20 October 2006

Japan Open 2006: Full Report

The Japan Open 2006 took place on 6-9 October at Nakano Sunplaza in Japan. Kazuhide Niki won the Open main event, and Junko Nakamura won the Championship class of the Japanese Championship, beating Yukio Nakamura in the final. The festival also included team, ladies, mixed doubles, blitz, round robin and 1-point events. The final results are listed below.

Open (53)

• Main: 1. Kazuhide Niki; 2. Susumu Mizutani; 3/4. Masayuki Mochizuki, Yousuke Takahashi.
• Consolation A: 1. Hironobu Yazawa; 2. Kazuhiko Yotsushika.
• Consolation B: 1. Paul Weaver; 2. Masahiko Nasu.

Japanese Championship

According to the organisers, the entry counts in this event include repeat entries, so they do not equal the number of individual players.

• Championship class (128): 1. Junko Nakamura; 2. Yukio Nakamura; 3/4. Masayuki Mochizuki, Tsuyoshi Minakami.
• Intermediate class (128): 1. Yu-suke Itagaki; 2. Kazuma Ishioka; 3/4. Yu-ki Takahashi, Hiroyuki Mori.
• Beginner class (128): 1. Yasushi Itoh; 2. Kumi Naka; 3/4. Morio Takeda, Tsutomu Suzuki.

Team Match (16 teams)

• 1. Komagome BG (Akiko Abe, Takumitsu Suzuki, Sinichiroh Kaneko, Hironobu Yazawa)
• 2. Nerima (Raizoh Ishizuka, Takashi Uno, Ryuzoh Suzuki, Chitose Okamura)
• Consolation: 1. Team Dice (Masakazu Matsushima, Teruyuki Suzuki, Takeshi Yorita, Miwa Hashizume)

Other events

• Ladies Tournament (16): 1. Michiko Matsumiya; 2. Hiromi Funahashi; 3. Aoi Wakayama; 4. Yuriko Kondoh.
• Mixed Doubles (32 pairs): 1. Shinichiroh Kaneko and Hiromi Funahashi; 2. Tomoko Tachikawa and Masahiro Yamaguchi.
• Blitz (80): 1. Hironobu Yazawa; 2. Yuji Sumi.
• Round Robin (62): 1. Keiichi Sasaki; 2. Tadanori Nakayama; 3. Kanta Terao.
• 1-Point Match (128): 1. Raizoh Ishizuka; 2. Takashi Uno.
• Monte Carlo Tournament (32): 1. Jake Jacobs; 2. Nozomu Kawazoe.

Hironobu Yazawa had a strong festival: he won Consolation A of the Open, the Blitz event and the team title with Komagome BG.