September 4-6, 2026 · Hopkinton Center for the Arts, Hopkinton MA. 78 players, five rounds.
Full standings and cross-tabs · Round 5 cross-tab · Rating changes
Nobody finished 5-0. Jeremy Chiu (8d) and Andrew Huang (5d) both came in at 4-1 and split the top two cash prizes evenly, $400 each. Alisa Wu (7d) took third at 3-2, topping a four-deep logjam at 37 MMS on SOS alone.
Top finishers at the awards table. Alisa Wu 7d (3rd); Trevor Morris (TD); Jeremy Chiu 8d (1st); Andrew Huang 5d (2nd)
The story of the weekend was two 5-dan wins over 7-dan-and-up opposition, both even games, both on board one: Andrew Huang over Jeremy Chiu in round three, and Yuxiao Wang (5d) over Alisa Wu in round five. Huang's second-place finish ran straight through the player who won the tournament. I do not remember ever seeing two upsets like this in a single event.
Fourteen players won four games. Setting aside the top two, each of the rest collected $50 in cash.
The four-game winners, left to right: Ryan Horner 5k; Wyatt Ross 9k; Harvey Yu 3k; Robert Muschner 17k; Aris Tian 7k; Binyi Lu 14k; Trevor Morris (TD); Andrew Perry 17k; Micah Steinberg 4k; Mateo Velikonja 1k; Yihuan Ma 15k; Yinjia Li 18k. (the same photo without the names)
Missing from the photo: Jason Qi 3k, who also won four games but was already on the road home.
Beyond the cash, every single player went home with two prizes - one from the Tier 1 table (retail value over $50) and one from Tier 2 (under $50). Tier 1 was anchored by Go boards and stones donated by Bill Saltman and Read Predmore; Tier 2 ran to books, T-shirts and the like. Players picked in finishing order, and the table stayed open until the last player had chosen.
None of that happens without the vendors. Listed in order of the value they donated:
And separately, the teachers who donated lessons as prizes:
Several of those sponsors also gave a free trial or membership code good for every player in the hall, which is why the walls were covered in QR codes all weekend.
Our thanks to all of them, to the Hopkinton Center for the Arts, and to everyone who drove, flew, took the train or walked in for a long Labor Day weekend of Go.
-Trevor Morris, Tournament Director
