Championship in renju in a Sibirian town of Tyumen. Totally nine teams were participating - three teams from Russia, one from Estonia, Sweden, Japan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Belorussia. Unfortunately the two latter teams had only two members.
A hard struggle for the title ended with a victory for Russia 1, 28½ points with the following members (counted from the first table to the fourth): Vladimir Sushkov, Aleksander Klimashin, Konstantin Chingin, Konstantin Nikonov and Igor Sinyov as reserve. Estonia with 25 points was at silver: Ando Meritee, Tunnet Taimla, Ants Soosyrv, Timo Ilu and Irene Karlsson as reserve (she did not play any games). The third place was achieved by Russian II team with 22 points: Pavel Salnikov, Pavel Makarov, Sergey Artemyev, Vladimir Semyonov and Michail Kozhin as reserve.
To know more about the competition, please read the article under "articles". All results are published in the Renju Newsletter No 24.
An exciting struggle for the title of the Swedish Champion has been finished. Joachim Gaulitz is the new Swedish Champion in renju. Well, he is not that new after all. It is the fourth time for him to win the title. At silver was the previous champion Stefan Karlsson and the third place was achieved by Martin Carlsson.
A qualification tournament for Swedish Championship, the so called Lilla SM, was held during the two last days of the championship. The three best there were: Björn Lind, Richard Sandström and Martin Karlsson. Thereby Björn and Richard are guaranteed a place in the final in next years' competition. The tournament tables and all results from the final tournament round by round you will find in "articles".
On Saturday the 28th of February were held two of the totally four quarter finals in the Swedish Cup '04. According to the valid rules, the winner is best out of three games. Stefan Karlsson won both (2) games against Tord Andersson and will thereby continue to the semifinal. Joachim Gaulitz was victorious against Martin Carlsson in the first round, but lost in the second one. Martin and Joachim played their third game on the 29th of February, which was won by Joachim.
The annual Swedish Championship in blitz was held on the 21st of February in Linköping. Similarly to previous years, Stefan Karlsson became the predominant winner of the competition followed by Martin Carlsson at silver and Peter Jonsson at bronze medal. More info about the tourney and final standings, you'll find under "articles".
The Baltic League that was played during the weekend January the 31st and February 1st in Jönköping, Sweden was won by Stefan Karlsson , Ants Soosõrv got the second place and the third place was achieved by Martin Carlsson . More about the tournament and the final standings you'll find under "articles". You'll find some pictues under "Photo gallery" .
Tallinn Open that was played during 27-29/12 at hobby centre Kullo gathered 16 players from four different countries - China, Sweden, Finland and Estonia. The tournament was played according to Swiss system with 7 rounds and used time limit was 100 minutes. With a bit luck on his side, Ando Meritee became the winner of the competition with full points from seven rounds. Silver medalist was Tunnet Taimla with 5.5 points due to bitter loss against Ando Meritee and a draw against Aivo Oll (fourth place). The bronze medal was achieved by Stefan Karlsson who gathered 4.5 points. During the coming weekend we hope to publish the photos taken during the competition. For more information, please proceed to "articles".
During the weekend 6-7/12-2003 was played the annual Team Swedish Championship in Stockholm at KFUK-KFUM Central. The tournament gathered eigth teams and 25 renju players together with reserve players. Similarly to the previous year, the competition was won by a foreigh team - "Estonia 1" which consisted of present world champion Tunnet Taimla, Aivo Oll and Maris Tuvikene; the silver medal and a title of Swedish team champion was achieved by Hannes Hermansson, Linus Hermansson and Marcus Eriksson. A team that had some difficulties to decide their name. The final version was "Högsjö" that is a tiny town in Sweden, where Hannes and Linus have grown up. The bronze medal was achieved by the best Finnish team in the tourney :-), "Tampere" - Samuli Saarenpää, Marko Pellikka and Lauri Toivonen. For more information, see "articles".
Do not miss the pictures! Photos from OSTC
The 22nd of November 2003 was played the annual and almost legendary Uppsala open club cup with nine brave participants - Martin Carlsson, Ingvar Sundling, Stefan and Irene Karlsson from Stockholm; Martin Larsson, Tord Andersson, Martin Englund, Michel Harms and Frank Arkbo from Uppsala. The ever unpredictable tournament ended with a highly unpredicted winner in Ingvar Sundling. A man who has been away from active renju playing for some years. Silver medal was achieved (or should we say screamed...?) by Frank Arkbo and bronze went to Stefan Karlsson. The final standings and some more comments you'll find under "articles".
The annual Wettercupen that was held in Jönköping 1-2/11-2003 gathered eigth real renju fighters of whom Martin Carlsson proved to be the best one. He achieved the second place on day one. On day two (when the cup was held) he won against Vu Quang in the first cup match, was victorious against Peter Jonsson in semifinal and secured the victory by beating Peder Svensson in the final. The top three: 1. Martin Carlsson, 2. Peder Svensson and 3. Peter Jonsson.
On Saturday the 18th and 25th of October was played the Swedish Cup final in Alby, Stockholm between Martin Carlsson and Stefan Karlsson. Both games were played in D11. Stefan won 2-0 and he is the Swedish Cup champion 2003.
The tournament took place for the ninth time, just like Wettercuppen. Previously Jönköping had won for four times, Stockholm twice, once Uppsala and once Tallinn. In the best three years there have been over ten teams (with three members), in 1995 even 13 and that was without foreigners. This year unfortunately only four Swedish teams were present; two Estonian and one Finnish-Estonian mixed team occurred.
The main favourite was Stockholm's team (Joachim Gaulitz, Stefan Karlsson, Martin Carlsson), which had also the highest mean rating and Tallinn 1 (Tunnet Taimla, Johann Lents, Maris Tuvikene). In reality the dense schedule (30 minutes per game, 11 rounds in 2 days in Italian system) gave the obviuos advantage to Estonians. In any case they led from the first round till the last and assured their first place already long before the end of the tournament. Tunnet and Johann won all their games for a long time and Maris was able to stamp out her opponents in several important games.
A grand surprise was the second place of Finnish-Estonian mixed team (Marko Pellikka, Irene Karlsson and Simo Siiriä). Marko played particulary steadily on the first table, losing only to Tunnet and Johann. He was respectably supported by Irene and Simo Siiriä (it was only his second tournament).
