Chinese Tianyuan

Overview: 

The Tianyuan tournament (中国围棋天元战) is a traditional Chinese tournament that has been held annually since 1987. Its main sponsor is Xinmin Wanbao, an evening newspaper based in Shanghai. The publisher behind the newspaper also published popular Go magazine Xinmin Weiqi that was unfortunately discontinued in 2002. In recent years, this tournament is often associated with Tongli, a small town and tourist attraction near Shanghai that hosts a lot of Go activities. The winner of the Tianyuan tournament goes on to play in the China-Korea Tengen Competition against the Korean Chunwon winner ('Tianyuan' in Chinese is equivalent to 'Chunwon' in Korean and 'Tengen' in Japanese). There was a similar China-Japan Tengen Competition which was held between 1988 and 2002.

Tournament Format: 

Each year the competition starts from an Internet-based preliminary tournament open to all Chinese professionals. Eight qualifiers enter the next stage, joining 24 stronger players to play another round, selecting 16 players to enter the main tournament. The main tournament also have 16 reserved places: top 4 finishers of last year; winners and runner-ups of major international tournaments; winners of major domestic tournaments; and those ranked higher in the Chinese official ranking list. The main tournament is a 5-round single-elimination tournament. The winner becomes the challenger to face the titleholder in a best-of-3 title match (used to be best-of-5 before 2001).

Prize Money: 
Winner: 250,000 CNY; runner-up: 100,000 CNY.
Time System: 
The Internet-based games are faster with each side having 1 hour thinking time, followed by 1-minute 'byoyomi'. All face-to-face games are ordinary slow games with 2 hours and 45 minutes each side followed by 'byoyomi', with each player having 5 opportunities to go beyond 1 minute.
Ruleset and Komi: 
Chinese rule with 3 and 3/4 stones komi (equivalent to 7.5 points). The komi was 2 and 3/4 stones for term 15 and earlier.
Key Players, Events and Statistics: 

As shown in the historical results below, only a handful of players managed to win this title. Chang Hao held the title for 5 consecutive years, followed by Gu Li's 6, and Chen Yaoye's 8 (which is still ongoing).

Historical Results: 

Term

Year

Winner

Score

Runner-up

Game Records

1

1987

Ma Xiaochun

2-1

Nie Weiping

2

1988

Liu Xiaoguang

3-2

Ma Xiaochun

3

1989

Liu Xiaoguang

3-2

Jiang Zhujiu

4

1990

Liu Xiaoguang

3-2

Qian Yuping

5

1991

Nie Weiping

3-0

Liu Xiaoguang

6

1992

Nie Weiping

3-1

Ma Xiaochun

7

1993

Liu Xiaoguang

3-1

Nie Weiping

8

1994

Ma Xiaochun

3-0

Liu Xiaoguang

9

1995

Ma Xiaochun

3-1

Nie Weiping

10

1996

Ma Xiaochun

3-1

Liu Xiaoguang

11

1997

Chang Hao

3-1

Ma Xiaochun

12

1998

Chang Hao

3-2

Wang Lei (b)

13

1999

Chang Hao

3-1

Liu Xiaoguang

14

2000

Chang Hao

3-1

Dong Yan

15

2001

Chang Hao

3-0

Ding Wei

16

2002

Huang Yizhong

2-0

Chang Hao

17

2003

Gu Li

2-1

Huang Yizhong

18

2004

Gu Li

2-0

Xie He

19

2005

Gu Li

2-1

Zhou Heyang

20

2006

Gu Li

2-1

Zhou Ruiyang

21

2007

Gu Li

2-1

Liu Shizhen

22

2008

Gu Li

2-1

Zhou Heyang

23

2009

Chen Yaoye

2-0

Gu Li

24

2010

Chen Yaoye

2-1

Gu Li

25

2011

Chen Yaoye

2-0

Zhou Hexi

26

2012

Chen Yaoye

2-0

Zhou Hexi

27

2013

Chen Yaoye

2-0

Gu Lingyi

28

2014

Chen Yaoye

2-1

Ke Jie

29

2015

Chen Yaoye

2-0

Mi Yuting

30

2016

Chen Yaoye

2-0

Tang Weixing

Go4Go Collection Note: 
Go4Go has records for all title games, a majority of main tournament games, and many preliminary tournament games.

Comments

I realy like a lot we have acess to title matches games.

Thank you for the information and the kifus.

Yeah it is nice to be able to simply look up games by tournament

Thank you for the information and the kifus. Thanks.