The 2021 Austalian National Championship – merged with the 2021 Australian Digital Go Tournament due to travel difficulties – took place from the 18th of October to the 8th of December. 83 participants over three divisions played a total of 577 games, all – or nearly all – being available for download and review on the tournament website. Due to sponsorship by PacifiGo covering all costs, entry was free.
- Round 1 was played Monday 18 October to Sunday 24 October.
- Round 2 was played Monday 25 October to Sunday 31 October.
- Round 3 was played Monday 1 November to Sunday 7 November.
- Round 4 was played Monday 8 November to Sunday 14 November.
- Round 5 was played Monday 15 November to Sunday 21 November.
- Round 6 was played Monday 22 November to Monday 29 November.
- Round 7 was played Tuesday 30 November to Tuesday 7 December.
Despite being the Australian National Championship, in the spirit of international co-operation and bond-building, it was open to all players of the Asia-Pacific region. It included players from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, across 18 clubs and 8 non-club players.
While the Open division was itself self-contained, the Handicap divisions were technically one division, albeit with a McMahon bar in between to seperate the two. This barrier proved to be semi-porous, leading some players in the 3rd divsion to play at least one game against a 2nd division opponent, albeit with appropriate handicap. Well, theoretically – the tournament software has both a delight in extreme match-ups and an allergy to handicaps larger than 9 stones.
Despite some inevitable hiccups endemic to any online tournament, by all accounts people had fun.
The final results were, as follows:
Open Division | First Handicap Division | Second Handicap Division | |
1st Place | Daniel Li (6d) | Peter Simpson (1k) | Victor Phan (9k) |
2nd Place | Laris Du Qing (6d) | Patrick Liang (1k) | Sorn Nawapanich (12k) |
3rd Place | Steven Cheng (5d) | Brendan Henessy (2k) | Christopher Riding (8k) |