All 24 players played through preliminaries, until 8 players with the best record were given automatic advancement to the second round. The other 16 played against each other in the first round. The format was a single knockout, with 5.5 komi until 2002, 6.5 komi from 2003. The time limit was 3 hours' thinking time, and the winner's purse was ¥15,000,000 (≈$142,000).