Dream Primer Cup — Winning Probabilities

Radu Baciu (4 Dan) — In Memoriam

"Baciul GO-ului românesc — the Shepherd of Romanian Go. The man whose name still opens half the rooms in Bucharest where the game is played."

A 4-dan and Romanian National Champion in 1986, Radu Baciu was one of the founders of the Romanian Go scene. His own story with the game begins in 1972, when a friend rang his doorbell saying "Uite un joc nou!" — and never stopped: he went on to become player, author, coach and club-builder all at once. He wrote the Romanian-language manual GO-ul în competiții (Bucharest, 1989), authored the autobiographical history series "Istoria Go-ului la noi… așa cum am trăit-o eu", and was the mentor of an entire generation of Bucharest players. He passed away in December 2008. His name lives on in the Clubul de Go "Radu Baciu" and in the Marele Premiu "Radu Baciu", the multi-stage tournament created in his memory.

Mihai Liță — himself a player in this cup — remembered his first day at the Bucharest club:

"La o masă mai izolată, într-o concentrare maximă, juca un bărbat cu părul creț... care răspândea în jurul său o aură de solemn, un fel de magie și care ne-a impus și curiozitatea și respectul. Era cel de la care am învățat ce este Go-ul. Era Radu Baciu."

Style

• a classical 4 dan game built on solid shape and clear strategic plans
• the patience and gravitas of a teacher — every move had a reason he could explain to you afterwards
• generous over the board: rivals remember him as a hard opponent and a kind one in the same breath
• a player whose real masterpiece was the next generation he trained

AI Assessment

"Radu Baciu is not in the draw, but he is in the room. Every Romanian dan in this cup is, in some line, a student of a student of his — and at least one of the current competitors learned the game at his table. The Dream Primer Cup honours its present players, and through them, the Shepherd who built the ground they sit on."

Dohyup Kim (8 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"A travelling Korean 8-dan with international amateur titles on three continents — and the highest rank in the bracket."

A South Korean 8-dan amateur, Dohyup Kim is one of the strong international travellers on the global tournament circuit. He has competed across Europe, the United States and Asia, with third place at the 2018 Amsterdam Tournament in Europe as a 7-dan, and a major recent peak: champion of the 2025 Chicago Open over 123 players, his first U.S. tournament victory. He has played his way through the European top board in recent seasons — Dutch Open opponents include Romania's own Yifan Bao 6d, whom he edged in a tight 8.5-point finish. There is, though, one piece of unfinished business in the bracket: he lost to Cristian Pop earlier this year, and he is coming to Dream Primer with that result on his mind. He arrives as the highest-ranked competitor in the field and the international yardstick by which everyone else's tournament will be measured — but at least one game in this cup is a rematch he wants back.

Style

• a true 8-dan game — reading depth, shape precision and endgame accuracy all on the upper-amateur edge of professional
• Korean-school fundamentals: clean joseki, sharp tactical sequences, ruthless conversion of a small advantage
• international tournament temperament — comfortable on any board, in any time control, against any opponent
• prefers the cleanest move available, almost never the showiest one

AI Assessment

"Dohyup Kim is the ceiling of the tournament. Across the board he gives nothing for free — no easy openings, no tactical gifts, no endgame slips. Opponents who play their best Go against him still expect to lose; opponents who play their normal game lose more quickly. He is the standard the rest of the field gets to measure itself against."

Cristian Pop (7 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"One of the great veterans of Romanian Go. Calm, experienced, and extremely difficult to unsettle, Cristian Pop 7 Dan wins many games not through spectacle, but through relentless positional pressure and precision."

Former insei in Japan and multiple-time Romanian National Champion, Cristian Pop has represented Romania at the highest European and international amateur levels for decades.

Style

• strategic and patient
• strong positional judgment
• excellent under pressure
• punishes overplay very efficiently

AI Assessment

"Against Cristian Pop, the danger is often invisible until it is too late. Opponents may feel comfortable for most of the game — and suddenly discover they are losing everywhere."

Player Profile — Dream Primer Cup

A Chinese 6-dan currently studying business at Coventry University in the UK, Yifan brings a Chinese-trained game into the European tournament scene. He has been a fast riser on the British circuit — joint winner of the Coventry Tournament 2025 and a Wessex Tournament winner — and travels to continental events including the Paris International. Across his recent games he has taken on the best of the European top board: wins as White over Cornel Burzo 6d and Tianyi Fu 6d, and a hard-fought close finish against Korean 8-dan Kim Dohyup. He arrives at Dream Primer as the strongest "international" entry in the field.

Style

Yifan plays a modern, Chinese-trained game. He opens with 4-4 stones and reaches without hesitation for current-meta joseki — quick 3-3 invasions, attach-and-trade sequences, and the kind of light, flexible corners that lead to large frameworks rather than locked-in territory. In the middle game he is a reader and a fighter: he probes early, takes the fighting branch whenever it's available, and trusts his tactics to convert complications into either thick walls or kills. His shape is exceptionally clean — the small inefficiencies you see in most European 6-dans simply aren't there — and his counting is fast and accurate. He is comfortable on either colour and equally at ease against amateur top boards or visiting professionals.

Weak Points

Like most fast, aggressive players, he occasionally over-commits to attacks where the kill is just out of reach; when the chase peters out, his attacking stones can become a weak group that has to be rescued at the cost of points elsewhere. Against the very strongest opposition — true 8-dan and professional level — his reading occasionally comes up half a move short, which is why his close losses tend to be close losses rather than wins. His openings are mainstream rather than tricky, so a well-prepared opponent will not be surprised by his joseki choices — only out-played if he is allowed to find his fighting rhythm.

What to Expect

A modern, sharp opening; an early probe to find any thin group on the board; and a willingness to take the game into the kind of fighting middle game most European amateurs prefer to avoid. He will not give you a quiet positional game if there is a sharper option available. Expect strong tactics, accurate counting, and an opponent who is comfortable playing the close finish. Your best route through him is to keep your groups settled, avoid being drawn into a one-sided fight in his half of the board, and trust that small mistakes will not be enough — you will need to be ready to play a calm, full-length game against an opponent who would rather you didn't.

What He Brings to Dream Primer

Yifan brings to the cup the genuinely international perspective the bracket needs — a Chinese 6-dan now studying in Europe, carrying current-meta openings, a fighter's middle game, and the experience of having already beaten the strongest Romanian player in the field. For the title contenders he is a serious problem; for the rest of the bracket he is the chance to play someone trained in a different Go school from the European top boards. Alongside the Romanian champions, the rising juniors and the seasoned tournament regulars, Yifan is the outside test — the player whose games will measure where the cup's best really stand against the international amateur top.

Mirel Florescu (6 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"A Japanese-trained classical player and one of the most influential figures in Romanian Go. The kind of opponent you do not so much defeat as survive."

A 6-dan who studied at the Makuhari Igo Kenshu Center in Japan from 1995 to 1998, Mirel Florescu has spent his life inside the game. International Go instructor, former trainer of the Romanian national team, author of the Romanian-language Go textbook Primii pași în Go, and president of the Meijin Club — the club that hosts the Dream Primer Cup — he is at once one of the strongest players in the field and the institutional memory of Romanian Go.

Style

• classical, Japanese-school positional Go
• exceptional shape and fundamentals — moves look obvious in hindsight, almost never in advance
• patient under pressure, technical in the endgame
• decades of teaching experience reflected on the board — he knows what every move means, not just what it does

AI Assessment

"Against Mirel Florescu there are no easy points. Opponents who try to outfight him discover his shape is already perfect; opponents who try to outplay him discover he has seen the resulting endgame before. He is the senior teacher in the room — and across the board, he is the kind of 6-dan whose moves you only fully understand a week after the game."

Elian Grigoriu — Dream Primer Preview

"One of the strongest representatives of the new Romanian generation shaped by the modern European Go scene."

