The European Shogi Championship (ESC) 2002, a five rounds knockout tournament, was held on Friday/Saturday 23 /24 August. The best 32 European nationals and residents (according to FESA's active players Elo rating list) fought for the title of European Champion. Together with those that did not qualify for the ESC, players that were eliminated from the ESC participated in the nine rounds Worldwide Open Shogi Championship (WOSC) with retention of their ESC points. After five rounds everybody plays in the WOSC. The attraction of this system is that we have a true final for the ESC, but nobody needs to go home after having been eliminated.

The ESC results are detailed in the table below (where red, bold-faced names indicate the winner). The new European Champion is Boris Mirnik. Boris' 1998 European title may have come as a surprise, but this year he was one of the favourites.The final against Eric Cheymol was extremely exciting and Eric seemed to have the better position for much of the game. In the end, Boris controlled his nerves better and managed to secure his second title. For Eric, the highest-rated player in the event, it was sad as he has been very close several times in the past and this year again, but never managed to take the title. Surprising was the early elimination of Frederic Pottier, the 2001 European Champion, and of Yoshiyuki Uemura, Europe's second-rated player and the performance of Karl Wartlick, rated number 22 of the contestants, who could only be stopped by Boris. All in all it was a thrilling event with many unexpected results, but in the end one of the favourites prevailed.

Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5
E Cheymol, FR A Olufsen, NO	Cheymol Drechsler	Cheymol Oosterwijk	Cheymol   Schnider	Mirnik Cheymol
J Drechsler, DE G Schmidt, FR
F Pottier, FR T Gorissen, NL	Oosterwijk Pottier
J Oosterwijk, NL T Majewski, DE
A van Oosten, NL   E Schamelhout, FR	Van Oosten   Pfaffel	Schnider Van Oosten
T Pfaffel, AT T Christoffersen, NO
M Dietmayer, AT M Litjens, NL	Schnider Dietmayer
G Schnider, AT R Söderberg, SE
K Ichiyanagi, JP A Neumaier, AT	Ichiyanagi Ono	Wartlick Ichiyanagi	Mirnik Wartlick
Y Ono, JP S Someno, JP
K Wartlick, DE H Segers, NL	Wartlick Theeuwen
M Theeuwen, NL M Danerud, SE
B Mirnik, DE C Weimann, FR	Mirnik Bjerke	Mirnik Uemura
R Bjerke, NO C Nilsson, SE
F Roquas, NL A Heeffer, BE	Uemura Roquas
Y Uemura, JP A Stebbings, UK
				3rd place: Schnider   Wartlick