North American Fujitsu Cup

The North American Fujitsu Cup

The North American Fujitsu Cup is the North American qualifying tournament to select a continental representative to the Fujitsu World Go Championship. Held since 1988, the Fujitsu Cup is one of the strongest and most prestigious tournaments in North America. It offers the chance for sixteen of the continent's professionals and top amateurs to meet for the right to play in Japan against the top go players in the world.

The first Fujitsu World Championship was a 16 player knockout tournament, but subsequent years it has been expanded to a 24 player knockout tournament with 8 additional players seeded into the second round. The participants for this tournament are taken from the Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese professional Go scene joined by representatives of North and South America and Europe. The tournament offers a first prize of ¥15,000,000.

Selection Process

Beginning this year, the qualification tournament to select the 2011 candidate will be the North American Masters tournament (Click Here for more details). The NAMT is nor restricted to citizens, therefore the field will be mixed.

The field of the North American Fujitsu Cup is filled with professionals and amateurs from North American countries. Players are selected for the tournament in the following order:

Players holding certification from the professional go organizations of Japan, Korea, China or Taiwan
Players seeded from the previous year's tournament
Players selected by the national go associations of Canadian, the United States and Mexico
- Mexico (one player)
- Canada (two players)
- the USA (remaining spots)

American players and professionals are governed by the AGA's policy on the selection of international representatives. In particular, players must be resident in the United States for six of the past twelve months, have held continuous full AGA membership for the past year. All players must hold citizenship in Canada, Mexico or the United States. Canadian players are selected by the Canadian Go Association through its own system and are subject to the reciprocity agreement between the Canadian Go Association and the AGA (here). The AGA selects its representatives to the North American Fujitsu Cup by extending invitations to the top-rated players who are otherwise eligible. Invitations are issued starting from the top of the AGA's rating list and continue until all available spots are filled. There will be up to 8 qualification tournaments with the expectation that there will be 2 in each region, (East, West, Central) and 2 on line. See the North American Masters tournament information for details (click here).

Current Tournament

The 2010 North American Fujitsu Cup is now over. Congratulations to tournament champion Jie Li. Visit the tournament page for details.

Past Representatives

Event	Year	US Representative	Final Standing	Game Records
1st	1988	Jung Ho Lim (am)	Top 16	SGF
2nd	1989	Jimmy Cha	Top 8	SGF, SGF, SGF
3rd	1990	Jimmy Cha	Top 8	SGF, SGF
4th	1991	Michael Redmond	Top 16	SGF, SGF
5th	1992	Michael Redmond	Top 16	SGF
6th	1993	Michael Redmond	First Round	SGF
7th	1994	Michael Redmond	Top 16	SGF, SGF
8th	1995	Jimmy Cha	Top 16	SGF, SGF
9th	1996	Jimmy Cha	Top 16	SGF, SGF
10th	1997	Jimmy Cha	First Round	SGF
11th	1998	Michael Redmond	Top 16	SGF, SGF
12th	1999	Jimmy Cha	Top 16	SGF, SGF
13th	2000	Michael Redmond	First Round	SGF
14th	2001	Thomas Hsiang (am)	First Round	SGF
15th	2002	Jimmy Cha	Top 16	SGF, SGF
16th	2003	John Lee (am)	Top 16	SGF, SGF
17th	2004	Huiren Yang	First Round	SGF
18th	2005	Jujo Jiang	First Round	SGF
19th	2006	Mingjiu Jiang	First Round	SGF
20th	2007	Jie Li (am)	First Round	SGF
21st	2008	Mingjiu Jiang	First Round	SGF
22nd	2009	Jie Li (am)	First Round	SGF
23rd	2010	Jie Li (am)	?

Games records courtesy of SmartGo and Jan van der Steen of GoBase.org.