Cătălin Țăranu (in Japanese: タラヌ・カタリン, Taranu Katarin; born March 31, 1973 in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

), is one of the very few

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and ski ...

players of the

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a ...

of Go from outside

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

Biography

Țăranu started learning Go from Cristian Cobeli in 1989, at the age of 16. His first tournament was for players in the 10 to 4

Kyū is a Japanese term used in modern martial arts as well as in tea ceremony, flower arranging, Go, shogi, academic tests and other similar activities to designate various grades, levels or degrees of proficiency or experience. In Mandarin Ch ...

range, when he was a 6 kyu. He won all eight games. He moved up to amateur 1 dan in a year, and just a year later moved up to 4 dan. He started winning small tournaments in Romania around this time. He was invited to Japan by Saijo Masataka in 1995. He quickly joined the

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most p ...

branch of the Nihon-Kiin and became an

insei A go apprentice is a student learning to play Go at an institution, typically with the aim of becoming a professional player. In Japan, such a student is called an ''insei'' (literally, "institution student"). Institutions for insei include ...

. After two years, he became the second European (after Manfred Wimmer from Austria in 1978) to pass the professional examination. It took Cătălin just 4 years to reach 5p (5-dan professional). He won the European Go Championship in 2008. He was the president of the Romanian Go Federation from 2009 to 2011.

References

Cătălin Țăranu's Introduction
(source: Gobase.org)
Sensei's Library

Cătălin Țăranu on the European Go Database

External links

Țăranu's Go school
(in Japanese) 1973 births Living people People from Gura Humorului Romanian Go players {{Go-bio-stub