There was a fierce battle for the title of the Swedish Champion. The team of the stars, Stockholm, came close to accepting the third place among Swedish teams and 5th or 6th place in the whole table. Yet the victories of Stefan and Martin in the last round over Tunnet and Johann lifted Stockholm to be the Swedish Champion. Several times Swedish Champion Jocke "excelled" with an innovation in the last round against Maris - 1-h8, 2-h9, 3-h6, 4-i10, 5-f9(!?). Later it became obvious that he had meant to move f8, but his hand faltered a bit...
| LAG SM, 7-8TH DEC 2002: | ||
| 1. | TALLINN 1(T.Taimla, J.Lents, M.Tuvikene) | 24.5 |
| 2. | TAMSINKI (M.Pellikka, I.Karlsson, S.Siiriä) | 17.5 |
| 3. | STOCKHOLM (J.Gaulitz, S.Karlsson, M.Carlsson) | 17.5 |
| 4. | HLJ (L.Hermansson, M.Eriksson, Q.Wu) | 17 |
| 5. | JÖNKÖPING (G.Holgersson, P.Jonsson, M.Karlsson) | 17 |
| 6. | TALLINN 2(A.Soosõrv, E.Tihkan, A.Timmermann) | 15 |
| 7. | UPPSALA (T.Andersson, M.Larsson, M.Englund) | 7 |
The sixth European Championship in renju was held at Karepa 11th-15th August, about 100 kilometers northeast from Estonias capital Tallinn. For the first time in EC history a qualification tournament was arranged by which three players were guaranteed a place in the final.
Twelve participants struggled for the place in the EC final in the QT 7-9th of August. Irina Metreveli, Sergei Artemjev (both from Russia) and as a great surprise Lauri Toivonen from Finland where the best three in the qualification tournament. Bigger surprise than Lauri Toivonens third place was Pavel Ses (Russia) fourth place in the QT. His participation in the final decided the number of finalists. In case of odd number, a fourth player from QT had had a chance to play in the final. But the number of participants before QT was 19. That meant B-tournament for Pavel.
Impressively by 8 points of 9 possible, won the title of European Champion Igor Sinyov (Russia). A good fighting spirit showed Tunnet Taimla (Estonia) who after not an ideal beginning succeeded to get himself together and achieve the second place with 6.5 points. The third place got a player who notwithstanding his strength has not been among the best three in title tournaments – Pavel Makarov (Russia). Young Estonian Andry Purk made the tournament of his life (this far), gathered 4.5 points and shocked all positively with his 13th place.
| EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP, 11-15/8-2002, KAREPA: | |||
| 1. | Igor Sinyov | (RUS) | 8 |
| 2. | Tunnet Taimla | (EST) | 6.5 |
| 3. | Pavel Makarov | (RUS) | 6 |
| 4. | Stefan Karlsson | (SWE) | 6 |
| 5. | Pavel Salnikov | (RUS) | 6 |
| 6. | Aleksander Klimashin | (RUS) | 6 |
| 7. | Vladimir Semyonov | (RUS) | 5.5 |
| 8. | Yulia Savrasova | (RUS) | 5.5 |
| 9. | Irina Metreveli | (RUS) | 5 |
| 10. | Johann Lents | (EST) | 4.5 |
| 11. | Andrei Hramov | (UZB) | 4.5 |
| 12. | Konstantin Nikonov | (RUS) | 4.5 |
| 13. | Andry Purk | (EST) | 4.5 |
| 14. | Sergey Artemyev | (RUS) | 4.5 |
| 15. | Victor Golossov | (RUS) | 4 |
| 16. | Nizami Heibatov | (AZE) | 4 |
| 17. | Lauri Toivonen | (FIN) | 3 |
| 18. | Maris Tuvikene | (EST) | 3 |
| 19. | Vladimir Kolesnik | (UKR) | 2.5 |
| 20. | Eldar Dzainukov | (AZE) | 2.5 |
| 21. | Timo Ilu | (EST) | 2.5 |
| 22. | Marko Pellikka | (FIN) | 2 |
At the same time with the final was held the B-tournament with seven participants. That tournament was played with a double round robin system. Natalja Vassiljeva from Russia was a predominant winner of BT. She got full points – 12 of 12 possible.
ECs QT and BT was Juho Jäppinens (Finland) first ever renju tournaments. It was very brave of him to participate without any tournament experience. Juho won two games in BT.
| European Championship, BT 11-15/8-2002, Karepa: | |||
| 1. | Natalja Vassiljeva | (RUS) | 12 |
| 2. | Irene Karlsson | (EST) | 9 |
| 3. | Sander Sulane | (EST) | 7 |
| 4. | Kaia Kolk | (EST) | 4.5 |
| 5. | Mikk Oblikas | (EST) | 4.5 |
| 6. | Peeter Kolk | (EST) | 3 |
| 7. | Juho Jäppinen | (FIN) | 2 |
During the period 29/4 – 3/5 was held Team World Championship in a tiny Swedish town Vadstena. It was unclear for a long time what the number of participating teams will be. Some days before the start became clear that both South Korea and Ukraine will be represented with a team in the championship. That meant totally eight teams in TWC – Russia I and II, Sweden I and II, Ukraine, Estonia, Japan and South Korea.
The tournament system consisted of two stages. The first one was round robin, the second stage was playing in pairs - no 1 with 2 for the first place, no 3 with 4 for the third place and so on. In a very interesting first stage Russia got the first place. Its opponent in the second stage became surprisingly young Estonian team. Sweden 1 who had enough experience and knowledge in order to fight for the brightest medal, was forced to struggle for the third place. Its opponent in the second stage was Russia 2.
As expected a much older and experienced team Russia 1 won the final and thereby also the title of Team World Champion, Estonia got the silver and Sweden 1 bronze medal. Although that the result was not better than 8th place for South Korea they showed a good fighting spirit in every match.
| TEAM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, 29/4-3/5- 2002, VADSTENA: | ||
| 1. | RUSSIA I (Salnikov P, Klimashin A, Artemjev S, Skuridin A, Semyonov V) | 21 |
| 2. | ESTONIA (Soosõrv A, Taimla T, Lents J, Ilu T, Tuvikene M) | 20 |
| 3. | SWEDEN I (Karlsson S, Gardström P, Holgersson G, Hermansson L, Gaulitz J) | 18 |
| 4. | RUSSIA II (Skuridina-Jonsson O, Dvoeglazov V, Alexandrov V, Yepifanov D) | 13.5 |
| 5. | SWEDEN II (Andersson T, Carlsson M, Eriksson M, Eriksson B, Jonsson P) | 13 |
| 6. | JAPAN (Nara H, Iio Y, Kudomi T, Adachi Y) | 11 |
| 7. | UKRAINE (Nazarov V, Drozd O, Piddubny K, Kolesnik V) | 8.5 |
| 8. | SOUTH KOREA (Kim C H, Sub L Y, Joung S J, Lee S S, Kwon J C) | 7 |
The annual Swedish Championships in renju was held in Stockholm, at the YMCA-YWCA Central during the period 3-7 April. A tournament which was characterised by absence of a great number players in the Swedish elite - Stefan Karlsson who skipped his first ever championship since 1986; Rickard Johannesson and Petter Gardström.
According to the questionnaire done before the start of the tournament, the ruling champion Göran Holgersson and two-time champion Joachim Gaulitz were predicted a great success. There was a surprising consensus about Tord Andersson's best prospects to bronze medal. For three players - Björn Wallgren, Jan Palmgren and Hannes Hermansson the championship was the first tournament the to take part in after 1-2 year long absence from the active renju life.