Elian Grigoriu established himself early through strong performances in European junior competitions and later confirmed his strength in major international tournaments, including a top-10 finish at the World Amateur Go Championship representing Romania. Alongside his competitive career, Elian is also a Go teacher, actively involved in helping younger players develop their understanding of the game.

His style combines positional maturity with precise tactical reading. Calm under pressure and rarely rushed, Elian is comfortable in complex positions and capable of gradually building control without forcing the game unnecessarily.

Style

• a balanced whole-board player with strong positional judgment
• flexible between strategic play and tactical fighting
• calm, disciplined, and emotionally stable at the board

AI Assessment

"Elian enters Dream Primer as one of the tournament favorites. His international experience and psychological stability make him particularly dangerous in short tournaments. Opponents looking for chaos may discover that he reads too well to collapse. Opponents choosing slow strategic games may find themselves exactly where he feels most comfortable."

Ioan Cora (4 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"Go gave me something — and I want to give it back. That is what this cup is for."

A 4-dan who was active on the Romanian tournament scene between 1989 and 1995, Ioan returned to the board after a long pause and now combines irregular tournament play with a second, larger role: he has been the driving force behind the Dream Primer Cup for five years, the player who turned a personal love of the game into an event that the rest of the Romanian dan field now circles on the calendar.

Style

• modern, experimental approach — willing to try current-meta joseki rather than fall back on 1990s habits
• still finding his rhythm after the long break — every game is part of the rebuild
• pragmatic and curious — plays for the lesson as much as for the result
• comfortable on either colour and unafraid of the strongest opposition in the draw

AI Assessment

"Ioan plays the kind of game that is hard to scout — fewer fixed patterns, more experimentation. Opponents who expect a traditional 4-dan game can be caught by a modern line; opponents who expect rust can be caught by sharper reading than the gap on his calendar would suggest. And whatever happens on the board, the cup itself is on his side of the table — Dream Primer exists thanks to his work alongside Dragoș Băjenaru, hosted by Mirel Florescu's Meijin Club, and made possible by the sponsors: Dream Primer, Fortis Plus and Leverage Negotiation."

Mihai Liță (2 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"One of the most distinctive personalities of the Romanian dan scene — a territorial player whose Go carries the Baciu lineage and whose mind carries the bookshelf."

A 2-dan and a long-running fixture of the Romanian tournament circuit, Mihai Liță plays in the Politrade Grand Prix, the Romanian National Championship and successive editions of the Dream Primer Cup. He learned the game in the 1980s in the Bucharest scene that grew up around Radu Baciu, and is one of the players who carries that lineage forward at the Romanian top tables today — more than four decades at the board. Ioan Cora believes that in 1990, at the Politehnica club in Bucharest, he witnessed one of the most beautiful Go lessons he has ever attended — given by Mihai. Cora may be hyperbolising the memory, as one does about the best evenings of one's twenties; the charisma, in any case, remains. Off the board he is the kind of polymath the Bucharest club has always produced: a spiritual seeker of long standing, and today a translator of books from the spiritual and philosophical traditions — a reader and a thinker whose Go is shaped by the same long, patient attention.

Style

• patient, territorial 4-4 game — builds a framework, defends the borders, converts the endgame
• solid joseki knowledge and clean shape — rare to see him in a heavy position
• a quiet, persistent giant-killer — has beaten 3-dans on his day in Dream Primer rounds
• an intense, theatrical presence at the board — not easy to share a position with, and not a player you forget after the game

AI Assessment

"Mihai is one of the personalities of the Romanian dan scene — quiet, patient and technical on the board, intense and theatrical off it. Across the room he is a translator, a researcher and a reader who happens to play Go. He is the kind of 2-dan who reminds the cup that not every strong player got there the same way."

Rareș Pituru (2 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"A 2-dan from Caracal — proof that a small-town library Go circle, run by the right person, can put a dan player on the national tournament floor."

A 2-dan from Caracal in Olt county, Rareș Pituru is one of the most distinctive Go stories in the Romanian field: he came up through the Cercul de GO "Contraste" at the Virgil Carianopol public library, the small-town Go circle that librarian and Go instructor Dan Groza has been running since 2015. From a free club at a county library to a 2-dan competing at the Politrade Grand Prix and the rest of the national circuit is a long journey, and Rareș is the player who has made it. He arrives at Dream Primer carrying the lineage of his teacher, and quietly proving the point that Go in Romania is not just a Bucharest phenomenon.

Style

• a steady, well-prepared 2-dan game built on real club hours and serious tournament practice
• the patience of a library-trained player — happy in long positions, comfortable with quiet boards
• a respectable fighter when the position demands it; not the kind of opponent who shies away from a complication
• the calm of a player whose first teacher believed Go was for everyone — and proved it on him

AI Assessment

"Rareș is a quietly important presence in the cup. He is the proof of concept for what a regional Go circle can produce when the right teacher commits to it — and across the board he is a 2-dan who has already taken games off players of his rank and above. Opponents who treat him as a routine 2 dan are missing the part of the story that matters most: he had to be better than the average dan to get this far, because nobody handed him a fast track. Bucharest's Go scene is the bigger one; Caracal's is the one that has produced this player."

Mihai Ciobancă (1 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"A newly-minted 1-dan at 59, a physicist and former army man, still on his own quest through Go."

A freshly-arrived 1-dan and one of the most distinctive personalities in the field, Mihai Ciobancă is 59 and finally on the other side of a line he has been close to for over thirty years. He reached 1 kyu in 1992, then stepped away from the board for decades. He has only recently returned to the game — and within that return, crossed to shodan. He has lived several lives off the board too: he served in the army and worked as a physicist. Across all of them Go has been the constant he kept coming back to, the line he keeps following. He frames the game in the language of a search: a quest, a way of looking for something he hasn't quite found yet. Reaching shodan now is one of the markers on that road, not the end of it.

He carries two memories from the road that he likes to tell. The first is from his 4-kyu days, when he sat down against Radu Baciu 4-dan — the legend the cup honours in memoriam — and lost by only 2.5 points. The second is from the 1990s, a Bucharest weekend he played out with Dan Viţcă, Jean Dobrescu, Codin Cocioabă and Călin Ionescu: three days and three nights of Go, at the end of which the five of them were quite sure they had found nirvana. Two of those names — Jean and Codin — are also in this very Dream Primer draw.

Style

• a patient 1-dan game built on decades of slow, deliberate study — a physicist's instinct, not a hot streak
• the calm of a former army man at the board — composed, unhurried, hard to throw
• chooses the move that fits the long arc rather than the move that scores the cheap point
• a player whose results match his temperament: arrived at shodan when he was ready, not when he was forced

AI Assessment

"Mihai is the kind of 1-dan a national cup is honoured to host — a man who was 1 kyu in 1992, stepped away from the game for decades, came back, and crossed the shodan line on his own terms. Opponents who treat him as a fresh 1-dan can be caught by the same patience that came within 2.5 points of Radu Baciu in his 4-kyu days. The cup is his next station on a long, intentional road."

Radu Botezat — Dream Primer Preview

"A psychologist, a student of Radu Baciu, and a player who returned to Go after almost fifteen years away — with the hope of meeting others again on the board."

Radu Botezat learned to play Go in 2003 and reached 1 dan in about a year and a half. He was shaped by the Romanian Go scene of that period and, above all, by his mentor, Radu Baciu.

After his mentor's death, Radu gradually stepped away from the game for almost fifteen years. His return came not from the need to prove anything, but through family, community, and the quiet wish to reconnect with the game that had once shaped him so deeply. In time, that return also took a concrete form: he helped establish a Go association shaped by the same spirit he had received from Radu Baciu — a place built around study, community, and the simple hope of meeting others on the board.

Off the board, Radu is a clinical psychologist and person-centred psychotherapist. This naturally influences how he understands Go: not only as a strategic game, but as a space of attention, relation, rhythm, and encounter.

