Belgian Go Federation

Mid-december, Belgium (Lucas Neirynck +, Jan Ramon -, Gabriel Mercier - , Nelis Vets +) made a draw against Italy in the 4th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/594

Belgium is presently 6th out of 10 teams.
Standings after the 4rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

Leuven is the second tournament by order of importance (behind Brussels):

Info and registration: https://www.gofed.be/en/tournament/leuven.

The first phase of the SEYGO Tour 2020 will take place in Grenoble, on February 1st and 2nd, in parallel with the Grenoble International Go Tournament (TIGGRE - Ellie Cup).

European young players will play in 3 categories (U20, U16, U12) and will receive points and prizes, as explained on the SEYGO page of the EGF website (https://eurogofed.org/seygo/).

We are expecting a large number of participants in the TIGGRE - Ellie Cup (see the website http://tiggre-elliecup.jeudego.org/), many young players in the SEYGO Tour competitions and several dozens of kids from the Grenoble area who will play a « beginners tournament ». We are also happy to announce the presence of two Chinese delegations, one from Beijing (CEGO Group, with Ge Yuhong Academy) and the other one from Suzhou.

South Korean Go master Lee Sedol, widely considered as one of the greatest Go players of the modern era and only human to score a win against AlphaGo, announced his retirement.

Lee, 36 years old, had started playing Go when he was six years old and has turned professional in 1995.

In a career spanning 24 years, Lee scored 18 victories in global competitions and 32 wins in local events.

He declared his retirement was primarily motivated by the invincibility of AI Go programs.

See this article: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20191127004800315

Info van de VRT: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2019/11/28/wereldkampioen-bordspel-go-stopt...

The club of Leuven prolongs its national title

This year, six clubs have participated.

Completed results: https://www.gofed.be/node/1140

On 19/11, despite having mobilized one of strongest possible team (Lucas 6d, François 4d, Jan 4d and Lucman 3d), Belgium has been beaten by Serbia.

Still, note the remarkable victory of Lucas - by half a point ! - against Dusan Mitic, one of the two terrible "Mitic brothers" (his brother Nikola did win, against François).

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/593

Standings after the 3rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen)

The European Youth Go Championships is the top European youth tournament.

There are three categories: under 12, under 16 and under 20.

The EYGC 2020 will be held in Stubicke Toplice, a beautiful spa town 40 km north of Zagreb, between 11th March 2020 and 14 March.

Dedicated webpage: https://eygc2020.hgos.hr/

Registration: https://eygc2020.hgos.hr/registration/

In two weeks on the weekend of the 30th November we hold the Preliminaries of the Belgian Championship. In this 7 round tournament the 4 best placed players qualify for the Belgian Championship Finals were they will be joined with 4 best placed players from the finals of 2019. The tournament is open to all members of the BGF and only to members.

Unfortunately a definitive location has yet to be decided, hopefully we can bring you news on this soon.

You can register by sending a mail to board@gofed.be stating your name, club and level.

More info

The results of the 2019 interclub are in. We had 6 participating clubs this year Ath,Phénix, Hasselt, Gent, Leuven and Antwerpen. Leuven was ultimately victorious with Gent and Ath in second and third place respectively

Detailed results can be found here

Jan Ramon triumphed unbeaten in the 2019 edition of our Brussels tournament.

The big surprise was the 2nd place by Sven Cuyts (1k), who won against two 3d and two 2-d competitors !

Dick Riedeman (3d), best player with 3 wins by the SOS tie-breaker, completed the podium.

Beside Sven, 4 (other) participants got 4 wins: Kenny Debacq, Ondrej Skacel (from...Czechia) en two members of Riedeman's family. Congratulation to them !

Complete results here: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T191026E

In the history of the Brussels tournament, it is the 1st time that a kyu player ended on the podium (see: https://www.gofed.be/en/tournament/brussels). Without willing to minimize Sven's impressive achievement, this was only possible because of the desappointing small number of "dan" competitors (#6!).
Actually , there were only 38 participants in total, also the smallest ever number for a Brussels tournament.
This being said, all of them have had good time...and those who were absent are wrong !