Fan Hui Recaptures Paris Meijin
Peter Dijkema | Published on 12/15/2008
Fan Hui (right in photo at left) 2P swept all five rounds to win back his Paris Meijin title on November 29-30, reports Jérome Hubert 3D on the French Federation of Go's (FFG) website. Fan has now won this title six times, losing it last year to to Junfu Dai, who won it in 1995 when he was just 12. Prominent Japanese players also attended the 26th annual event, including Kobayashi Chizu 5P, who has been resident in Europe since last year, when she became the Nihon Kiin's cultural ambassador to Austria and Nobuchi Motoki 7D , who placed 5th. Click here for more pictures, some games and the full results. The FFG site also has a video by Fred Donzet 5D about Fan Hui, combining footage from the last Paris Pandanet with Fan -- a national teacher in France and regular contributor to the EJ -- teaching. Donzet took 8th place in the recent Korean PM Cup, and was one of Youth Champ Thomas Debarre 5D's -- who won 6th place -- first teachers. Debarre also takes lessons from Guo Juan 5P and told the EJ that he's "eager to play the best anywhere in Europe". -Report by Peter Dijkema, European correspondent; photo by Jérome Hubert