The phrase that stayed with him from Radu Baciu is simple and essential: „Cu speranța că ne vom întâlni pe tabla de Go" — "With the hope that we will meet on the Go board." For Radu, this remains one of the clearest expressions of what the game can be: not only a contest, but a meeting.

Style

• a calm, whole-board style shaped by the Baciu school: clean form, patience, balance, and attention to the larger position
• a player who tends to seek space before force, rhythm before immediate gain, and relation before unnecessary conflict
• a psychologist's sensitivity at the board: reading not only the stones, but also the tempo, tension, and human presence of the game
• not naturally an aggressive fighter, but capable of building quiet pressure through structure and patience
• a returning player with renewed hunger, tempered by maturity

AI Assessment

Radu brings to the cup the profile of a serious returner: someone who learned the game deeply, left it for almost fifteen years after the death of his mentor, and came back with a more mature understanding of what Go can mean.

His play is likely to carry traces of the Baciu spirit — calm, relational, whole-board oriented, less interested in violence than in meaningful contact. Opponents who try to force unnecessary fights may find that he does not always answer in the expected way. Opponents who give him space may discover that he still knows how to use it.

For Radu, this cup is not only a competition. It is also a return to a board, a community, and a sentence that still holds the whole spirit of the game: „Cu speranța că ne vom întâlni pe tabla de Go."

Francisc Budai — Dream Primer Preview

"A Romanian Go regular from the 90s — stubborn at the board, passionate about the game, and convinced that whoever just beat him must have made a mistake somewhere."

A player from the 1990s Romanian Go generation, Francisc Budai still shows up to play after all these years, with his particular signature intact: stubborn at the board, passionate about the game. The stubbornness is most evident after the game ends. No matter how a loss arrives, Francisc usually walks away convinced that the other player must have made a mistake — somewhere, somehow, in some move he hasn't yet pinned down. It is, in its own way, one of the most loving forms of devotion to the game: the conviction that the position was winnable, the trust that there is always a move you didn't see, the refusal to accept that the answer is simply "I was outplayed."

Style

• a stubborn 90s game — does not give up positions easily, finds resources in places opponents stopped looking
• the passion of a player who has stayed in love with the game for decades
• comfortable in long, technical positions; willing to take the fight when the position turns
• a temperament that rewards thickness and punishes anyone who hopes he'll simply concede

AI Assessment

"Francisc is one of the cup's most distinctive personalities — a player who arrives stubborn, plays stubborn, and leaves the table still searching for the move his opponent must have got wrong. Opponents who expect him to fold under pressure usually find themselves doing the folding instead; opponents who win against him should be advised that, in his head, the game is not over yet. The bracket is a livelier place with him in it."

Player Profile — Dream Primer Cup

Born in Bistrița in 1980, Cornel learned Go from his grandfather at age 10, took the game up seriously in a Baia Mare club in 1994, and became shodan in 1997 after winning the Romanian Youth Championship. He reached 6 dan EGF in 2003 and has since been promoted to 7 dan. He is a nine-time Romanian National Champion, finished 3rd and 4th at the European Go Championship (2003, 2010), and won the European Grand Prix Finale in 2023. Alongside tournament play he is one of the best-known European Go teachers, offering lessons on Pandanet, KGS and Fox.

Style

Cornel is a complete, professionalised European-top-board player whose game is built on accurate reading and clean shape. He opens with whichever modern fuseki the position calls for — 4-4 on the diagonal, 3-4 enclosures, low Chinese — and is equally happy on both sides of an invasion or a reduction. He plays for influence first, points second: large, solid frameworks early; aggressive attacks the moment an opponent's group is forced to live in his sphere; calm, settled endgame once he has converted the lead. Across his recent games he has shown the full toolkit — patient territorial wins, surgical kills of weak invading groups, and the willingness to grind a half-point endgame against a fellow 6-dan when that is what the position needs. He is comfortable taking either colour against any European opponent and a credible problem for visiting pros.

Weak Points

His openings are deeply orthodox; he does not try to surprise. Against opponents who have prepared a specific modern joseki line, he is happy to play it out straight rather than divert, which means a well-studied opponent can sometimes neutralise his Black advantage early. When he commits to an attack he commits hard, and on the rare occasion the kill doesn't materialise he can be left with a few too many forcing-move stones lying around — heavy shapes in his half of the board that a calm, thick opponent can exploit. And in long endgames against true top professionals, half-point losses have shown up: his finishing is excellent but not infallible against the very strongest opposition.

What to Expect

A modern, mainstream opening and a deeply technical middle game. He will probe quickly to find any weak group on the board and then attack with full intent — not for the sheer kill, but to force your living shape and trade it for thickness or territory elsewhere. Expect strong direction of play, very accurate counting, and an opponent who is happiest in long, complicated games. Your best route through him is to keep your groups light and connected, avoid being drawn into a one-sided fight in his sphere of influence, and trust that small mistakes will not be enough — you will need to be willing to take a calm, full-length game to him.

What He Brings to Dream Primer

Cornel arrives at the cup as the most decorated player in the field — nine national titles, two European podiums, a European Grand Prix Finale to his name, and the only Romanian who has consistently held his own against visiting professionals. For the rest of the field he is the natural benchmark: every player who draws him gets a measuring stick for where their game really stands. Beyond the board he brings something the cup needs as much as a top board — twenty-plus years of teaching experience, a generous post-game manner, and the kind of presence that turns a national event into a real festival of Go. Whoever lifts the trophy will have had to go through him, and that is exactly the level Dream Primer is built to celebrate.

Player Profile — Dream Primer Cup

Style

A territorial fighter who is happiest in long, complex middle games. Lucian opens orthodox — star-point fuseki, modern joseki, comfortable on both sides of the 3-3 invasion — and uses that clean foundation to push the game into the kind of position he reads better than most: semeai, ko, and capturing-race shape. He counts well, trusts his endgame, and is patient about leaving ko threats lying around for later use. When he gets ahead he tightens up and converts; when he gets behind he picks a fight, and the fight usually tilts his way because his local reading is sharper than the average dan's.

Weak Points

When an attack stalls he tends to keep investing rather than switching points, and his framework can collapse around dead attacking stones. He reaches for ko complications even when he is already ahead, narrowing margins he should be widening. His openings are orthodox with no surprise weapons, so a well-prepared modern line can neutralise his Black advantage early. And against the very top of the field, his reading occasionally comes up half a move short in the decisive fight.

What to Expect

Modern, mainstream openings and an opponent who actively wants the fighting branch — if you offer a peaceful trade, he will usually decline it. Ko-heavy middle games, so have your threats counted before you start anything. Strong, accurate endgame: a small lead against Lucian is not a safe lead. Your best openings are staying thick, refusing to be drawn into reading contests in his half of the board, and switching points calmly when he over-commits to an attack.

What He Brings to Dream Primer

Lucian is one of the strongest dan players in the Romanian field and one of the few who actively sharpens his game against Korean 7–8 dan opposition on Cyberoro. That online battle-volume shows: he arrives at the cup with modern joseki habits, real reading stamina, and the willingness to take any game into the kind of fighting middle game most amateurs prefer to avoid. For the title contenders he is a serious threat — a player capable of taking down a higher-rated opponent on tactics alone — and for the rest of the field he is the most exciting draw on the board, because games against Lucian rarely stay quiet. He brings to Dream Primer the fighter's edge that complements the cup's senior champions and turns the top half of the bracket into must-watch Go.

Player Profile — Dream Primer Cup

Romanian-trained, UK-based, and one of the most travelled 4 dans in the Romanian diaspora. Lucretiu was part of the Romanian team that finished European Vice-Champions in 1999, and has been a fixture of the British circuit ever since — winning Bracknell in 2017 and Belfast with a perfect 5-0 in 2023. His standout recent result was finishing second at the 2025 British Go Championship Candidates in Leicester with 5 wins, losing only to a 7D, which earned him a place in the Title Match for the British crown.

