This year’s ESC/WOSC took place in a very nice venue, the Pavillon Josephine surrounded by the Parc de l’Orangerie in Strasbourg, France from July 27th – 30th. With 136 participants there was a new record number of participants.
Special guests at the event were professional players Mr. Akio Ishikawa (7-dan), Mr. Shohei Takada (7-dan), Ms. Madoka Kitao (ladies professional 2-dan) and teaching professional Mr. Yasushi Ishikawa (4-dan), who all showed great passion in having many teaching games with many of the particpants.

Anton Starykevich (BY) won the European championship by winning the final against Thomas Leiter (DE). 3rd place went to Maxim Shaparov (BY).

Anton Starykevich (BY) won also the WOSC with winning all games except a last round loss against Stephen Lamb (GB). 2nd place in the WOSC went to Thomas Leiter who also scored 8 wins. Last year’s WOSC winner Kasey Nishimoto (JP) took the 3rd place with seven points, the same score was also reached by newcomer Joost Berkvens (NL).

The blitz tournament was won by Kasey Nishimoto (JP) ahead of Hijikata Yusei (JP) and Anton Starykevich (BY). 68 players participated in the blitz tournament.

The team tournament was won by team Nifuribisha (Thomas Leiter, Anton Borysov, Felix McPeake). On 2nd place came team ‘Triple K’ (Kazushi Shibutani, Keigo Suzuki, Kensuke Tsutsui) and 3rd team ‘Young and Old’ (Yusei Hijikata, Keita Obata, Konomu Obata). 26 teams particpated in the team tournament.

The full results are available on the event’s official webpage:
http://esc2023.shogi.fr/results/