The 24th International Amateur Pair Go Championship was held in Tokyo, Japan from November 2-3, 2013.
Team Korea wins
Kim Sooyang (left) and Jeon Junhak – 24th International Amateur Pair Go Champions.
Kim Sooyang and Jeon Junhak, representing Korea, won the tournament with five straight wins – after a close final round game with Oda Ayako and Nagayo Kazumori from Japan.
Kim and Jeon were crowned the International Amateur Pair Go Champions.
Lin Hungping and Lo Shengchieh, from Taiwan, were the runners up, with four wins and one loss. They came in second on points.
The runners up: Lin Hungping (left) and Lo Shengchieh, from Taiwan, in their ‘national costumes’. Note that players were given little choice about wearing these 
Japan’s Oda and Nagayo (mentioned above) finished in 3rd place, also with four wins and one loss. They were crowned the Japanese Amateur Pair Go Champions.
The highest finishing team from outside of Asia were Natalia Kovaleva and Dmitry Surin, from Russia, who finished 4th. Kovaleva and Surin only lost one game – to one of the 11 Japanese pairs in the tournament.
Dmitry Surin (left) and Natalia Kovaleva, from Russia, finished 4th.
Olga Silber and Benjamin Teuber, representing Germany, and Irina Davis (née Suciu) and Lucretiu Calota, from Romania, also finished strongly – in 9th and 11th place respectively.
Olga Silber (left) and Benjamin Teuber, from Germany, came in 9th.
Lucretiu Calota and Irina Davis, from Romania, finished in 11th place.
Please visit the International Amateur Pair Go page for full results.
The deciding game
The Korean pair and the Japanese pair (Oda & Nagayo) were the only two teams with four wins, going into the final round.
Oda and Nagayo had defeated the pair from Taiwan in the previous round.
Michael Redmond 9p gave a live commentary during the deciding game between Japan and Korea. It was also broadcast live on Pandanet.
According to Redmond, Korea (black) was doing well throughout the game, but Japan took the lead after taking several big points in the early endgame.
However, Japan lost 4 points later on because of an endgame mistake and team Korea were able to win.
Friendship matches and costumes
On the first day of the tournament, participants were required to dress in embarrassing national costumes.
While I suspect that most pairs felt ridiculous wearing their costumes, Jing and I, who represented Australia at the tournament, managed to choose the most ridiculous costumes in attendance.
David Ormerod (me, left) and Jingning Xue dressed as a kangaroo and a koala for our national costumes. Looking at the photos now, I’m not sure what we were thinking… Actually, I remember what we were thinking, ‘Australia doesn’t have a national costume’ .
Unbeknown to us, the organizers wished for us to remain in costume not only during the friendship games with other players, but also throughout dinner! We were very hot, but at least people were amused.
Els Buntsma and Merijn de Jong, from the Netherlands, won the prize for the best dressed pair.
Els Buntsma and Merjin de Jong, from the Netherlands, won a prize as the best dressed pair and got to wear their costumes again at the closing ceremony the following night 
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The International Amateur Pair Go Championship
The International Amateur Pair Go Championship (IAPGC) is a pair Go tournament between 32 teams (64 players), which started in 1990.
It includes 21 teams from around the world and 11 teams selected from regions within Japan.
The tournament doubles as the Japanese Pair Go Championship, with the highest finishing Japanese pair becoming Japanese amateur champions.
Games are played with 45 minutes sudden death (no byo-yomi) for each pair, and ladies play first.
IAPGC Photos
Apologies
We apologize that we weren’t able to update Go Game Guru while we were in Japan for this event. There were many more official events and people to meet than we anticipated.
Now that we’ve finished spreading koalas, we’ll return to promoting Go, and Go Game Guru will return to normal
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