Style

A patient, orthodox 4-4 player whose game is built on clean territory and accurate counting rather than spectacle. Across his four Leicester games he opened with star-points on both sides, took whichever joseki the position called for, and converted the long endgame: 8.5-point territorial win against a 3D as White, comfortable resignation wins against two fellow 4Ds, and only a clean resignation loss to a clearly stronger 7D. He is comfortable taking either colour, equally happy with the 3-3 invasion or the modern shoulder-hit, and prefers to build a workable framework and let the opponent come to him before counter-attacking. Calm middle game, solid endgame technique, willing to play 200+ moves to convert a half-point edge.

Weak Points

Opening repertoire is orthodox and predictable — no surprise weapons, so a well-prepared opponent can dictate the early shape. Against clearly stronger players (7D+) his reading occasionally lags in the decisive fight, which is how the 7D loss developed in Leicester. He also has a tendency to keep playing for the long territorial game even when the position calls for a sharper switch, which can leave a small but persistent rating-favorite deficit against the very top boards. EGD form coming in is a touch flat (−3.8 form bonus in our model), so he is arriving relying on craft and tournament experience rather than peak match-form.

What to Expect

A modern, mainstream opening and a settled middle game. He will not pick a fight if he doesn't need to; he will count, build, and trade. If you give him a clean framework to work with, expect a long endgame and a precise finish. Your best route through him is to keep the game complicated and avoid drifting into the long territorial trade he wants — disrupt the framework, force fighting in his half of the board, and make him spend reading time rather than counting time. A well-prepared modern joseki line works too; he is not the kind of player who has memorised every AI variation.

What He Brings to Dream Primer

One of the most internationally tested 4 dans in the field. Twelve months of British Championship-level competition — including a five-win Candidates run and a Title Match seat — is exactly the kind of recent battle-volume the Romanian circuit doesn't always offer at the 4 dan level. He arrives as a known tournament finisher: he can hold a lead, he can outlast a fellow dan in a long game, and he has the head for late-round nerve that comes from playing in best-of-three deciders. For Dream Primer he is a serious threat to the 5 dan group and a meaningful obstacle to anyone in the lower half of the bar group — exactly the kind of seasoned tournament presence that turns a cup weekend into a real Go festival. Off the board, a lifelong Deep Purple fan.

Player Profile — Dream Primer Cup

A member of the Romanian national Go team and one of the most active Romanian dans on Asian servers, Robert plays his online games on Fox at 8 dan, where he holds his own in mid-week ladder play against the deep field of Chinese and Korean 8-dan accounts. He finished third at last year's Dream Primer Cup, so he returns to this edition with a proven feel for the tournament's format and a clear hunger to improve on that podium finish. He is a regular at the strongest level of online play available to European amateurs and trains consistently against high-dan Chinese and Korean opposition.

Style

Robert plays a modern, AI-era game. He opens with 4-4 stones, is comfortable on both sides of the 3-3 invasion, and chooses the kind of joseki strong players favour today — light and flexible, willing to trade the corner for outside shape rather than locking down territory early. In the middle game he is a reader-first fighter: he probes early, takes the fighting branch when it appears, and trusts his tactics to convert a complicated position into either a kill or a thick wall facing the centre. His direction-of-play is sharp — wasted moves are rare — and he counts well enough to take a half-point endgame to the very end when he needs to. He is comfortable taking either colour and equally happy in fast online games or longer tournament time controls.

Weak Points

His pace is aggressive and he sometimes commits to attacks where the kill is not quite there; when the chase peters out, his attacking stones can become a weak group of their own and the centre gets messy. In long endgames against the very strongest opposition he occasionally drops the half-point margin — his finishing is good, not perfect. And like most modern-fuseki players, his openings are mainstream; a well-prepared opponent who has studied current 4-4 lines will not be surprised, only outplayed, which means he sometimes has to do all the heavy lifting in the middle game.

What to Expect

Modern openings, an early probe to find any thin group on the board, and a willingness to take the game into the kind of fighting middle game where reading decides the result. He will not give you a quiet positional game if there is a sharper option available. Expect strong tactics, accurate counting and a player who is comfortable playing for the close finish. Your best route through him is to keep your groups settled, avoid being drawn into a one-sided fight in his half of the board, and trust the endgame — small mistakes against him are usually fatal, but a calm, well-counted full-length game is winnable.

What He Brings to Dream Primer

Robert brings to the cup the sharpest online-trained game in the Romanian field — a player who treats Fox 8 dan as his regular sparring pool and arrives with modern joseki, fast reading and the willingness to fight. For the title contenders he is a serious draw, capable of taking down anyone in the field on the right day; for the rest of the bracket he is the player whose games will be the most entertaining to watch, because nothing stays quiet for long when he sits down. Alongside the senior champions and the heavier positional styles in the cup, Robert is the modern, attacking flavour the tournament needs — and a credible threat to anyone who underestimates a 5-dan whose online battle volume puts him in the same room as the strongest amateurs in the world.

Daniel Cioată (5 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"A complete strategic mind. Equally feared at the Go board and at the bridge table — a player who has spent a lifetime turning information into advantage."

A senior figure of Romanian Go who reached 5 dan and has been a fixture on the national scene for decades, Daniel Cioată is one of those rare competitors whose strength comes from operating at the top of multiple disciplines. Through his high-school and university years he and Mirel Florescu sharpened each other across the board — friends off the board, rivals on it, the kind of long-running personal rivalry that pushes two players up the dan ladder at the same time. Alongside his Go career he was an exceptional bridge player, a sport that demands the same blend of long-term planning, probability sense and reading of an opponent's hand. He is also an exceptional programmer — the third axis of a mind that has spent its life thinking in systems, sequences and exact consequences — and the cross-training shows in everything he does over the board.

Style

• attacking — looks for the kill, not the trade; opponents who let him surround a weak group rarely keep it
• the bridge player's reading turned into a weapon: he sees the sequence two moves before you do
• temperamental — when his attack lands, the game is over; when it stalls, the position can swing the other way just as fast
• a player who turns a quiet board into a fighting one and a fighting board into a decisive one

AI Assessment

"Daniel plays Go like a man who prefers the result clear and the result soon. When he is on, his attacks roll through opponents who thought they were safe; when his read misfires, the same fire can burn his own framework. He is high-variance Go at its most entertaining — a 5 dan who will give you either a brilliant game or a chaotic one, sometimes both inside the same hour."

Player Profile — Dream Primer Cup

One of the senior dan players in Romanian Go, Marius competes at the top of the national circuit — the Romanian National Championship, the Polytrade Grand Prix, and the country's other strongest events — where he regularly sits across the board from Lucian Deaconu, Robert Grosu, Cornel Burzo and the rest of the dan field. He is a fixture of the Romanian top tables, the kind of opponent every other dan in the country has had to learn how to beat.

Style

Marius plays a calm, classical 5-dan game. He opens with modern 4-4 stones, picks up his points patiently across the corners and sides, and is happy to let an opponent over-extend before he goes to work on them. In the middle game he prefers measured exchanges to wild fighting — he reads well, plays solid shape, and is one of the better positional evaluators in the Romanian field. He counts accurately, knows what he needs to win the game, and will play the simplest move that gets him there. He has held leads against fellow 5-dans deep into the endgame and has the temperament to take a long, technical game over the full clock.

Weak Points

His instinct is to play the safe, technical line, which means he can sometimes give back a winning position to opponents who keep complicating the board — leads have shrunk on him in long middle games against the most aggressive Romanian dans. Time management has cost him at least one tournament game against a top-rated opponent, suggesting he can drift into low byo-yomi when the position is rich. His openings are mainstream and well-prepared rather than tricky, so an opponent who has studied the current 4-4 lines will not be surprised — only out-positioned if Marius is allowed to settle into his rhythm.

