Agon Cup

(阿含・桐山杯全日本早碁オープン戦) The Agon Cup is a single knockout quickplay title in Japan, properly the Agon-Kiriyama Cup All Japan Hayago Open Tournament. Called the Acom Cup (アコム杯) until 1998.

The winner's prize is ¥10,000,000. The Chinese Ahan Tongshan Cup has the same sponsor and the respective winners play each other in the Japan-China Agon Cup. Time control is 1 hour each for the preliminaries, 2 hours each for the main tournament, and 1.5 hours each for the final.

This is a pro-am event, and 20 amateurs can participate in the preliminary (16 in the 3rd edition and 12 in the first two editions). In 2011, Korean amateur Ha Sungbong advanced to the quarterfinal. Soon after, the Nihon Kiin began counting wins against amateurs for its professional rank promotion purposes.

In 2011, for the first time, amateurs (Ha Sungbong and Kim Seong-chin) reached the final sixteen players.

See also: Amateur versus Professional