Cătălin Țăranu

Catalin Taranu
Full name	Catalin Taranu
Kanji	タラヌ・カタリン (katakana)
Born	(1973-03-31) March 31, 1973 , Romania
Teacher	Saijo Masataka
Rank	5 dan
Affiliation	Nihon Ki-in

Cătălin Țăranu (in Japanese: タラヌ・カタリン, Taranu Katarin), born March 31, 1973 in Romania, is one of the very few professional players of the board game of Go from outside Asia.

Biography

Catalin 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 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 branch of the Nihon-Kiin and became an insei. After two years, he became the first European to pass the professional examination. It took Catalin just 4 years to reach 5p (5-dan professional).

He won the European Go Championship in 2008.

He is now the president of the Romanian Go Federation.

References

• Catalin Taranu's Introduction (source: Gobase.org)
• Sensei's Library

External links

• Catalin's Go school