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Sun Naijing Wins Trip to SportAccord World Mind Games

Sun Naijing of China will join other winners of online tournaments in bridge, chess, draughts, and xiangqi (Chinese Chess) in observing the world's best players in action at the SportAccord World Mind Games (SAWMG) in Beijing next month. Sun won the trip in the online adjunct to the upcoming World Mind Games, out of a field of 688 go players from 48 countries, ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, with more than half from Japan, which produced last year's online winner. Sun, who hails from Hefei in Anhui Province, started playing go at age nine and kept it up through university studies and subsequent employment. 'Go never leaves me,' he says. In a go career spanning nearly four decades he has won numerous provincial amateur tournaments in Anhui and has thrice finished among the top ten in the massive Evening News Cup, China's premier amateur event. In 1996 he defeated Chen Linxin 9P in the pro-amateur part of that event. 'I learn a lot by playing go,' Mr Sun adds. 'I like it.' Sponsored by Pandanet and played on Pandanet-IGS, some 5,400 games were played in this event; other winners include: Regional winners: Mariya Zakhachenko (Ukraine), Fernando Aguilar (Argentine), Tamai Kazuki (Japan); each winning a digital camera. Lottery winners (prize from Pandanet): Dragan Dubakovic (Serbia), Irwin Vinicio Sanchez Chinchuña (Ecuador), Ueda Tatsuya (Japan); each winning an iPad. Lottery winners (prize from SportAccord): Jeremy Chiu (USA), Igor Burnaevskiy (Russia); each winning a Samsung tablet computer.  Tzvetomir Tzvetanov (France), Nakatomi Nobuo (Japan); each winning a Swatch watch. This tournament is expected to be held again in 2013 and 2014, possibly with an earlier start time to allow more people to play.  Watch for announcements in the E-Journal, on the IGF website, and on Pandanet website. - adapted from a report in Ranka Online, the bulletin of the International Go Federation; includes reporting by Thomas Hsiang