News

Belgian Championship Preliminaries 2022

The Belgian Championship Preliminaries of 2022 took place in Brussels on the 5th and 6th of March 2022.

In total, 5 rounds were played, and the following players have qualified for the 2022 Belgian Championship Finals:

Huang Haisen 1d
Sven Cuyt 1d
Renaud Gaban 4k
Guy Dusausoy 5k

The full results can be found here

Communication: position of the Board of the Belgian Go Federation concerning the war in Ukraine

Here is the position of the board of the Belgian Go Federation concerning the war in Ukraine.

This statement has been communicated to the European Go Federation (EGF).

NB: a special EGF general meeting has been organized Thursday 03/03/2022 to discuss and vote on some resolutions.

The Belgian Go Federation....

1. condemns the Russian invasion in the strongest terms and expresses strong support for the Ukrainians, but also for the Russians who have the courage to affirm their opposition to the war.

2. calls the EGF and the European Go community to condemn the war on Ukraine in the strongest terms; even though as being apolitical the EGF may want to refrain from strong ethical / political statements, the EGF constitution makes it our mission to protest against actions perturbing or even destroying Ukrainian Go activities.

3. appeals to cancel all events planned in Russia (and to the extent it can't be guaranteed that events won't get disturbed by violence or sanctions also in Belarus and Ukraine).

4. hopes that the administrators of the Russian Go Federation will (join us to) condemn the Russian invasion (should they be able to do so without risking their own safety !).

5. thinks that the Russian Go players should not be allowed to represent their country in EGF events, but should not be further stigmatized and should be authorized to participate individually under neutral EGF banner.

4th round of the European Team Championship: Belgium continues his winning streak: 3-1 against Lithuania

Belgian team won once again (Lucas Neirynck +, Jan Ramon +, Lucman Bounoider +, Gabriel Mercier -), this time against the most direct concurrent, Lithuania (for the 1st time this season, the Belgian lost a game).

Belgian dominates the C-division more than ever.

Complete results here:
3rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/785

Standings after 4 rounds:
https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Coming soon: deadline registrations Belgian Go Master League (25/02) and Belgian Championship (27/02) !

Deadline of the resgistration are coming nearer. So do not hesitate any longer: register yourself in the
4th season of the Belgian Go Master League : https://www.gofed.be/node/1302
or in the Belgian Championship 2022: https://www.gofed.be/node/1281
Registration in both events are free but you have to be a BGF member.

Ilya Shikshin wins the Grand Prix Finale 2021! Pavol Lisy second and Ali Jabarin third.

The European Grand Prix is an annual series of tournaments with the top-finishers collecting so-called “bonus points”, these tournaments include the European Championship and the Grand Slam + various international competitions held by local organizers.
The idea behind the Grand Prix is to incentivize strong European players to attend various competitions all around Europe.

The EGF invites the 16 most successful participants, who are divided into four groups of four players.
A round-robin (every one plays everyone) is played out in each group in order to determine the two players that will qualify to the knockout stage.

"Our" Lucas Neirynck was one of the 16, but was logically eliminated in the 1st stage despite a victory to Jan Prokop (6-d, CZ): he was defeated by Mateusz Surma (2-p) and Ilya Shikchine (4-p).

The usual suspects qualified for the quarters of finals, in which a big surprise was the elimination of Artem Kachanovskij (2-p) by Nikola Mitic, a mere 7-d.
The other results were: Lisy-Surma 1-0, Jabarin-Vazquez 1-0 and Shikchine-Podpera 1-0.
In semi-finals, Lisy beat Mitic and Shikchine beat Jabarin.
In final, Shikchine won, proving once again he is definitively the strongest European player !

A 3rd consecutive sweeping victory for the Belgian team in the European Team Championship (4-0 against Slovenia)

Belgian team goes on his impressive start in the 12th European Team Championship: our team (composed this time by Jan Ramon, Lucman Bounoider, Gabriel Mercier and Sven Cuyt) won the 3rd round on the same score as the one of the first 2 rounds: again a sweeping victory 4-0 !

Complete results here:
3rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/784

The European Go Journal, the monthly journal of the go life in Europe

The European Go Journal is a monthly journal officially supported by the European Go Federation (EGF). It was launched in February 2021. The journal is compiled and written by Artem Kachanovskyi, and co-written, proofread and designed by his Team.

The EGJ is a roughly 50-page A4 magazine featuring the following go-related topics:
Recent go news - focused mainly on Europe but including major events from around the globe.
Game commentary.
Interviews with go players.
Art and photography.
AI studies - analysis of fuseki and joseki with superhuman go computer programs.
World of Tesuji – Remarkable moves from professional games.
Problems and answers.

More info here: https://eurogojournal.com/about

PS: The digital copy of the 1st issue (February 2021) is available for download free of charge :-)

Coming soon: Sunday 16/01 2 PM on line: 2021-2022 General Assembly of the Members

The annual General Assembly of the Belgian Go Federation will be held on line on 16/01 at 2 PM

Please come with your enthusiasm and your projects to shape up the future of the Belgian go life !
this meeting is the unique moment to discuss over it !

Agenda :
1. report on the 2021 activities (by the president) and financial report 2021 (by the treasurer)
2. projects for 2022 (and later) and adoption of the 2022 budget
3. election of the Board of Administration

If you wish to participate, send an e-mail to «board@gofed.be».
The meeting will take place on Discord https://discord.gg/aAa39wBV

Artem Kachanovskyi wins the 2021 Grand Slam. Tanguy Le Calvé, surprising finalist.

Artem Kachanovskyi (UKR, 3p) won the 2021 Grand Slam, the richest doted European competition (5.000 € for the winner), by beating in final the Frenchman Tanguy Le Calvé (FR, 1p).

Tanguy had surprisingly beaten the great favourite Ilya Shikchine (RUS, 4p), 8 times European champion, in semi-final !
(in the 1st round, Tanguy had eliminated Alexander Dinerstein, 7 times European champion; and in 2nd round / quarters of finals, Pavol Lisy, 1 time European champion).

Ilya did win the little final against Mateusz Surma (PL, 2p).

Here are the results: https://www.eurogofed.org/grandprix/grandslam2021.html