What to Expect

Modern, orthodox openings, a measured middle game, and an opponent who is content to let the position breathe rather than force the issue. He will not fall for tactical traps and is unlikely to give you a free fight; if you want one, you will have to take it to him. Expect strong counting, careful shape, and an endgame that rarely leaks half-points. Your best route through him is to keep the game complicated, force unsettled groups onto the board, and trust that an aggressive position will be harder for him to convert than a calm one.

What He Brings to Dream Primer

Marius brings to the cup the steady, top-of-the-table presence that any serious tournament needs — a 5-dan who has spent years competing at the very top of the Romanian field and who will give every player in the bracket a full-length, full-quality test. For the title contenders he is a hard board to crack; for everyone else he is the stylistic counterweight to the more aggressive 5-dans in the field, the player whose games will show the cup at its most classical. Alongside the champions, the rising juniors and the fighters, Marius is the senior, technical pole of the draw — and a benchmark every other dan in the cup will want to measure themselves against.

Sorin Sora — Dream Primer Preview

"A former president of the Romanian Go Federation and a figure the community has opinions about — but whose passion for the game has never been in question."

A former president of the Romanian Go Federation, Sorin Sora is one of the most recognisable names from Romanian Go's recent history. He played his first European Go Championship in Prague in 1993 and has been a constant at the European event ever since, with more than 20 European Championship appearances to his name. In 2014, at Sibiu, he won the European Veterans Championship — a genuine continental title in his cabinet. He is, by common acknowledgement, a controversial figure in the community: a man whose tenure and personality have provoked strong views on both sides of the room. What is not in dispute is his undeniable love for Go and his persistence as a competitor — across the years and across the polemics, he keeps showing up at the board. Dream Primer is one of the events where he, again, sits down to play.

Style

• a long-time participant whose feel for the game has been built across decades of play
• persistent and stubborn in the constructive sense — opponents who expect him to give up a position usually find themselves still in it
• a recognisable presence on the tournament floor, in part because everyone in the room already has an opinion about him
• comfortable in the long game — both at the board and around it

AI Assessment

"Sorin is the rare player whose name in the draw is itself a story. Opponents will form their own view about the man before the game starts, and a slightly different view after it ends. Across the board he is persistent, experienced and unbothered by the discourse around him. He is part of the Romanian Go scene's living memory — and he keeps writing it, one game at a time."

Dan Iugulescu (3 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"More than thirty years at the board, a lawyer's instinct for fair process, and the father of the rising junior the cup is already talking about."

A 3-dan and one of the steady senior dans of Romanian Go, Dan Iugulescu has been playing since 1993 — over three decades at the board. He plays for the love of it, has explicitly chosen Go as a hobby rather than a performance project, and still puts up serious results: he won the 2022 Romanian Veterans tournament with a clean sweep, took 2nd place at the Belgrade open that same year, and is a member of the Sakata Cluj club that lifted the Romanian National Team Championship in 2020. Off the board he is a lawyer, and has twice served on the FRGO Federal Bureau — most recently authoring the federation's 2022 Disciplinary Regulation and providing extensive pro-bono legal work for the community.

There is also a father-son thread running straight from his profile into the cup: he is the father of Eduard "Eddie" Iugulescu, the rapidly-improving junior whose climb from 6 kyu toward shodan has been one of the most exciting Romanian Go stories of the past year. Dan and Eddie have travelled the European junior and amateur circuit together — Iugu mare și mic, as the despreGO chronicle puts it — and the cup gets both of them in the same draw.

Which leaves the most interesting open question of the tournament: what happens if Dan meets Eddie at the board? Three dan ranks separate them on paper, but Eddie has spent the last twelve months closing that gap faster than anyone in the country. Dan has thirty years and a lawyer's calm against a son who has just learned how to fight. Nobody can call it. Pair them up and the rest of the bracket will quietly stop playing to watch.

Style

• a senior 3 dan game — steady fundamentals, clean joseki, decades of pattern memory
• chooses the practical move over the theatrical one; a lawyer's preference for what works
• happiest when the position is alive but reasonable — neither stalemated nor wild
• a player whose results show up in long tournaments rather than blitz: stamina over fireworks

AI Assessment

"Dan is one of the dependable senior 3 dans of the Romanian field — a player who treats Go as a hobby and still beats people who treat it as a vocation. Across the board he is calm, accurate and stubborn in the productive sense; across the room he is one of the people whose pro-bono work and committee service has shaped the institutional spine of Romanian Go. The bracket is fortunate to have him — and the bracket is, this year, also playing his son."

He Jinming (3 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"A Chinese-school 3-dan whose game brings the Eastern fuseki sensibility straight into the Romanian draw."

A 3-dan with a Chinese-school foundation, He Jinming is one of the international visitors who has graced previous editions of the Dream Primer Cup — including the 2024 edition, where he played at the top of the bracket alongside Romania's senior dans. He is Chinese, currently assigned to work in Europe: rated games of his are on record from his postings in Italy and Belgium, where Romanian Go players were already among his opponents. He is now expected to be based in Romania for the next three to five years — long enough for the Romanian Go and bridge community to claim him as one of their own. Off the board he is a banker by profession, and — by his own admission — a player who thinks he is better at bridge than at Go, which says something about both his honesty and the level of his bridge. He plays a modern, expansive game built around 4-4 fuseki, early influence, and attacking middle-game tactics — the kind of style that, when it lands, produces decisive results, and when it overreaches, gives an opponent a real position to fight back in.

Style

• modern, current-meta opening — 4-4 stones, willingness to invade and trade
• attacking middle game: probes early, expands quickly, looks for the kill rather than the trade
• strongest when his outside influence converts into a clear advantage; can be vulnerable when an attack stalls
• a Chinese-school feel for shape — clean, light, mobile

AI Assessment

"He Jinming brings something the Romanian top boards do not see every weekend: a different Go school, a different opening instinct, a different definition of what a strong move looks like. Opponents who treat him as a typical European 3 dan can be caught by a sharper attack than they expected; opponents who stay thick and calm can sometimes turn the same attack against him. He is a useful test — and an interesting opponent — for any dan in the draw. The community hopes he enjoys his years here, the Go, the bridge, and the country that comes with them."

Alexandru-Nicolas Pătrașcu (2 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"Romanian Junior National Champion, European junior silver medallist, and the youngest member of a national team that included three of the country's strongest dans — at 2-dan he is already one of the names the cup needs to plan around."

A junior 2-dan from the GoGoblins club in Bucharest, Alexandru-Nicolas Pătrașcu has had the kind of two-year run other juniors dream about. In 2024 he won the Junior National Championship in Bistrița (2006–2011 category), took 1st place at the WYGC 2024 Open, 1st place at Cupa Napoca Juniori 2024, and 3rd place at the Poiana Brașov Cantonament Open — and was promoted from 1 kyu to 1 dan along the way. He was also a Romanian National Team Champion as the youngest member of the GoGoblins 1 team, lining up alongside Cristian Pop 7d, Dragoș Băjenaru 6d and Marius Spătaru 5d — three of the players in this very Dream Primer draw.

In 2025 he was part of Romania's national junior team that took silver at the PYGETC (Pandanet European Junior Team Championship) — a continental podium that puts him in the conversation about the country's most promising young players. By 2026 he was already playing at 2 dan, with the trajectory still clearly pointing upward.

Style

• a sharp young 2-dan game — clean joseki, good shape, real reading depth
• the calm of a junior who already knows what tournament Go feels like, from European team play to national finals
• improving stone by stone, not month by month — by the time you next sit across from him, the position you remember is one stone out of date
• unafraid of stronger opposition, and used to playing on the same team as 7-dans

AI Assessment

"Nicolas is one of the cup's strongest junior stories — a 2-dan with the trophies of an older player and the trajectory of someone whose next two ranks are a matter of time. Opponents who treat him as a routine 2 dan can be caught by how much actual tournament Go he has already played; opponents who play their best against him still expect a serious fight. He is part of the next generation that the Romanian Go scene has, against the odds, kept producing — and at this cup, he is already in the conversation."

