World Championship AT
Place: Kyoto, Japan
Rule: RIF Rated: Yes
Date: 1989-08-02 - 1989-08-06
Players:
Japan: Hasegawa Kazuto, Nakamura Shigeru, Nara Hideki, Nishimura Toshio
Russian Renju Association: Evgeniy Bobkov, Mikhail Kozhin
Sweden: Petter Gardstrom, Jan Palmgren, Ingvar Sundling
Uzbekistan: Nikolay Mikhailov
Information:
Final Standings:
| Pl | Participant | Country | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nakamura Shigeru | Japan | ? | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8? | |
| 2 | Nara Hideki | Japan | ? | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ? | 1 | 7 | |
| 3 | Nishimura Toshio | Japan | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |
| 4 | Hasegawa Kazuto | Japan | 0 | 0 | 0 | ? | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5? | |
| 5 | Mikhailov Nikolay | Uzbekistan (USSR) | 0 | 0 | 1 | ? | 0 | 1 | ? | ? | 1 | 4? | |
| 6 | Bobkov Evgeniy | Russia (USSR) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
| 7 | Sundling Ingvar | Sweden | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | |
| 8 | Kozhin Mikhail | Russia (USSR) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ? | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2? | |
| 9 | Gardstr?m Petter | Sweden | 0 | ? | 0 | 0 | ? | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | |
| 10 | Palmgren Jan | Sweden | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
The First Renju World Championship took place in Kyoto, Japan, August 2-6, 1989. Thanks to the effort of the first three RIF member countries the big event became reality.
Without any doubt, Nakamura was the superior player in the tournament. He won nearly every game as expected. One interesting thing that many people remember is, when Nakamura was asked after the ending of the World Championship "If in the World Championship there were 10 Japanese players, then what would be the place of the best European player in that tournament?" Nakamura smiled and replied: "The 11th". It showed a big confidence about Japan renju, and without any question - Japanese were so much stronger than the players from Europe at that time. As you can see from the tournament table, the four best players were all Japanese.
Ando Meritee