The ruling Swedish champion got a good start - 3 out of 3; Joachim had the same result after the third round, the younger of the Hermanssons' brothers Linus, was sharp - 2 out of 3. After the sixth round was Joachim leading with 5.5, Peter Jonsson (surprising all participants and observers, among them himself), Göran experienced two losses in rounds 4 and 6 and had four points. Hannes Hermansson had gathered himself - he had 1.5 from rounds 5 and 6. Before these had he lost four games in a row.
One point from the last three rounds was enough for Joachim for winning the tournament. Göran struggled hard, but 6 points and the second place was what he could manage. The third place was achieved by a young talent Linus Hermansson, 5.5 points.
| SWEDISH CHAMPIONSHIPS (FIRST LEAGUE), 3-7/4-02: | |||
| 1. | Joachim Gaulitz | (STORK) | 6.5 |
| 2. | Göran Holgersson | (JPG) | 6 |
| 3. | Linus Hermansson | (HÖGSJÖ) | 5.5 |
| 4. | Hannes Hermansson | (AROLF) | 4.5 |
| 5. | Peter Jonsson | (JPG | 4.5 |
| 6. | Björn Wallgren | (HRS) | 4 |
| 7.-8. | Björn Eriksson | (STORK) | 3.5 |
| 7.-8. | Marcus Eriksson | (LIN) | 3.5 |
| 9. | Tord Andersson | (UPL) | 3.5 |
| 10. | Jan Palmgren | (GÖT) | 3.5 |
Martin Carlsson experienced a dream come true when he won Lilla SM (second league). It was the first renju tournament for him to win. Martin was about to succeed to demolish his own plans when he lost against his biggest rival Thomas Hagenfors. But Martin was lucky - Thomas lost against Bengt Nyberg in the decisive last round.
Briefly - Martin Carlsson number one, Thomas Hagenfors number two. Bengt Nyberg got the bronze medal. Thereby Martin and Thomas where the ones who qualified for the first league next year (the Swedish Champion final).
| SWEDISH CHAMPIONSHIPS (SECOND LEAGUE), 6-7/4-02: | |||
| 1. | Martin Carlsson | (JPG) | 8 |
| 2. | Thomas Hagenfors | (KUMLA) | 7 |
| 3. | Bengt Nyberg | (VSN) | 7 |
| 4. | Jörgen Rehnstedt | (BORL) | 6 |
| 5. | Peter Carlsson | (ÖREBRO) | 6 |
| 6. | Kristoffer Fjellström | (AROLF) | 4 |
| 7. | Sandra Widman | (AROLF) | 3 |
| 8. | Lars Hellander | (AROLF) | 3 |
| 9. | Sandra Fjellström | (AROLF) | 1 |
| 10. | Karl-Axel Dahlberg | (AROLF) | 0 |
During the previuos weekend was played the annual Baltic League, which this time was held in Jönköping, Sweden. There were twenty-three participants from three countries and the tournament was played in Swiss system. The struggle for the first three places was harder than ever - Ants Soosorv (EST), Johann Lents (EST) and Göran Holgersson (SWE) had all six points after the seventh round. The winner was decided by calculating coefficients. The surpriser of the tournament was definitely Igor Samotsvetov from Russia who got the fourth place. Baltic League 2002 was his second renju tournament.
| BALTIC LEAGUE, 26-27/1-02: | |||
| 1. | Ants Soosõrv | (EST) | 6(29) |
| 2. | Johann Lents | (EST) | 6(28) |
| 3. | Göran Holgersson | (SWE) | 6(27) |
| 4. | Igor Samotsvetov | (RUS) | 4.5(24) |
| 5. | Martin Carlsson | (SWE) | 4.5(21.5) |
| 6. | Stefan Karlsson | (SWE) | 4(30) |
| 7. | Peter Jonsson | (SWE) | 4(27.5) |
| 8. | Joachim Gaulitz | (SWE) | 4(26) |
| 9. | Björn Eriksson | (SWE) | 4(25) |
| 10. | Martin Karlsson | (SWE) | 4(19) |
| 11. | Irene Karlsson | (EST) | 3.5(28) |
| 12. | Ester Eggert | (EST) | 3.5(21.5) |
| 13. | Mikk Oblikas | (EST) | 3(23) |
| 14. | Jörgen Rehnstedt | (SWE) | 3(21.75) |
| 15. | Sander Sulane | (EST) | 3(21.5) |
| 16. | Alvar Timmermann | (EST) | 3(18.5) |
| 17. | Leif Larsson | (SWE) | 3(17.5) |
| 18. | Triin Rannas | (EST) | 2.5(18.5) |
| 19. | Priit Ohlo | (EST) | 2.5(15.5) |
| 20. | Marje Mets | (EST) | 2(18.5) |
| 21. | Thimmy Ekdahl | (SWE) | 1.5(17.5) |
| 22. | Mikael Johansson | (SWE) | 1.5(11.5) |
| 23. | Niklas Andersson | (SWE) | 1 |
During 29-30/9-2001 was played Helsinki Open with seven rounds in Swiss system. The tournament was held at cosy elementary school with the name Kotinumme, where the competition has taken place the previous three years. Main organisers were the school head master Eila Huhtinen and Estonian trainer and player Ants Soosõrv.
Players from five different countries had gathered to fight for the title in the renju tournament. Predictions about top three were shook when Evelyn Tihkan won against Ants and Maris Tuvikene made a draw against Stefan Karlsson. But that was not all: a young Estonian Ester Eggert won against Stefan Karlsson and Kristian Lindberg and Maris won against Martin Carlsson!!! Here come the final results:
| HELSINKI OPEN, 29-30/9-01: | |||
| 1. | Ants Soosõrv | (EST) | 6 |
| 2. | Martin Carlsson | (SWE) | 5 |
| 3. | Maris Tuvikene | (EST) | 4.5 |
| 4. | Evelyn Tihkan | (EST) | 4 |
| 5. | Tunnet Taimla | (EST) | 4 |
| 6. | Vitaly Lunkin | (RUS) | 4 |
| 7. | Ester Eggert | (EST) | 3.5 |
| 8. | Stefan Karlsson | (SWE) | 3.5 |
| 9. | Linas Laibinis | (LIT) | 3.5 |
| 10. | Irene Karlsson | (EST) | 3 |
| 11. | Marko Pellikka | (FIN) | 3 |
| 12. | Kristian Lindberg | (SWE) | 3 |
| 13. | Ain Ostra | (EST) | 2 |
| 14. | Marika Pellikka | (FIN) | 0 |
There were more countries represented than ever in the renju WC in Japan, 4/8-12/8-2001 in spite of the long and relatively expensive trip. Seldom has the number of participating countries been more than ten. This time it was 13. Among others Chinese Taipei and Uzbekistan which became member-countries in RIF in 1999 at the previous world championship in China. The players lived and played at a very nice hotel in Kyoto (Kyoto Park Hotel) as in Beijing for two years ago.
