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 official name is The Samsung Insurance World Masters Baduk. The Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance of South 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
2012		Lee Sedol	2–1		Gu Li
2013		Tang Weixing	2–0		Lee Sedol