This isn't major news at the level of a title, but the young (18-20 y.o.) Murakawa Daisuke won four games in the Samsung cup preliminaries to advance to the main tournament. I find the exact structure of the Samsung to be bewildering, but there is a main tournament with 32 players, some of whom are seeded, half or more of whom qualify through prelims. Japanese participation in the preliminaries is a bit sparse, for understandable reasons. This year, 34 players from Japan competed, if I count correctly, and Murakawa was the only one to qualify.

Murakawa is having a good year, as he's also fourth in the Japanese win-loss standings. He was one of the youngest Japanese professionals, and was previously considered a rival to Iyama Yuta (they're both from Kansai). While he's not lived up to that billing, he's still promising. In other results, he made the main tournaments of the Tengen and Gosei, but did not get far in either.

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