Tables with all results and many pictures, you can see at the URL-address: http://www.renju.nu/
Many believed that it will be very difficult for anyone to stop Ando Meritee, Estonia from winning the title of world champion in Kyoto. But no-one could assume that he’d do it so impressively – 11 points out of 11. The second Vladimir Sushkov and Igor Sinyov, both from Russia, were far behind Ando – respectively with nine and eight points. The biggest surprise was the Korean player Kim Byoung-Jun who took four points and got the ninth place. The best Swedish player was Petter Gardström at the fifth place. With another place among the top seven, Stefan Karlsson 6th, Sweden got two national places in the coming WC in Sweden, Vadstena in 2003.
The women tournament was rather poor in comparison with the previous championships in St.Petersburg and Beijing. Irina Metreveli and Yulia Savrasova, both from Russia, were considered as the main favourites. All the places from the bronze till the last were hard to predict. The first places divided as expected: Savrasova number one and Metreveli at silver. Estonian player, Maris Tuvikene, showed a convincing play throughout the tournament but didn’t succeed to come in the top three this time and got the fourth place. Bronze went to Hsu Wen-Ching, Chinese Taipei, a player who made her debut in international tournaments. Here are the results from AT:
| 7TH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, AT: | |||
| 1. | Ando Meritee | (EST) | 11 |
| 2. | Vladimir Sushkov | (RUS) | 9 |
| 3. | Igor Sinyov | (RUS) | 8 |
| 4. | Hideki Nara | (JPN) | 6 |
| 5. | Petter Gardström | (SWE) | 5.5 |
| 6. | Stefan Karlsson | (SWE) | 5 |
| 7. | Ants Soosõrv | (EST) | 5 |
| 8. | Shinichi Ishitani | (JPN) | 4.5 |
| 9. | Kim Byoung-Jun | (KOR) | 4 |
| 10. | Konstantin Nikonov | (RUS) | 4 |
| 11. | Joachim Gaulitz | (SWE) | 3 |
| 12. | Lin Shieng-Min | (TWN) | 1 |
Here come the final standings in WT:
| 7TH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, WT: | |||
| 1. | Yulia Savrasova | (RUS) | 8.5 |
| 2. | Irina Metreveli | (RUS) | 8 |
| 3. | Hsu Wen-Ching | (TWN) | 7 |
| 4. | Maris Tuvikene | (EST) | 7 |
| 5. | Irene Karlsson | (EST) | 7 |
| 6. | Evelyn Tihkan | (EST) | 6.5 |
| 7. | Yang Hsia-Yu | (TWN) | 4.5 |
| 8. | Mutsumi Tatsutomi | (JAP) | 3 |
| 9. | Hee-Jeong Song | (KOR) | 2 |
| 10. | Chie Tatsutomi | (JAP) | 1.5 |
| 11. | Ani Kocharyan | (ARM) | 0 |
Within two and a half weeks will start the International Qualification for the WC that will be played during three days, 4-6th of August. The 7th of August will be the start for both the A-final and the Women World Championship.
Players qualified to play in WC (preliminary): Aleksander Klimashin (Russia), Yuri Tarannikov (Russia), Mikhail Kozhin (Russia), Hideki Nara (Japan), Kazuto Hasegawa (Japan), Kusaijma Masato (Japan), Okabe Horoshi (Japan), Sunagawa Syoki (Japan), Stefan Karlsson (Sweden), Tord Andersson (Sweden), Petter Gardström (Sweden), Jun Byung Kim (Korea), Ho Jung Park (Korea), Jae Sung Park (Korea), Leonid Gluhovsky (Israel), Johann Lents (Estonia), Evelyn Tihkan (Estonia), Wei-Yuang Cheng (Chinese Taipei), Wei-Han Chen (Chinese Taipei), Min-Shieng Lin (Chinese Taipei), Andrey Khramov (Uzbekistan), Nizami Heybatov (Azerbaijan), Albert Pogosyan (Armenia), Arnis Veidemanis (Latvia), Tao Bai (China), Shou-Xidong (China).
Players who already have qualified to A-final: Ando Meritee (Estonia), Igor Sinyov (Russia), Shinichi Ishitani (Japan), Joachim Gaulitz (Sweden), Vladimir Shushkov (Russia), Ants Soosõrv (Estonia), Konstantin Nikonov (Russia).
In august three members of renju activity at YMCA-YWCA in Stockholm participated in the 7th WC in renju in Kyoto, Japan.
The most stunning experience of all was the lack of place in Japan. You can not imagine how tight it is possible to build houses before you have visited that magnificent country. The streets can be one meter wide and most of the families have a car. Japanese must be world champions at parking between two cars!! There were parked cars even on the streets where it was almost too narrow to walk. In connection with the lack of place people did not have any gardens. Instead they had some plants in pots outside the main entrance.
In addition to the warmth some European renjuplayers were worried about how they could manage with the language in Japan. The widespread belief is that Japanese are not so good at English. It was a bit tricky to talk English with strangers, but it never happened that some situation could not be solved because of the language. For instance pharmacies were equipped with special posters with a human body and different disease symptoms in English and Japanese. The only thing you needed to do was to point at the symptom you had and get the medicine you need!!!
The most impressive building in Kyoto was the city’s railway station which functioned even as a shopping centre. It wasn’t the height and the size of the station that impressed us the most, but its architecture. All the sudden you felt like travelling forth in time some decades. The half-sleepy techno-music strengthened that feeling.
There are 1600 temples in Kyoto. Our group had the possibility to visit Chishaku-In, Higashi Hongan-Ji and the famous Kinkaku-Ji (The Golden Palace) and the Imperial Palace. The Zoo, Botanic Garden and Kyotos Nationalmuseum were among other sights that we had time to see during the moments that we were free from playing.
With this WC Korea became a new member in the renju-family. The country celebrated its membership with a fantastic 9th place in the A-final. The main purpose of the championships was thereby reached – to keep going the renju activity and see to that we increase!!!
THE FINAL SWEDISH QUALIFICATION FOR THE 7TH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
The Swedish Qualification for the 7th WC in renju in Kyoto was played during 26th and 30th June in Alby, in southern Stockholm, and Hamra 30 km north from Uppsala. The referee was Björn Wallgren. There were four players in Round Robin system of 12 rounds. After the 10th round the winner of the tournament was clear and the tournament was stopped. The winner and also the person who got the national place in the A- final among other six players was Joachim Gaulitz. The other three – Stefan, Petter and Tord have the possibility to play in the A-final if they come among five best in the QT in Japan.
| SWEDISH QT FOR WC, 26-30/6-2001: | ||
| 1. | Joachim Gaulitz | 8 |
| 2. | Petter Gardström | 6 (22) |
| 3. | Stefan Karlsson | 6 (12) |
| 4. | Tord Andersson | 0 |
The renju players who will be representing Sweden in Japan are following: Stefan Karlsson and Joachim Gaulitz from KFUK-KFUM Central in Stockholm, Tord Andersson from Uppsala, Petter Gardström from Enköping and Martin Calrsson from Jönköping.
Swedish Championship in renju 2001 was held in Jönköping at the YMCA-YWCA locals during the period 18th to 22nd of April. Ten eager participants had come to Jönköping to fight for the title which this far has been reachable for only nine persons. Not many at all – the competition has been held in Sweden since 1981.
