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This year, the Paris Open had found a new location: go players "invaded" the city of Charenton-le-Pont, just south-east Paris, for the weekend. Overall, a brilliant move, as it turned out to be a great modern and comfortable place, and the city hall was very enthusiastic about the tournament, giving an additional boost to the visibility of Go in Paris area.
Everything was close to a very happy ending, but perhaps a very big hand of usual top-players might argue that the outcome of the event was not as great as expected. Indeed, from the very start of the tournament, upsets started to accumulate to such an extent that we lost count (for real).
For instance, one of the big favourites, Kim Dohyup 8d from Korea, ended-up finishing in 11th place, winning only half of his games. Another set of European favourites didn't play their best tournament, let's say, and many "top group" players started to appear in the main room for weaker players, while the top group room was on the contrary welcoming some successful French 4 dans.
As a matter of fact, it didn't look so much as a blunder festival, but many games suffered from complicated fights, and some players were simply better prepared. For instance, Yuze Xing was just recently crowned U21 European champion in Croatia, a nice warm-up ahead of the Paris Open!
This year moreover, the top 16 was pretty strong, with mainly 6D+ players and very strong 5D from the UK.
Eventually, Dai Junfu 8d won the tournament, undefeated. A beautiful win, as he was playing in his home city!
The final podium is:
🥇 🇫🇷 Junfu Dai 8d (6/6) [QF for the Grand Prix Finale]
🥈 🇬🇧 Yifan Bao 5d (4/6)
🥉 🇩🇪 Yuze Xing 6d (4/6) [QF for the Grand Prix Finale]
4th 🇬🇧 Xi Wu 5d (4/6)
5th 🇨🇭 Tianyi Fu 6d (4/6)
6th 🇩🇪 Arved Pittner 6d (4/6)
7th 🇫🇷 Chongxiao Chen (3/6)
8th 🇮🇸 Yixin Yuan 6d (3/6)
Players with a passport from an EGF member countries also won bonus points in order to qualify to the Grand Prix Finale (Vienna, January 2027)
Top two boards were broadcast on OGS, accounts EGF1 and EGF2, and live reviewed during the weekend by Tanguy Le Calvé 1p and Andrii Kravets 3p on Twitch. The replay is available for 3 months.
All the results: https://tournoi-de-paris.jeudego.org/#/standings
Additionally, as per the tradition, the lightning tournament took place on the Sunday evening.
Three Ukrainians had made it to the semifinal, but eventually Xi Wu 5d managed the clock and the board better and won. Second was Vsevolod Ovsiienko 6d, followed by Larion Syrotkin 3d.
Thank you very much to the organizers for this memorable edition, and see you next year for Easter weekend, on March 27-29!
