Belgian Go Federation

Dear Go players, with this message I'm happy to inform you the next season of Pandanet Go European Team Championship will start on 15th of September. If you want to be a member of the Belgian team, please just fill the doodle (with your first name, family name and rank):

http://doodle.com/poll/7r3e9ybharg2t65u#table

The 12 top ranked participant will be accepted in the team (but qualification can be organised if there is much more than 12 participants).

Condition to be a member of the Team:
1° To live in Belgium or being a belgian player.
2° Agreed to play for Belgium only (cannot change team after season start).
3° Be ready to play a game on tuesday evening (usually from 20h- to 23h) every three weeks (on internet). Schedule will be sent at the beginning of the season so I expect you to put it in your agenda
4° Fill this doodle before 7th of september with complete name and rank.
5° Send me before 8th of september your Pandanet account (http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet).

This is a great opportunity to play against other european players (and even pro sometimes) without moving too far !

Please read the infos about the matches before season starts:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

With great expectations for this year,
your devoted team captain,
Gabriel Mercier.

Natalia Kovaleva (RU, 5d) won the 2016 European Championship which was organized this year in Belgium (Antwerpen)!

She remains the only undefeated participant.
2nd place was taken by the only professional participant, Svetlana Shikshina (RU,3p).
Last year’s champion, Rita Pocsai (HU, 4d), finished third.

Read here the report by one of the participants:
http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=70

Full list of the final standings:

1. Natalia Kovaleva
2. Svetlana Shikshina
3. Rita Pocsai
4. Laura Avram
5. Irina Davis
6. Elvina Kalsberg
7. Manja Marz
8. Dominique Cornuejols
9. Joanne Leung
10. Adelina Sora
11. Marika Dubiel
12. Marie Jemine
13. Alzbeta Kadlecova
14. Adriana Tomsu
15. Catherine Fricheteau
16. Senem Celikkol

and on the EGD:
http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=E160820A

François Gonze was recently interviewed by Daily Science about his passion. Read the full interview in French by following this link.

Nobody expected this just a few days ago, but Kim Youngsam 7d managed to win the EGC 2016 Main Tournament!

At the end of the 7th round, Taïwanese Chan YiTien (world amateur champion in 2014 !) was the only unbeaten player...and thus favorite (Kim YS has already been defeated 2 times).

But in the 8th round, Ilya Shickine did a great performance by beating Chan.

And when Ilya went on to beat in the 9th round his last European rival Ali Jabarin (IL, 1-p), he joined Chan as co-favorite.

In the 10th and last round, Chan lost to Kim YS so that Ilya had just to win against Zhang (CN, 7-d) to be the only one with 9 wins...But he lost, offering the final victory to Kim YS (after tie-break).

Finally, it was a very narrow result, as four players ended with 8 points.
1. Kim Young Sam
2. Ilya Shikshin with merely 1 SOS point less than Kim
3. Chan Yitien, with the same SOS as Ilya, but 2 less SODOS pts
4. Ali Jabarin, 2 less SOS than Chan Yitien

Three players ended with 7 wins:
5. Mateusz Surma (PL, 1-p)
6. Zhang QiuMeng (CN, 7-d)
7. Pavol Lisy (SK, 1-p)

Here are the complete results:
http://egc2016.ru/en/congress/events/main

Remarks:

1. Ilya Shikchin is 2016 European champion as he won the "European Championship" (a knock-out tournament for the 8 best European competitors after 4th round of the main tournament).
(see "news" here under).
("Il y a Shikchin...et puis les autres !" :-)

2. Fan Hui(FR, 2-p), European champion in 2013, 2014 and 2015, was well partly present in St P...but did not compete!

2. the other professional European players (Artem Kachanovski, Alexander Dinerstein and Catalin Taranu) did not play the entire main tournament...Among them, only Artem made his way to the European Championship; the 2 others did badly.

****

And what about the Belgians ?
Peter, Julien and Catherine were brilliant!
Thomas Connor (3-d) : 5/10
Peter Leyssen (2-k): 7/10 !
Kris Boyen (3-k): 4/10
Julien Wautelet (10-k): 8/10 !
Catherine Fricheteau (10-k): 6/9 !
Laurent Martin (12-k): 5/9

Kim Young-Sam (KR, 7-d) won unbeaten the WE tournament in Saint-Petersburgh.

Pavol Lisy (SK, 1-p), Andrei Kravets (UK, 6-d), Lee Kibong (KR, 7-d) and Kim DoHyup (KR, 7-d) followed, each with only 1 defeat.

remarks: suprinsingly enough, 2014 world amateur champion, Chan Yi Tien (TW, 7-d), was beaten 2 times (by Dusan Mitic and by Lee Kibong)

Here are the complete results:
http://egc2016.ru/en/congress/events/weekend

By winning the final against Ali Jabarin (IL, 1-p), Ilya Shikchin (RU, 1-p) is European Champion this year. At 25, this is already his 4th European title !

Here are the results of the European Championship (the 8 participants were selected after the 4 first rounds of the main tournament)

http://egc2016.ru/en/congress/events/personal

This weekend Bram Vandenbon won the Ghent Go Tournament for the second time, Dominique Versyck took second place and Joost Vannieuwenhuyse was last third.

Full Results

In the 37th edition of the WAGC, Chinese Baoxiang Bai defeated everyone by resignation (except Japanese ex-world champion Satoshi he beats by 2,5 points) to win his second world amateur championship (he had won 5 years ago) with - one again - a perfect 8-0 record.

Korean Kibaek Kim finish clear second at 7-1.

Six players ended with 6-2 records, Chinese Taipei’s Chia-Cheng took 3rd place, ahead of Andreii Kravets (UK), 4th and best European, Japanese Hiraoka Satoshi, Hungerian Csaba Mero, Serbian Dusan Mitic, and Romanian Cristian Pop..

Our representative was Nelis Vets, who ended 28th out of a field of 56 competitors with "expected" results (wins against Mongolia, Argentina, Portugal and Malaysia; defeats to China (!), Slovenia, Czechia and France).

More details here: http://www.ranka.intergofed.org/

Thomas Connor, 4d won with 7/7 the Blitz Championship 2016. Eight players took part in the round on Sunday 5th June in the cite center of Brussels. Complete results:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Wins	SODOS	Place
Jean-Denis Hennebert, 5k	-	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	8
Demian Walvisch, 2k	1	-	1	1	0	1	0	0	4	10	3
Victor Schneider, 8k	1	0	-	0	0	1	1	1	4	11	2
Michael Silcher, 5k	1	0	1	-	0	0	0	0	2	4	7
Thomas Connor,4d	1	1	1	1	-	1	1	1	7	21	1
Joost Vannieuwenhuyse, 2k	1	0	0	1	0	-	1	1	4	9	4
Julien Wautelet, 10k	1	1	0	1	0	0	-	0	3	6	6
Dominique Versyck, 2d	1	1	0	1	0	0	1	-	4	9	5

On the weekend of July 2nd everyone's welcome at the 9th edition of the Ghent Go Tournament.

Info and registration