The ruling champion Joachim Gaulitz, Stefan Karlsson and Petter Gardström was considered as the main favourites according to the questionnaire done before the tournament. Marcus and Björn Eriksson was expected to have difficulties with avoiding the last places.
The ruling champion started impressively – 3 of 3 and 4.5 of 5. Also Petter Gardström and Göran Holgersson played well – both had gathered four points out of five. In the sixth round came a bitter loss for Joachim – against Göran. The last three rounds had not much to offer either – a draw against Rickard saved Joachim from having zero points from the four last rounds. Always strong but not so successful in big tournaments – Göran - was making the competition of his life and won.
| STORA SM: JÖNKÖPING 18TH -22ND APRIL 2001: | ||
| 1. | Göran Holgersson | 8 |
| 2. | Petter Gardström | 6.5 |
| 3. | Stefan Karlsson | 6 |
| 4. | Joachim Gaulitz | 5 |
| 5. | Rickard Johannesson | 4 |
| 6. | Marcus Eriksson | 3.5 (17) |
| 7. | Tord Andersson | 3.5 (14.5) |
| 8. | Martin Carlsson | 3.5 (11) |
| 9. | Björn Eriksson | 3 |
| 10. | Linus Hermansson | 2 |
The Swedish Second League was played during two days, the 21st and 22nd of April. The winner Peter Jonsson had a convincing play. He lost only a half a point. Johnny Nielsens second place was no surprise. He is also a very strong player who have had a little break from “live” tournaments. The biggest surprise in the competition was Peter Carlsson who had played renju approximately one week before the S S League. Five points and 6th place was a great achievement!!
| LILLA SM: JÖNKÖPING 21ST -22ND APRIL 2001 | ||
| 1. | Peter Jonsson | 8.5 |
| 2. | Johnny Nielsen | 7.5 |
| 3. | Jörgen Rehnstedt | 6 |
| 4. | Irene Karlsson | 5.5 |
| 5. | Håkan Möller | 5.5 |
| 6. | Peter Carlsson | 5 |
| 7. | Sven-Åke Pettersson | 5 |
| 8. | Jan Paulander | 4.5 |
| 9. | Jonas Källman | 4.5 |
| 10. | Linnea Widman | 4.5 |
| 11. | Martin Karlsson | 4 |
| 12. | Erik Lissel | 4 |
| 13. | Bengt Nyberg | 4 |
| 14. | Kristoffer Fjellström | 4 |
| 15. | Sandra Fjellström | 3 |
| 16. | Lars Hellander | 2.5 |
| 17. | Wu Quang | 2 |
| 18. | Christina Källman | 1 |
Baltic League was played in Tallinn from 27th to 28th of January. Klimashin won the tournament with impressive 7 points of 9 possible. After a long break Latvian players took part in Baltic League. Unfortunately Gurckis got sick during tournament and could not play to the end, but Gaujens and Veidemanis showed quite a strong play.
| BALTIC LEAGUE, TALLINN 27-28 JANUARY 2001: | ||
| 1. | Aleksander Klimashin | 7 |
| 2. | Ants Soosõrv | 5 (31) |
| 3. | Stefan Karlsson | 5 (29) |
| 4. | Johann Lents | 5 (26.5) |
| 5. | Artis Gaujens | 4 (29) |
| 6. | Arnis Veidemanis | 4 (27) |
| 7. | Ain Ostra | 4 (25.5) |
| 8. | Margus Tuvikene | 4 (24) |
| 9. | Viktor Aleksandrov | 3.5 (27) |
| 10. | Vladimir Semyonov | 3.5 (22) |
| 11. | Timo Ilu | 3 (31.5) |
| 12. | Maris Tuvikene | 3 (25.5) |
| 13. | Tunnet Taimla | 3 (19.5) |
| 14. | Evelyn Tihkan | 3 (18.5) |
| 15. | Peeter Tamm | 2 |
| 16. | Kaarel Peetersoo | 1.5 (19.5) |
| 17. | Ester Eggert | 1.5 (17.5) |
| 18. | Gatis Gurckis | 1 |
At the weekend was played a very interesting Swedish team championship in renju. Totally participated 6 teams. Very modest amount, especially compared with the last year when the number of participating teams was double. The tournament itself was very exciting in spite of a rather low interest. First 4 teams were equal and had all possibilities to win the competition. The winner was not clarified before the start of the last round.
Tallinn showed the most stable games and won the tournament with the same amount of points as Jönköping, but with a better coefficient. Jönköping became the second, but won the title of Swedish team champion for the 4th time. The third team was Stockholm and the fourth Uppsala. The two clearly weaker teams were Stockholm 2 and Arjeplog. The latter showed a very good fighting spirit and one of its members, Linnea Widman, was given the "sweat drop" for taking 60% of the teams total points.
| LAG SM 2000, 25-26 NOV IN STOCKHOLM: | ||
| 1. | TALLINN (Soosõrv, Lents, Ostra) | 23 |
| 2. | JÖNKÖPING (Johannesson, Holgersson, Carlsson) | 23 |
| 3. | STOCKHOLM 1 (Karlsson S, Gaulitz, Eriksson | 21 |
| 4. | UPPSALA (Gardström, Andersson, Larsson) | 19.5 |
| 5. | STOCKHOLM 2 (Karlsson I, Nyberg, Kjällman, Torstensson) | 7.5 |
| 6. | ARJEPLOG (Widman P, Fjällström C, Fjällström S, Widman L) | 5 |
Yet another international tournament is history. This time the renju family gathered in Urkaine, Zholtije Vodj. A district which situates 500 km from Kiev and has a population of about 60 000 persons. Totally 16 persons had travelled to Zholtije Vodj from different parts of Europe. The tournament was opened on Monday (6th) evening and it lasted until the 11th of November.
The sixteen players were divided into 2 groups - the white and the black. There were played 7 rounds, which should have been enough to clarify within the groups which 2 participants have the right to play for places 1-4, 5-8, 9-12 and 13-16. Black succeeded well with its task - all the places were clear after 7 rounds: Stefan Karlsson won the group, Pavel Salnikov became the second and Vladimir Sushkov the third. But things were a bit more complicated in the White group: three persons had equally 6 points and 5 (!!!) persons 2 points. This rare situation was solved with extra games. They gave the following results: Aleksander Klimashin won, Ants Soosõrv was the second and the third was Konstantin Nikonov.
