Congress playing hall

The 6th Mexican Go Congress took place on the 19th floor of the Tlatelolco Tower on June 22–24. Players ranging from age 10 to 70 found themselves matching on the 6th Mexican Open Go Championship in which a total of 50 players took part and where two rounds were played each day.

Defending champion Abraham Florencia

After the first day, four players remained undefeated on the upper McMahon band so on the second day semifinals were played between José Chacón against Abraham Florencia and Changha Kim against Emil García. Resulting winners Abraham Florencia and Changha Kim faced each other on the 4th round in which Florencia came up victorious. Without any major upsets on the last day, Florencia turned out to be this year’s champion, defending his last year title. Check the full results here.

Pair Go Championship

The other championship played was the 2nd Mexican Open Pair Go Championship in which ten couples participated, setting up a record on female participation in the Mexican Go Congress. One round was played each day and the undefeated champions after three rounds turned out to be the 12-year-old Paola Yaretzi and her teacher Siddhartha Avila.

Jiyoung Park 1p lecture

This event saw the presence of three pro players: Jiyun Park 5p and Jiyoung Park 1p, both from the Korean Baduk Association, and Zirui Song 1p from the American Go Association. On the first day, Jiyun Park 5p offered a lecture on how go proverbs apply to real board situations. You can check out the video here. On the second day, Zirui Song gave a lecture about life and death problems where the ultimate problem turned out to have a totally unexpected outcome. Feel free to check out this mind twisting problem in his lecture video. On the third and last day Jiyoung Park gave a lecture about the 2nd game between Alphago vs Lee Sedol and about the patterns that arise from positions in the game.

The last activity on all the three days was the simultaneous games exhibition. Each of the pros played against from six to eight players, so in total around 60 games were played in this stage. Most of the games were victories for the pro guests.

It’s also worth recognising the Guanajuato Go Club’s members’ participation, which has become an important part of the Congress attendees.

This event was made possible to the support of the Mexico’s National University UNAM through its Sports Direction and its Science Faculty. We also want to give special thanks to Congress staff and supporters José Chacón, Dafne Rios, Milosh Trnka, Carlo Spindola, Ricardo Quintero, Edgar Barrientos, Javier López, Sebastián Ríos, Dante Hernández, Rebeca Peña, and Eduardo Jiménez.

Report by Emil García

Jiyun Park 5p playing simul games

Group photo