Samsung Cup

The Samsung Cup (Korean: 삼성화재배, Hanja: 三星火災杯) is a Go competition.

Outline

The Samsung Cup is an international competition. The Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance of Korea (which is a branch of the Samsung Group) and Hanguk Kiwon host the competition. The format starts with a preliminary tournament in which even amateur players are allowed to play. After the preliminaries, 16 players who advance plus the last four players of the previous year make up the main event. The semi-finals have a best-of-3 format, while the final has a best-of-3 match.

The latest edition starts off with the preliminaries, and then it is followed by splitting the players into 8 groups, with 4 players in each. There are three rounds, which are used to determine the 16 players that will be in the main tournament. The players must win two of their matches in order to advance to the round of 16. If there is someone with one win and one loss, they will play each other to see who can gain the second win. Obviously the people with two losses, whether they have a win or not, will be eliminated from the tournament.

Past winners and runners-up

Year Nat. Winner Score Nat. Runner-up
1996 Yoda Norimoto 2–1 Yoo Changhyuk
1997 Lee Chang-ho 3–0 Kobayashi Satoru
1998 Lee Chang-ho 3–2 Ma Xiaochun
1999 Lee Chang-ho 3–0 Cho Sonjin
2000 Yoo Changhyuk 3–1 Yamada Kimio
2001 Cho Hunhyun 2–1 Chang Hao
2002 Cho Hunhyun 2–0 Wang Lei
2003 Cho Chikun 2–1 Pak Yeong-hun
2004 Lee Sedol 2–0 Wang Xi
2005 Luo Xihe 2–1 Lee Chang-ho
2006 Chang Hao 2–0 Lee Chang-ho
2007 Lee Sedol 2–1 Pak Yeong-hun
2008 Lee Sedol 2–0 Kong Jie
2009 Kong Jie 2–0 Qiu Jun
2010 Gu Li 2–1 Heo Yeong-ho
2011 Won Seong-jin 2–1 Gu Li