World Amateur Go Championship

The World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC) is an event in which amateur players from around the world compete for the official world amateur title. The event is held every year, under the supervision of the International Go Federation.

The first WAGC was held in 1979 with 30 participants from 14 countries. In its early years, the WAGC used a knock-out system with a variable number of extra rounds for losing players, depending on how quickly they were knocked out. From 1984 onwards, the Swiss system? was used, initially with 7 rounds, and from 1986 with 8 rounds.

From 1979 until 2009, the event was always held in Japan, with the exception of 1987, when it was held in Beijing. In 2003, the WAGC was canceled due to the SARS outbreak, and Korea hosted a replacement event, the Incheon World Amateur Baduk Championship (IWABC). From 2010 onwards, the event will be rotated among Japan, China and Korea, and perhaps other countries.

Each participating national Go association sends one player, typically the amateur champion of the country concerned. The tournament has grown from 44 countries and territories in 1995 to 68 in 2007. In 2009, 70 countries were eligible to provide a participant, but only 66 competed (presumably because of financial, political or health reasons).

Current time limits are 90 minutes per player with 10 minutes/15 moves Canadian byo-yomi.

In 2006, Korea also started holding a world amateur championship. See Korea Prime Minister Cup World Baduk Championship.

The following is a list of winners to date, detailed results can be found at: http://kamyszyn.go.art.pl/wagc

Edition	Year	Venue	Number of Players	Winner	Country	Link
1st	1979	Tokyo	15	Nie Weiping	China
2nd	1980	Tokyo	20	Imamura Fumiaki	Japan
3rd	1981	Tokyo	24	Shao Zhenzhong	China
4th	1982	Tokyo	28	Cao Dayuan	China	full result
5th	1983	Osaka	29	Ma Xiaochun	China
6th	1984	Tokyo	30	Wang Qun	China	full result
7th	1985	Tokyo	31	Wang Jianhong	China
8th	1986	Tokyo	34	Chan Ka Yui	Hong Kong
9th	1987	Beijing	34	Imamura Fumiaki	Japan
10th	1988	Tokyo	36	Zhang Wendong	China
11th	1989	Nagoya	38	Che Zewu	China
12th	1990	Hiroshima	39	Chang Hao	China
13th	1991	Kanazawa	39	Imamura Fumiaki	Japan
14th	1992	Chiba	40	Kikuchi Yasuro	Japan
15th	1993	Fukuoka	40	Sun Yiguo	China
16th	1994	Kyoto	43	Hiraoka Satoshi	Japan
17th	1995	Tokyo	44	Hirata Hironori	Japan	full result
18th	1996	Omachi, Nagano Prefecture	46	Liu Jun	China	full result
19th	1997	Sapporo	46	Liu Jun	China	full result
20th	1998	Tokyo	50	Kim Ch'an-u	Korea	full result
21st	1999	Oita	55	Yu Chae-seong	Korea	full result
22nd	2000	Sendai	56	Sakai Hideyuki	Japan	full result
23rd	2001	Miyazaki	56	Li Daichun	China	full result
24th	2002	Hida Takayama	61	Fu Li	China	full result
	2003		Not held due to SARS outbreak, see IWABC
25th	2004	Kurashiki	64	Kang Wook Lee	Korea	full result
26th	2005	Aichi	65	Yu Qing Hu	China	full result
27th	2006	Nagasaki	68	Hiraoka Satoshi	Japan	full result 27th WAGC IGF report
28th	2007	Tokyo	68	Shan Ziteng	China	full result
29th	2008	Tokyo	68	Sung Bong Ha	Korea	full result
30th	2009	Fukuroi, Shizuoka Prefecture	66	Yu Qing Hu	China	full result
31th	2010	China

See also:

• 30th Edition website
• List of tournament locations and participating countries on Nihon Ki-in site
  
• Incheon World Amateur Baduk Championship.
• 1979-1995 cross tables

Amateur to Professional

The level of play at the WAGC is obviously quite high, and many of its amateur winners have gone on to become successful professionals:

• Nie Weiping (9-dan) 1979
• Shao Zhenzhong (9-dan) 1981
• Cao Dayuan (9-dan) 1982
• Ma Xiaochun (9-dan) 1983
• Wang Qun (8-dan) 1984
• Wang Jianhong (9-dan) 1985
• Chan Ka Yui (9-dan) 1986
• Zhang Wendong (9-dan) 1988
• Che Zewu (7-dan) 1989
• Chang Hao (9-dan) 1990
• Kim Ch'an-u (3-dan) 1998
• Yu Chae-seong (2-dan) 1999
• Sakai Hideyuki (7-dan) 2000

Even some participants who didn't win went professional (please complete if You find more)

• Yoo Chang-hyuk (9-dan) 1984 2nd place
• Seo Jung-hwi? (1-dan?) 2005 4th place (he was not an insei in Korea so he was eligible to compete, but had actually passed the professional qualifying exams by the time he played in the WAGC).
• Diana Koszegi (1-dan) 1999 9th place, 2001 15th place, 2004 12th place

Japanese and Korean Insei are not allowed to participate in the WAGC, but since the Chinese professional promotion system works differently, many future top professionals from China were officially amateurs and participated in the WAGC.