In the semi-finals was Aleksander Klimashin victorious against Pavel Salnikov and Stefan Karlsson who made a severe mistake already in the beginning of the game, lost quickly to Ants Soosõrv. The fight for the first place got its solution during the extra time. When seemingly all possibilities were used and both Ants Soosõrv and Aleksander Klimashin were about to go to the second extra time made Ants a mistake and Klimashin won the game with attacking a double four. Here follows the tournament table:
| EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP IN UKRAINE, 6TH-11TH NOVEMBER 2000: | ||
| 1. | Aleksander Klimashin | (RUS) |
| 2. | Ants Soosõrv | (EST) |
| 3. | Stefan Karlsson | (SWE) |
| 4. | Pavel Salnikov | (RUS) |
| 5. | Konstantin Nikonov | (RUS) |
| 6. | Vladimir Sushkov | (RUS) |
| 7. | Karen Sirategyan | (RUS) |
| 8. | Vladimir Nazarov | (UKR) |
| 9. | Oleksander Drozd | (UKR) |
| 10. | Björn Eriksson | (SWE) |
| 11. | Johann Lents | (EST) |
| 12. | Aleksei Shereverov | (UKR) |
| 13. | Sergei Filippov | (RUS) |
| 14. | Evelyn Tihkan | (EST) |
| 15. | Roman Umantsiv | (UKR) |
| 16. | Irene Karlsson | (EST) |
The next international tournament both in renju and gomoku will be held in Helsinki. Helsinki Open will start on the 16th of September at 12.00. This tournament will last for two days.
The European Championship will be held in Ukraine, Zholtije Vodj. Preliminary starting time is 5th of November and ending on the 12th of November.
Swedish Team Championship will be held at the last weekend in November, 25-26, in Stockholm at YWCA-YMCA Central. 3 persons in each team (plus reservplayer if team wants). 30 min per game in renju. Possibility for lower ranked players to play gomoku with forbidden zone or free gomoku. Stockholm Renju Club invites to the tournament. Please come with your team-application latest on the 19th of November to stka@algonet.se or tel. 08-53184136. YOU ARE WELCOME TO PARTICIPATE!
The winner among the older boys (Group A) was Konstantin Chingin from Russia. The first place among the older girls (Group A) was achieved the third time by Elena Lebedeva from Russia. Denis Nekrassov, Russia, was victorious in Group B, younger boys. Winner among younger girls (Group B) was Julia Savrasova from Russia. Totally 3 first places went to Podyuga. Well done!!
Tables of all results and also some images, can you see at the URL-address: home.bip.net/peterwidman/ywc2000.htm
There were 7 teams participating at the Team World Championship in Renju, which was held in Tallinn. The 7 teams were: Estonia 2 (Johann Lents, Pavel Voznyuk, Maris Tuvikene, Evelyn Tihkan, Helen Milva); Japan (Kazuto Hasegawa, Hideki Nara, Yoshimi Hayakawa, Hirouji Sakamoto); Russia 2 (Vladislav Kareyev, Stepan Peskov, Pavel Makarov, Pavel Voznyuk); Ukraine (Konstantin Piddubny, Vladimir Nazarov - 2 players). These 4 teams belonged to the group A.
There were 3 teams in group B. They were: Estonia 1 (Ants Soosyrv, Margus Tuvikene, Tunnet Taimla, Marek Kolk, Lauri Naber); Russia 1 (Igor Sinyov, Alexander Klimashin, Vladimir Sushkov, Pavel Salnikov, Michael Kojin) and Sweden (Stefan Karlsson, Rickard Johannesson, Joachim Gaulitz, Tord Andersson).
There were held double round robin in the groups and after that 2 best from each group went to semifinals. Japan and Russia 2 proceeded to the semifinals from the group A and Sweden and Russia 1 from group B. Sweden met Japan and Russia 2 met Russia 1. Sweden showed a real fighting spirit with winning the total match against Japan 5-3, when having lost the first round 3-1. No-one could have expected that they would succeed to come out of that. But they did with winning 4-0 in the second round! Sweden and Russia 1 played the final. Russia won the team world champions title impressively 7-1. The third was Japan and the fourth Russia 1.
This year the Swedish Championship was held in a cosy small town Kumla. The tournament begun on Wednesday the 5th of April and ended on Sunday afternoon the same week. Joachim Gaulitz was the one to defend the title and he did it with a great success - seven points from 9 rounds. That was enough to become the Swedish Champion. The winner was unclear up to the last round, though. In addition to Joachim Gaulitz, it was theoretically possible for Stefan Karlsson and Rickard Johannesson to win the title before the start of the last round. In round nine Joachim won against Tord Andersson, Johannesson and Karlsson made a draw. This gave a second place to Rickard and thrid place to Karlsson. Linus Hermansson made a brilliant debut with his 5th place and 5 points. He managed to win among others Karlsson and Holgersson. Also Björn Eriksson can be very satisfied with his first Swedish Championship. 2 points out of 9 - not bad at all!!! Here follows the table with final standings:
| SWEDISH CHAMPIONSHIP 2000: | |||
| 1. | Joachim Gaulitz | (STORK) | 7 |
| 2. | Rickard Johannesson | (JLS) | 6 |
| 3. | Stefan Karlsson | (STORK) | 5.5 |
| 4. | Göran Holgersson | (JLS) | 5 |
| 5. | Linus Hermansson | (HLK) | 5 |
| 6. | Anders Bertilsson | (HLK) | 4.5 |
| 7. | Tord Andersson | (URK) | 4 |
| 8. | Peter Jonsson | (JLS) | 3 |
| 9. | Bengt Asplund | (STORK) | 3 |
| 10. | Björn Eriksson | (STORK) | 2 |
This years Lilla-SM was "lilla", "little", in the direct meaning of the Swedish word. The tournament had the least participants than ever and it had not attracted to participate many strong players which was partly caused by a university test that was held in Sweden at the same weekend with Lilla-SM. Still, the ones who had come to take part in, had a good time and there were played many interesting games. Two players were clearly better than others - Martin Carlsson and Frank Arkbo. The desteny of the first place was decided in the exciting game between them. Frank Arkbo proved that he can not be underestimated (in all sides of the game). He managed first to get Carlsson into time-trouble and then to lead him to an easy mistake. The victory was Arkbo's and Carlsson was disappointed of not to win the first tournament during his 6 years of renju-carrier.
| B-TOURNAMENT (LILLA-SM): | |||
| 1. | Frank Arkbo | (URK) | 12 |
| 2. | Martin Carlsson | (JLS) | 11 |
| 3. | Irene Einberg | (STORK) | 9 |
| 4. | Bengt Nyberg | (VADS) | 8 |
| 5. | Sven-Åke Pettersson | (HLK) | 8 |
| 6. | Jan Paulander | (MRK) | 7 |
| 7. | Håkan Möller | (MRK) | 6 |
| 8. | Erik Lissel | (KLF) | 4.5 |
| 9. | Andreas Johansson | (KLF) | 4 |
| 10. | Gabriel Hagenfors | (KLF) | 3.5 |
| 11. | Martin Hermansson | (KLF) | 2 |
| 12. | Carl Hermansson | (KLF) | 1.5 |
| 13. | Kajsa-Tora Hermansson | (HLK) | 1 |
Simultaneously with Lilla-SM, was held an open five-in-a-row tournament, which gave the following results:
| OPEN FIVE-IN-A-ROW TOURNAMENT: | ||
| 1. | Jörgen Rehnstedt | |
| 2. | Jimmy Larsson-Hagberg | |
| 3. | Soeren Wiren | |
| 4. | Per Hermansson | |
| 5. | Linus Roos | |
| 6. | Conny Roos | |
| 7. | Andrea Dillner | |
| 8. | Krister Wennerlund | |
The 25th of March was played a teamtournament between Stockholm and Estonian at the locals of YWCA-YMCA Central in Stockholm.