"It may be said that Go has become a science. Yet between scientific games there is room for play in which the human spirit, the spirit of the artist, plays a deciding role."

Jean Dobrescu (2 Dan) — Dream Primer Preview

"I play to stay close to the extraordinary community of players. I rarely make it to tournaments any more — but at least one a year I still do, and I hope, each year, that one will be Dream Primer." — Jean Dobrescu

A physicist by day, a gardener by weekend, and a 2-dan whose Go carries the unmistakable accent of the Chinese school that taught him.

A 2-dan with a particular pedigree, Jean Dobrescu comes from the so-called "Chinese school" of Liu — the small Romanian generation that studied in the 1990s under the Chinese master Liu, an influence that still shows in the way he reads a board. Off the board he is a committed physicist and a passionate gardener — two practices that, like Go, reward the long view: patient observation, careful reading of a system, and the willingness to let things grow on their own time rather than be forced. (Friends will tell you the gardening enthusiasm occasionally runs ahead of the gardening discipline — forget to cover the roots one evening and you may, the next morning, find them quietly frozen. The man plays Go better than he plays the weather.)

Style

• Chinese-school fundamentals: clean shape, fluid joseki, a feel for global influence rather than local territory
• a physicist's reading of the board — analytical, systematic, comfortable with positions other dans find unclear
• a gardener's patience to match — he is happy to let an opponent over-extend before he moves
• calm, deliberate tournament temperament — never visibly hurried, rarely visibly excited

AI Assessment

"Jean is the kind of 2-dan whose game has more depth than its rating suggests, because the foundations were laid by a serious teacher. Opponents who treat him as a routine 2 dan can be caught by a shape that came straight out of a 1990s Chinese teaching set; opponents who play patiently against him discover his patience is, quietly, deeper than theirs. He is a graceful presence in the bracket — and a quiet ambassador of the lineage that taught him."

Player Profile — Dream Primer Cup

"I play Go because I enjoy the strategic side of the game, and because I have so many friends to play with — at the club and at tournaments."

A Romanian kyu player closing in on shodan, active in the Yunguseng League and at European tournaments — and the favourite for the Best Kyu Player title at this edition of Dream Primer.

Style

A sociable kyu game with a classical twist — Andrei is one of the very few players in the field who opens with mokuhazushi (5-3), a romantic, pre-AI opening that asks the opponent to commit early. Happy on either colour, strongest when he sets up a clear framework and converts it patiently. Reads tactics well enough for his rank and is unafraid of opponents a stone or two stronger.

Weak Points

Consistency. When a position turns or a stronger opponent presses him in a long fight, his moves can lose a few points at a time and the lead can shrink fast. Against clear-dan opposition the swings can be larger. The pieces are all there — what's still developing is the steadiness.

What to Expect

A standard opening, a thoughtful middle game, and an opponent who prefers strategy to complications. Best route through him is to keep the game tactical and unsettled — sharp exchanges are where his small inconsistencies still show.

What He Brings to Dream Primer

The spirit Dream Primer is built on — a player at the table because he loves the game and the people around it. He represents the engaged middle of the field: ambitious kyu players who train, travel and keep the next generation of Romanian Go alive.

Player Profile — Dream Primer Cup

Eddie learned Go from his father in 2017 and has only recently caught fire with the game — but when he caught fire, he caught it properly. In the last twelve months he has climbed from 6 kyu to nearly 1 dan, a four-stone jump that almost never happens at any other age. He is a member of the Romanian National Team and the Junior National Team, a consistent podium finisher at the national junior championships, and has already taken games off players rated 1, 2 and even 4 dan. At London Open 2025 he went 7–0, the kind of unbeaten week that announces a player to the wider European scene.

Style

Eddie plays a modern, attacking game well above the average for his nominal rank. He opens with 4-4 stones, reaches for current joseki, and is happy on either side of an early 3-3 invasion. In the middle game he plays for tempo and reading — he probes, attacks, and trusts his tactics to convert the resulting complication into a kill or a thick wall. He is comfortable in close finishes and does not crumble under pressure: against stronger opposition he stays in the position rather than collapsing into kyu-level shape errors. Against a recent 2-dan opponent he played a full-length game and lost by a margin AI evaluated as well inside 2 points — that is the kind of game his rating doesn't predict.

Weak Points

He is still a young player coming up fast, and the rough edges of a kyu game show up here and there: shape choices that would not survive a stronger fight, occasional direction errors when a position calls for a quiet move rather than a sharp one, and endgame margins that fluctuate more than they will in a year's time. Like most rapidly-improving juniors, his opening repertoire is mainstream rather than tricky, so an experienced opponent will not be surprised by his choices — only outplayed if Eddie is allowed to find his fighting rhythm.

What to Expect

Do not read his rank and assume an easy game. He plays at the upper edge of what 1-kyu means and has already beaten higher-rated opponents under tournament conditions. Expect a modern, mainstream opening, an early willingness to fight, and an opponent who is hungry, well-coached and still on a steep improvement curve. Your safest route through him is calm, thick play: avoid being drawn into a tactical exchange in his half of the board, count carefully, and respect the position rather than the kyu rating.

What He Brings to Dream Primer

Eddie brings to the cup the most exciting story in the Romanian field — the rise of a junior who in twelve months has moved from solid kyu play into legitimate dan-level competition, with international tournament results and national-team selection to back it up. For higher-rated players he is the kind of draw they cannot afford to take lightly; for the rest of the bracket he is one of the most interesting board-watches of the tournament, because games against rapidly-improving juniors rarely lack ambition. Alongside the senior champions and the seasoned tournament regulars, Eddie represents the next generation of Romanian Go — and the reason the Dream Primer Cup is worth running.

Irina Davis (formerly Suciu) — Dream Primer Preview

"A pioneering presence on the early-2000s Romanian Go scene — European Pairs medallist, federation instructor, and a friendly face returning to the board after a long pause."

Irina Davis — known on the Romanian Go circuit by her maiden name Suciu — is part of the generation that put Romania on the European Go map. In 2002 she won bronze at the European Pairs Championship alongside Mihai-Petre Bâscă, one of Romania's best-ever results in the format, and she has been listed among the instructors of the Romanian Go Federation. There is a story from her pairs years that captures her game perfectly: when she partnered with Lucreţiu Calota, they agreed that she would choose the strategy and he would follow — and Lucreţiu was repeatedly amazed that, more often than not, her strategy turned out to be better than his. Off the board she studied psychology and works as a project manager — two trainings that show in the way she reads people and the way she runs a long game. Go ran in the family too: her husband Ian Davis is also a Go player, though neither of them has competed regularly for the last five or six years. Dream Primer is, in a real sense, their return to the room — a chance to come back to a community that still remembers them well.

Style

• experienced, well-balanced game built on years at the European board
• strong pairs and team instincts — she has learned to read not only the position but the people across the table
• a teacher's eye over the board: patient, clear, unhurried
• coming off a long pause, so expect the sharpness to grow back game by game

AI Assessment

"Irina is the long memory of Romanian Go — a player who was already winning European medals when most of this field was just learning the rules. She returns to Dream Primer after years away from the board, which makes her one of the most interesting presences in the room: not the favourite, but the player whose hands remember more than her rating shows."

Sorin Pădurariu (1 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"The cup may be called Dream Primer — but it is, in real and practical terms, Sorin's tournament."

A 1-kyu player and one of the most pragmatic minds in the Romanian Go community, Sorin Pădurariu has been a constant supporter of Romanian Go for years — not only of the Dream Primer Cup but of the broader scene around it: clubs, tournaments, and the quiet infrastructure that lets the game keep being played. Off the board he is a successful businessman with a temperament built for outcomes rather than theatre — and the working theory among the people who know him best is that he learned a good part of his pragmatism from Go. The discipline that reaches dan-level play teaches you to count, to choose between two unequal goods, and to give up the move that doesn't repay you. That is also how he runs a business.

