Belgian Go Federation

"Zen", the best publicly available software, has made incredible progress the last months (I reported he won a match against German champion Lukas Krämer, 6-d, by 3-1 in September).

The objective of its developers is now to beat "Alpha Go" before end 2017 ! Yes, guys !

The team managed to organize a test match of 3 games against the legendary Cho Chi Kun starting just now (end November).

Cho is certainly not as strong as he was in the eigties, but he is one of the most prestigious go players. He has won no less than...75 titles !

Please find here more info about this match (in French):
http://rfg.jeudego.org/item/286-match-entre-cho-chikun-Bonjour

The 31st Brussels tournament took place on the weekend of the 29th and 30th October 2016 and gathered 63 players!

The winner is Fabien Lips (4d, FR), followed by Lucas Neirynck (5d, BE), Antoine Fenech (5d, FR) and Manuel Frangi (2d, FR).

Complete results: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T161029G

On 11/10, Belgian team (Lucas lost against Viktor Lin, Kwinten -, Nelis - , Gabriel +) lost against Austria 1-3 :-)

Complete results here:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/343

Present standings:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Despite reinforcement of the Belgian team by Gerald Westhoff (NL, 6d), an European star of the 90's now living in Belgium, our team lost to UK by 1-3.

Played for Belgium: Gerald (lost), Lucas (won), Nelis (lost) and Gabriel (lost, by 1,5 pt).

Complete results here:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/342

Present standings:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Since 3 years, a match (of 5 games) has been organized between the strongest commercially available software and a top European amateur player.

Up till now the human (Franz-Josef Dickhut, D, 6d) had triumphed against the machine/s ("Crazy Stones" in 2014; "Zen" in 2015), both times by 3-1).

But this year, "Zen" beats Lukas Krämer (D, 6d, German champion in 2013, 2014 and 2015) also by 3-1.

This is a new milestone in Computer-go because "Zen" (unlike "Alpha Go") is a publicly available go programs running on regular hardware...

More info here: https://go.codecentric.de/

Young Chinese Rundong Yang wins 2016 KPMC (Korean Prime Minister Cup)
(the Korean version of the World Amateur Go Championship, also called "the little WAGC").
He was the only undefeated player (6/6).

Four other players ended with one defeat: Yu-Cheng Lai (7d, TW), Kim Heesoo (7d, insei, KR), and the representatives of Canada and Thaïland (in this order).
Best player with 4 wins is the Japanese player, just ahead of best European, Jan Hora (CZ, 6d).

"Our guy" was this year Gabriel Mercier.
He did great: with 4 victories, he ends 20th out of a field of 54 participants.

Complete results here: http://kpmc.kbaduk.or.kr/eng/result/gameTable.asp

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