Participants: STORK - Stefan Karlsson, Bengt Asplund, Björn Eriksson and Tomas Torstersson. ESTONIA - Ants Soosõrv, Margus Tuvikene, Johann Lents, Timo Ilu and Irene Einberg. Four rounds were played with thinking time of 60 minutes plus 10 minutes per 10 stones, control moves 59 and 60. Estonia showed a solid play which was hard for STORK to reach this Saturday. Final score was 10,5-5,5 to Estonia.
The very first STORK Cup was also played at YWCA-YMCA Central in Stockholm. We played a 5 rounds swiss system tournament with 30 minutes for each player and game. Here also Tord Andersson and Frank Arkbo from Uppsala showed up. It became an interesting tournament with not only "normal" results:
| RESULTS FROM STORK CUP 2000-03-26: | |||
| 1. | Ants Soosõrv | (TRK) | 5 |
| 2. | Irene Einberg | (STORK) | 3 |
| 3. | Stefan Karlsson | (STORK) | 3 |
| 4. | Tord Andersson | (URK) | 3 |
| 5. | Bengt Asplund | (STORK) | 3 |
| 6. | Frank Arkbo | (URK) | 2.5 |
| 7. | Margus Tuvikene | (TRK) | 2.5 |
| 8. | Bjorn Eriksson | (STORK) | 2 |
| 9. | Johann Lents | (TRK) | 1 |
| 10. | Timo Ilu | (TRK) | 0 |
| RESULTS FROM THE BALTIC LEAGUE 2000 : | |||
| 1. | Stefan Karlsson | (SWE) | 7 |
| 2. | Ants Soosorv | (EST) | 5.5 |
| 3. | Joachim Gaulitz | (SWE) | 5 |
| 4. | Bengt Asplund | (SWE) | 4 |
| 5. | Maris Tuvikene | (EST) | 4 |
| 6. | Bjorn Wallgren | (SWE) | 3.5 |
| 7. | Tunnet Taimla | (EST) | 3 |
| 8. | Bjorn Eriksson | (SWE) | 3 |
| 9. | Johann Lents | (EST) | 3 |
| 10. | Irene Einberg | (EST) | 3 |
| 11. | Tomas Torstensson | (SWE) | 1 |
Present tournament was a success for Stockholm renju player Stefan Karlsson who took 7 points from 7 rounds.The biggest surpriser in the tournament was Maris Tuvikene who surprised the young Estonian talents Lents and Taimla by getting the fifth place and being the second best Estonian. Baltic League 2000 was the very fist renju tournament for Tomas Torstensson. It was very brave of him to take part in. Although this time it was hard for him to get points in the tournament, but I am sure that he will develope to an equally strong player compared with the present stars.
Place: YWCA-YMCA Central, Rosengatan 1-3 in Stockholm.
Gathering: at 09.30 on Saturday 22nd for First League (High League 18.30 Friday the 21st.
Startfee: SEK 70, children (up to 18) SEK 40, for players not living in Sweden 40/10
Registration: Please registrate to the tournament to Stefan Karlsson or Irene Einberg, tel. 08 – 531 841 36 or e-mail stka@algonet.se
Organisers: Stockholm Renju Club (STORK) in cooperation with Swedish Renju Federation and Estonian Renju Federation.
Referees: Main referee Bengt Asplund, assistant referees Stefan Karlsson and Ants Soosõrv.
Rules: According to SLSF. Renju and plain gomoku (fritt luffarschack). The latter can only be chosen by players whose rating is under 1800.
System (FL): First League(FL) is an open tournament of 7 rounds Swiss system. Everyone is welcome! 1st round seeded according to SLSF ratinglist 991231. The lotting system will be done from the top of a resultlist after each round.
- Criterias are:
- Gamepoints
- Table
- Colour
- Tie-break:
- Matchpoints
- Buchgolz coefficient (counting all opponents matchpoints)
- Berger coefficient (counting all opponents matchpoints to who the player has won and half of matchpoints from matches ended as draw)
- Matchpoints between the players involved
- Number of wins
- Same place, or if one of the 3 first places are concerned there will be a tie-break-game. Renju: 1 game 5 minutes per player. If draw, half time…..
Gomoku: 2 games 3 min/player, if 1-1 the one who won with the least number of stones will start a tie break game.
Time/round: Renju: 1 game 75 min. Controlmoves 119/120 and it’s possible to demand a draw. Gomoku: 4 games 15 min for each player per game.
Qualification: The winner of FL-2000 will have a place in HL-2001.
System(HL): High League(HL) will be played by 7 rounds in Round Robin System, 21-23 of January. 8 players in all. 4 from Sweden(incl. Baltic Champion Stefan Karlsson) and 4 players from Estonia.
- Tie-break:
- Gamepoints
- Berger coefficient (counting all opponents matchpoints to who the player has won and half of matchpoints from matches ended as draw)
- Individual game/-s
- Number of wins
- Same place, or if medalplaces are concerned there will be a tie-break-game. Renju: 1 game 5 minutes per player. If draw, half time…..
Time/round: 1 game 75 min + 10 min/10 stones for each player. No Controlmoves. Pause guarantee between rounds, 10 min.
The 30th and 31st of October will be the dates of the Lag SM '99, the team Swedish Championship in Renju. The tournament will be held in the Gröna Rummet of KFUK-KFUM Central in Stockholm and the starting time on Saturday will be 9.00 am. In addition to several teams from different towns in Sweden, at least two teams from Tallinn are about to take part in as well.
For the sixth time the “renju family” gathered for clarifying the World Champion. This time the tournament with the greatest importance was held in Peking, China. The hard struggle for the title started on the 27th of July in Beijing with the Qualification Tournament. Seven players in the A-tournament were known beforehand (6 players from the last WC and one place for China, the organiser country). Additional 5 players joined the 7 on the basis of the results in the Qualification Tournament.
The QT was finished on the 29th of July and the five players who made the A-tournament complete were – M. Kozhin (RUS), V. Sushkov (RUS), S. Karlsson (SWE), I.Sinyov (RUS) and P. Makarov (RUS). The rest seven who had places in the final were – K. Hasegawa (JPN), Y. Hayakawa (JPN), A. Meritee (EST), A. Soosyrv (EST), N. Nishizono (JPN), Z. Yinyu (CHI), T. Sagara (JPN).
Ando Meritee, World Champion in Renju ’93 was the biggest favourite in the A-tournament, no doubt. Previous years have shown that only Japanese could stop him from winning. Europeans have failed to subdue him during many years. Ando did experience a minor shock when he lost to Hayakawa and made a draw with relatively unknown Yinyu, but otherwise his performance in Beijing was very impressive – 9.5 points out of 11 and first place. The second and third were far behind with 7 points.
