Daiwa Shoken Cup

Daiwa Shoken Cup is sponsored by the Daiwa Securities Group Inc. (大和証券グループ本社, Daiwa Shōken Gurūpu Honsha), one of the three largest brokerages in Japan.

The tournament consists of four concurrent round robin tournaments of four players each for a total of sixteen players.

Blake: There has to be more information on this tournament. Is it a lightning tournament? It seems to have some sort of invitation mechanism, so that major title-holders are seeded into the final tournament and don't play in the league. According to one of the news sites, Takao (Meijin), Cho Chikun (10d), Kono Rin (Tengen), and Cho U (Gosei) were in the final tournament but didn't play in the leagues.

O was the only non-seeded player to pass the first round. He beat Kono Rin (W+R), Cho U (B+3.5), and Yoda (W+3.5, B+9.5).

valerio: It seems to be a Internet Tournament (10' for player + byo-yomi).

Hyperpapeterie: Iyama Yuta's page lists him as winning the Daiwa Grand Champion Cup in 2008, but Takao Shinji also won a Daiwa Cup in 2008 (listed at http://igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp/news.html). What's the relation of those two?

valerio: Daiwa Grand Champion is a "super" tournament, including Title holders, winners of previous Daiwa editions, first two women from 1st Female Daiwa and winner of Amateur Daiwa. The 2nd edition starts on 2009-01-10 (view http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/2009/01/110_4.html)

valerio: round robin was used only for preliminaries of first two editions.