Toby and Ryan at KPMC

Having recently been togther at the youth team tournament in China (with Lukasz Kudla), Toby Manning and Ryan Zhang met up again in Korea for the Korea Prime Minister Cup (KPMC). The event was held in mountainous Taebaek and guest of honour was Lee Sedol 9p.

For the first time ever the KPMC had an event for players aged under 16, hence why Ryan was present. A Pair Go event was held with a senior partnering with a junior to celebrate this.

In the youth event, Ryan won three games out of six to end 19th out of 28. He lost to Thailand and Romania, beat Mongolia, Spain and Denmark and finally lost to Canada. Tsai Ming Ruel of Chinese Taipei was the winner, ahead of Hong Kong and China. Top Europeans were Stjepan Medak (Croatia), Bende Barcza (Hungary) and Larion Syrotkin (Ukraine) who ended in the top ten.

In the main KPMC, Toby won three out of seven and ended 38th out of 52. He lost Cambodia and Canada, beat Norway (by 4.5), lost to Spain (in the dame filling), beat India, lost to Brunei and finally beat Denmark. Fu Yu of China was the unbeaten winner, ahead of Korea's Shin Hyun-Seok. Albert Yen of the USA topped the group on five wins and Jan Prokop (Czechia) was highest European in sixth.

Results