To predict the winner of the final was not a very hard task. More difficult was to guess who will get the other the places in the top three. The Chinese player was supposed not to have great chances to access the “sharpest top”, but he proved to be more tough player than anyone could assume. His ninth place and 4.5 (!) points were definitely one of the biggest surprises in the event. During the tournament it had appeared that Japanese are not in the best playing shape. Hasegawa was the only one struggling for the medal and his 4th place was a disappointment for him, that’s for sure.
After a convincing performance in Qualification Tournament, people were expecting much from M. Kozhin – an unlucky Russian renju player, who in previous 4 World Championships had played under his skills. Unfortunately this tournament started with a catastrophe for him – failure in handling the stone in the first round and loss. Losses in the second and third round as well and being the last one after three rounds with zero points. Misha showed a great fighting spirit in the tournament, though and got earned sixth place with 5.5 points.
In the mid stage of the final, Stefan Karlsson and Igor Sinyov seemed to make their best world championship this far. After the seventh round Stefan was number two with 5 and Igor number three with 4.5 points. The two competitors met in the ninth round. Although Igor won and led with half a point, everything was still possible – two rounds were left. After the 11th round both Sinyov and Karlsson had 7 points. According to Berger coefficient Sinyov got the second and Stefan the third place. Although the silver medal was so close, Stefan Karlsson can be very pleased with his performance in Beijing – his third place meant the first medal and the highest place for a Swedish renju player ever in WC. STEFAN KARLSSON WAS GIVEN THE 8TH DAN AFTER THE TOURNAMENT. He is the highest ranked renju player in Sweden at present.
Simultaneously with the A-tournament was held the Women World Championship and B-tournament. Differently from the final, it was very difficult to predict the winners or even the top three in those tournaments. This was especially true in B-tournament. Although all Russian players were evaluated as equally strong, Irina Metreveli was the one that people expected the most from, since she was the Womens’ World Champion in 1997 in St. Petersburg. Still, the tournament two years ago was held in a totally different environment. Anything could have happened here. The toughest opponent for Russians was considered to be Lu Yao from China. The level of other participants in WWC was rather unclear. The fact that Y. Savrasova (RUS) was the one to win the title, was a slight surprise. Firstly, Irina was the strongest favourite and secondly Savrasova’s skills were not precisely clear. That must have been a great advantage for her… I. Metreveli fought hard and got the second place, third was another strong Russian player – E. Lebedeva. First non-Russian was Lu Yao who got the fourth place.
The winner of the B-tournament was Bai Tao from China. His success was unexpected for many competitors. The second was Hideki Nara, a notorious renju star from Japan. Many people were disappointed that he could not play in A-tournament. The third was Shao Xiadong from China, the youngest participant in the B-tournament. Best European was Petter Gardström (SWE) who got the fourth place.
The last tournament for clarifying the three best renju players from Sweden, who can take part in the Qualification Tournament for WC in Beijing, was held in two cities - Stockholm and Uppsala. The tournament place in Stockholm was Alby, 20 kilometres south from the city. The games in Uppsala were held very near Uppsala Cathedral, the biggest Church in Scandinavia. The competition itself lasted for six days and consisted of 8 rounds in round-robin system.
In a addition to Stefan Karlsson, who is the member of KFUK-KFUM's renju section in Stockholm, also Tord Andersson and Petter Gardström got the right to play in QT in Beijing. Five best from the latter tournament will get the chance to play in the A Final for the title of World Champion in Renju.
| Final standings of FSQ for WC: | ||
| 1. | Stefan Karlsson | 6½ |
| 2. | Tord Andersson | 5 |
| 3. | Petter Gardström | 3½ (14,25) |
| 4. | Joachim Gaulitz | 3½ (9) |
| 5. | Linus Hermansson | 1½ |
The most colourful and fun part of playing renju are the trips. Mostly organised for tournaments and camps, the trips are a great experience to get to know the people more deeply, study new cultures and backgrounds of the countries.
Staying in a foreign country is much easier and interesting, when you know that there are people who know you and who are always willing to share some of their free time with you. The very special feeling of having something in common although people being still so different, keeps the "renju family" together, increases the number of people involved and makes it possible to experience something new and go through various adventures every time renju players are together.
From 27th of July to the 6th of August Beijing was the host of the 6th World Championship in Renju. The event tempted to the capital of China about 60 foreign renju players from all around the world - Japan, Latvia, Chinese Taipei, Armenia, Estonia, Sweden and Uzbekistan. This particular world championship was probably the most colorful trip European renju players have experienced this far. The trafic, air, marketing and the culture was so very different of what we have been used to. The players were not only put to a test behind the renju board, but also in daily living. The hardest part of all was getting used to the variation of temperature indoors and outdoors.
Luckily playing was not all we had time for in China. Since most of the participants arrived to Beijing rather early, we had quite a lot of time for sightseeing and going in for sports. Most memorable of those activities is the football-match that was held the 25th of July. At the start the "renju gang" thought that two "renju" teams will play against each other, but it turned out that we had to play against "real" football players. Mhmm... the result was not very bad - we lost 1:3.
A group of people experienced a fantasic trip to the Great Wall. Three hours in the open air, very small amount people and good company. Staying at that part of the Great Wall almost felt like being outside China.
The World Championship in Renju, held every second year, is not the only important competition. Among other important tournaments are: Youth World- and European Championship (both every second year) European Championship (every second year), Baltic High League etc. Here we should keep in mind that various national championships are held also every year. The Swedish Champion in Renju ’98, Stefan Karlsson, had to give up his throne to Joachim Gaulitz, a young man who occasionally can play hundred games simultaneously via Internet. Both Joachim Gaulitz and Stefan Karlsson are members of renju section in Stockholm’s KFUK-KFUM Central.
INTERNATIONAL RENJU OPEN TOURNAMENT AT KAREPA, 01.-05.07.99
Annual renju tournament at Karepa camp in Estonia was held this year in the first week of July. The number of participants in A Final was nine and in addition to Sweden and Estonia, Finland was represented in the competition as well. This particular tournament was the very first renju tournament for Marko Pellikka (FIN), but still he did not hesitate to travel to Estonia and make his debut.
The winner of the tournament was the biggest favourite, Ando Meritee. Stefan Karlsson proved with his second place that in addition to good playing skills, one has to have little of that athlete's luck also. Evelyn Tihkan, a girl who has played renju only for one year, surprised with her 4th place.
| Final standings of IROT at Karepa: | |||
| nr | name | country | points |
| 1. | Ando Meritee | (EST) | 8 |
| 2. | Stefan Karlsson | (SWE) | 7 |
| 3. | Ants Soosyrv | (EST) | 6 |
| 4. | Evelyn Tihkan | (EST) | 4 |
| 5. | Pavel Voznjuk | (EST) | 4 |
| 6. | Johann Lents | (EST) | 3 |
| 7. | Maris Tuvikene | (EST) | 3 |
| 8. | Irene Einberg | (EST) | 1 |
| 9. | Marko Pellikka | (FIN) | 0 |