Style

• a strong, pragmatic 1-kyu game — picks the practical move over the elegant one
• treats each decision like a small business call: weighs the trade-off, takes the option with the best return
• a temperament built on outcomes rather than theatre — calm, deliberate, hard to provoke
• comfortable on either colour and unsurprised by anything an opponent throws at him

AI Assessment

"Sorin is the rare player whose Go and whose business have the same shape — both built on pragmatism, both built on patience, both built on the willingness to give up the move you don't need. He arrives at the cup as one of its strong 1-kyus and, at the same time, as one of the reasons the Romanian Go scene around it still exists. A double presence the bracket should not pretend it doesn't notice."

Alexandru Filippi (1 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"I came to Go for the elegance and the exotic. I stayed for the technical side — the great complexity, but also the transparency, are what put me in the zone when I play." — Alexandru Filippi

A doctor by training, a biophysics researcher by day, and one of the dependable 1-kyus of the Romanian tournament circuit.

A 1-kyu on the cusp of shodan and a familiar presence on the national tournament calendar, Alexandru Filippi is a doctor by training who today works in research and education as a university assistant in biophysics. The crossover is one of the cleanest in the field: biophysics is the discipline that asks how complex systems remain knowable — and that, by his own description, is exactly what drew him into Go and is what keeps him there. By the next few tournaments he is, on current trajectory, a dan player in waiting — Dream Primer may well be one of the cups where he crosses the line.

Style

• a technically-minded kyu game built on the same instinct his profession asks for: read the system, trust the analysis
• enters a real flow state at the board — the great complexity combined with the transparency that fascinates him also keeps him fully focused
• the calm of a researcher: composed, focused, hard to rush
• an active tournament player whose presence is one of the constants of the Romanian Go year

AI Assessment

"Alexandru is exactly the kind of player a national cup needs in its draw — a biophysicist who finds the same beauty in a board position that he finds in a complex system. Opponents who try to rush him discover that a researcher's pace is harder to disturb than most, and that the player across from them is genuinely enjoying the position. He arrives, he plays, and the cup is the better for it."

Maria Vasilescu (2 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"Thirteen years at the board, the longest-standing member of the Hikaru Club, and proof that strong Go is not the exclusive province of mathematicians."

A 2-kyu and a deeply experienced tournament player, Maria has been playing Go since the age of 7 — thirteen years now — and is the most senior member of the Hikaru Club in Bucharest. Her academic life sits firmly in the humanities, and her game is the proof that strong Go is a domain just as natural to lovers of letters as to engineers. 117 tournaments on her EGD card, current GoR 1911, with recent travel to the European Women Championship in Prague, the GoDan European Go Congress in Warsaw, and the U21 European Youth Championship in Croatia.

Style

• polished, mature 2-kyu game built on years of real tournament play
• patient, well-shaped, well-counted — the marks of a player who has actually studied
• comfortable at international tournaments — travelling to compete is just part of her year
• a literary temperament on the board: thoughtful, unhurried, attentive to the whole position

AI Assessment

"Maria is one of the Romanian players whose game is harder to read than her rank suggests. She is the cup's reminder that strong Go is a humane discipline — and that thirteen years of attention will produce a careful, dangerous board whatever the field of study."

Lidia Agafiței (3 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"One of the most consistent improvers in the country — a 3 kyu whose 2026 has been a steady, deserved climb up the rating chart."

A Romanian 3-kyu registered with the RO/Cluj club and a regular on the Romanian and European tournament floor, Lidia Agafiței has had a strong start to 2026 — five rated tournaments in three months, results across two countries, and a first-place finish at the Baraj Campionatul Național Feminin 2026 in Curtea de Argeș. Her current GoR sits at 1831, up from 1756 at the start of the year. She arrives at Dream Primer carrying the calm of a player who has chosen Go on her own terms — not chasing the rating, but earning it.

Her full progression chart tells the real story. She entered the EGD around 10 kyu in late 2021, jumped quickly to 5 kyu in early 2022, then sat on a long plateau through 2022 and 2023 — the stretch of a Go career where most kyu players quit. She didn't. In 2024 she started climbing again, reached 4 kyu, and in 2025 broke through to 3 kyu, where she has held and continued to add points right through to today. That is roughly a 7-stone climb in four years, with the patience to push through the plateau that ends most amateur careers — exactly the kind of trajectory that says her next rank is a question of when, not if.

Recent form

That is a +75 GoR climb in five tournaments — the kind of trajectory a 3 kyu can have when their game is genuinely growing rather than just settling.

Style

• patient, balanced kyu game — clear plans rather than fireworks
• improving steadily, the kind of trajectory built on actual study rather than online speed Go
• composed presence at the board — unhurried, focused, hard to rattle
• comfortable travelling for tournaments — Lisbon, Sofia, Barcelona, Berlin, Bucharest all on her recent card

AI Assessment

"Lidia is exactly the kind of player a national cup is built on — a 3 kyu who shows up, keeps learning and keeps moving up. Opponents who underestimate her run the same risk as opponents who underestimate any rising player: by the next time you see her, the rank you thought you were facing is already one stone out of date."

Dragoș Minjina — Dream Primer Preview

"A Brașov-trained Go player and steady tournament regular — for whom each competition is, in part, a good reason to travel."

Dragoș learned Go in Brașov a few years after finishing university, sharing tables in those early years with players like Lucky and Gabi Tanasie. He has been at the board for just over twenty years now, though in the first decade he played only occasionally. In the more recent years he has been at it much more seriously — including a period of study with Cornel Burzo, the 6-dan whose own profile is also in this draw.

He sees Go as a complex game that keeps offering real challenges; for him, tournaments are also a good reason to travel, which is part of why he has stayed on the Romanian competitive circuit. Off the board he works in the financial sector, a discipline that, like Go, rewards reading an unfolding position carefully and choosing the move with the best long-run expected value.

Style

• a steady, well-prepared kyu game built on twenty years at the board and a recent period of serious study
• happy in long, technical positions; rarely lured into a sharp fight he hasn't read carefully
• calm tournament temperament — composed, methodical, hard to rush
• a familiar face on the Romanian Go calendar — and one who is genuinely glad to travel for the next event

AI Assessment

"Dragoș is the kind of player a national cup is built on: a steady tournament regular whose presence keeps the draw deep, and who is at the table partly for the Go and partly for the journey itself. Opponents who play him will find a calm, patient game built on real years of study — and one of those quiet little threads the cup quietly thrives on, since the man he has trained with is sitting a few boards away."

Marius Teodorescu (3 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"A 59-year-old entrepreneur from Focșani who came back to Go in 2024 after a 32-year pause — and is now climbing toward the shodan he never quite reached the first time."

A 3 kyu from Focșani, Marius Teodorescu has one of the most quietly powerful return-to-Go stories in the field. He started playing in 1988, with his very first tournament at Vatra Dornei that same year. He stopped in 1992 — and for the next 32 years, he didn't play. Off the board he served in the army until the early 2000s, then built a career as an entrepreneur in Focșani.

The way back was almost accidental. In 2024 he saw an announcement for the semifinal of the Romanian National Championship, got in touch with Liviu Oprișan of GoGoblins, and just like that he was back in the competitive circuit. Two years later he is 3 kyu, climbing, and — by his own words — wants to reach 1 dan. The model he has in mind is right here in the cup: Mihai Ciobancă, also 59, also a former army man, also a returner from the same 1992 pause, also recently arrived at shodan. If anyone can show him the road, it is the man one rank ahead of him.

He has, plainly and warmly, fallen in love with Dream Primer as one of the events on his renewed calendar.

Style

• a steady, well-prepared 3-kyu game built on early-90s foundations and brand-new study
• the calm of a former army man and an entrepreneur — composed, deliberate, used to long tasks
• happy in long positions, improving game by game
• a returner's hunger: every tournament is one he could have missed by another year

AI Assessment

"Marius is one of the cup's real return stories — a player who was at the board in 1988, stepped away in 1992, and came back in 2024 because of a single announcement on a screen. He is one of three competitors in this draw whose presence is itself an answer to the question 'is it worth coming back?' (Ioan Cora, Mihai Ciobancă, and Marius are quietly writing that case together.) He arrives at Dream Primer with a clear goal — shodan — and a clear example to follow. The bracket should make room."

Sabin Gîlceavă (5 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"In business as in life, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate." — Chester L. Karrass

President of the Romanian Go Federation, founder of Leverage Negotiation, and a player whose day job and weekend hobby share more strategic DNA than most pairs of disciplines ever do.

A 5-kyu and the President of the Romanian Go Federation, Sabin Gîlceavă is one of the people who keeps the Romanian Go scene running. Off the board he is the founder of Leverage Negotiation — one of the sponsors of the Dream Primer Cup — and one of Romania's best-known negotiation trainers and consultants, with more than twenty years' experience teaching people how to read a counterpart and choose the right move. The crossover is not coincidental: Go is, at its essence, the purest form of negotiation — a series of moves and counter-moves in which space, time and influence are constantly being traded. Sabin's two worlds rhyme.

Style

• a pragmatic 5-kyu game — picks the move that opens options rather than the move that closes them
• a negotiator's instinct on the board: read the opponent, value the counter-offer, know when to walk away from a fight
• comfortable on either colour, calm under pressure, hard to read mid-game
• the kind of player whose game improves measurably whenever he has time to study — and who clearly enjoys the game for itself

AI Assessment

"Sabin is the rare player whose Go and whose career share a single instinct: every move is a negotiation, and every negotiation is a move. Across the board he is calm, attentive and outcome-oriented; off the board he is one of the people who help the Romanian Go scene keep happening at all. A double presence the bracket should be glad to have."

Codin Cocioabă (4 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"The unknown genius of Romanian Go — 35 years at the board, rockstar in the room, and a player whose 4-kyu rating tells you almost nothing about his actual Go."

A 4-kyu on paper and an institution in person, Codin has been playing Go for more than 35 years — long enough to remember the Romanian scene that produced Radu Baciu and long enough to have his own ideas about almost every position on the board. He is, by any honest measure, the unknown genius of Romanian Go — the title is ours to give him, because the community has not yet caught up to it. His rating has never tried to keep up with his understanding either, because he has never been the kind of competitor who grinds tournaments to climb. He brings rockstar vibes to the room — somewhere between Jim Morrison and Vysotsky in the Romanian Go pantheon: charismatic, soul-on-the-board, with the kind of presence that makes the rest of the bracket sit up. Off the board he is deeply into martial arts and Chinese philosophy, two disciplines that share Go's instinct that the right move is usually the one that wastes the least.

Style

• 35 years of pattern memory — opens with the move he likes, not the move the AI likes
• a player who reads the board through martial-arts instincts: timing, balance, the place where pressure becomes release
• charismatic, expressive presence at the board — the opposite of a robot 4-kyu
• the kind of opponent whose moves you'll spend the rest of the day thinking about, win or lose

AI Assessment

"Codin is one of those players the rating system has nothing useful to say about. Across the board he is unpredictable, instinctive, and decades deep in the patterns. Opponents who treat him as a routine 4 kyu can be caught by a move that doesn't appear in any joseki book; opponents who try to outclass him discover he is having a different, more interesting game than they are. He is exactly the kind of character a national cup needs in its draw."

Lucian Bobu (7 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"A 90s Romanian Go regular still at the board today — and one of the most universally liked faces in the community."

A 7-kyu and a long-time presence on the Romanian Go scene, Lucian Bobu belongs to the same 1990s Bucharest generation that produced so many of the players already in this draw (Ioan Cora, Mihai Liță, Mihai Ciobancă, Marius Teodorescu, Dan Iugulescu and others). His contributions go beyond the board: in December 2008 he was one of the contributors to the first issue of the Pro-GO magazine — the same memorial issue in which Mihai Liță wrote farewell to Radu Baciu — alongside Cătălin Țăranu, Mirel Florescu, Mihai Liță, Vasile Bunea, Iulian Dragomir and editor Dorin Chiș. He has simply been around — quietly, warmly, and consistently — long enough that just about everyone in the Romanian Go community has a soft spot for him. That kind of affection is not a rating you can find on the EGD, but it is the rating that decides whether a tournament feels like a community or just a draw, and Lucian's presence is part of why Dream Primer feels like the former.

Style

• a steady 7-kyu game built on decades of irregular but committed play
• the calm of a player who plays for the company as much as for the result
• happy on either colour, in no rush, easy on the room around him
• the kind of opponent who makes you enjoy the game even when you're losing it

AI Assessment

"Lucian is one of the cup's warm anchors — a 7-kyu from the 1990s generation who is still at the board, and whose presence is one of the small reasons the rest of the field looks forward to the weekend. Opponents who play him get the rare experience of a tournament game that already feels like a friendship. Bracket math will produce a result; Lucian, win or lose, will produce a story people will still be telling next year."

Rareș Androne (8 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"A junior 8-kyu with the calculation of a much higher-ranked player — and exactly the kind of mature decision-making to back it up."

A junior Go player, Rareș Androne has been at the board for two and a half years, though in practice the serious study only began last summer: he asked — himself, not at his parents' request — for a one-year pause to prepare for the high-school admissions exam. That single fact tells you more about him than any rating: a teenager who, on his own initiative, chose to put Go down for a year because school came first. He came back to it as soon as the exam was behind him, and is now climbing steadily.

On the board his strongest weapon is calculation. He reads positions well — the kind of accuracy a kyu player normally develops a stone or two later — and the only real brakes on his progress are the ones every modern teenager faces: gaming and school. The people who watch him play already expect him to be near 1 dan in the not-too-distant future.

Style

• a strong calculating 8-kyu game — clean reading and sequence-by-sequence accuracy beyond his rank
• the patient mind of a teenager who can choose to stop and study for an exam before a tournament
• still developing the strategic frame around the tactics — once the two click, the rating will follow
• improving game by game, with a clear ceiling well above where he sits today

AI Assessment

"Rareș is the kind of junior the cup is happy to have in the draw — already calculating like a higher kyu, already showing the maturity to put the game down when bigger priorities call. Opponents who treat him as a routine 8 kyu can be caught by sequences a stone or two above his rank; opponents who play him in a year will be playing a different rank entirely. By the time school and gaming let him through, he is a dan player in waiting."

Pierre Boudailliez (8 Kyu) — Dream Primer Preview

"A French 8-kyu from Marseille travelling to Bucharest — a Mediterranean guest in the Romanian draw."

A French Go player and active member of the Sardin Ki'in Go club in Marseille (Frioul), Pierre Boudailliez is one of the international visitors in the Dream Primer field. He has been part of the FFG (Fédération Française de Go) community for years and was among the players who took part in introducing Go to Paris back in 2009. At 8 kyu, he arrives as the kind of guest competitor every good cup is happy to host: a player from a different national scene, bringing a different club's habits and a different country's flavour to the room.

Style

• a steady 8-kyu game with the patience you'd expect from a player who's been in the FFG community for years
• a club-trained sensibility — built on real over-the-board time rather than online speed Go
• comfortable as a visitor — international tournament play is part of his Go calendar
• the calm of a player who is at the cup, in part, simply because he loves the game and the travel that comes with it

AI Assessment

"Pierre is one of the cup's quiet international threads — a French 8-kyu from Marseille who has crossed Europe to play Romanian Go for the weekend. Opponents at his level get a chance to feel a different national style of kyu Go; opponents above him get a reminder that the game has the same shape in every country it travels to. The cup is the better for having him in the draw — and the lineup of guest dans this year (Yifan Bao, He Jinming, Dohyup Kim) is rounded out at the kyu level by exactly this kind of friendly, well-travelled visitor."