Belgian Go Federation

For the 1st time in the history of go, a "world championship" will be organized.
It will take place in Osaka on 21-23 March 2017.

There will be 4 competitors: the best player of each of the 3 big countries + "Zen" defending the AI (Artificial Intelligence) side!

The human representatives will be
Iwama Yuta (JP)
Park Junghwan (KR)
Mi Yuting (CN) (suprinsingly, not Ke Jie)

More details: http://www.worldgochampionship.net/english/

After the 1st WE (5 rounds played out of the 9), Kwinten Missiaen (3d) and Lucas Neirynck (5d) remained unbeaten.
As they are 2 points ahead of the other competitors, their encounter in the second part of the finals could be decisive for the title...even if everything remains possible.

In the "peloton" of players with 3 points: Bram Vandenbon (2d), Jan Ramon (4d), François Gonze (3d) and Gabriel Mercier (2d).

Further, Nelis Vets (2d) has 2 points, Joost Vannieuwenhuyse (2k), 1 point, and our "rising stars" Louis Baudaux (6k) and Victor Schneider (6k) - who replaced Kevin Prist (3d) and Joris Oren (1k) who were not free - are still waiting for a feat...

On 28th of February, Belgian team (Lucas +, Kwinten -, Nelis -, Gabriel +) made draw against Sweden.
Three rounds left to be played...Belgium remains in the red zone...

Complete results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/349

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

The go server Tygem has just organized a match between Kim Seung-Jun (also known as "Blackie"), a famous 9 dan professional player, against the 5 home-made European pros (Ilya Shikchine, Pavol Lisy, Artem Kachanovskij, Mateusz Surma and Ali Jabarin).

All games were played without komi (Kim playing white, of course).

The final score is 3-2 for Kim (Ilya and Mateusz won).

Conclusion: according to this result, it seems that "our" pros have really a professional strength: the handicap between top professional players and young beginning professionals is currently estimated to be of 1 to 2 stone/s.

More detail here: http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=99
PS: enjoy the genial move 224 by Kim in his game against Ali !

More than 200 young participants (among whom many Russian ones) played the European Youth Championship organized in Grenoble.

There were 3 categories:

Under 12 (92 participants !): winner was Ivan Klochikhine (RU, 4k)

Under 16 (79 participants): winner was Oscar Vasquez (SP, 3d) (who used to play in Belgium some years ago), ahead of Valeri Krushelnytskyi (UA, 4d)

Under 20: the all-Russian podium is composed by Vjacheslav Kajmin (RU, 5d) ahead of the great favourite Grigorij Fionin (RU, 6d) and Anton Chernykh (RU, 5d).
(Kajmin was European champion in 2015 and in 2016 in category "under 16")

Complete results here:
http://eygc2017.jeudego.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/EYGC-20_final-res...
http://eygc2017.jeudego.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/EYGC-16_final-res...
http://eygc2017.jeudego.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/EYGC-12_final-res...

***

Another point: did you know Sinan Djepov ?
I would like you to note the good performance of Bulgarian Sinan Djepov (BG, 5d), one of the European rising star.
Sinan managed to defeat Fionin (the favourite) and lost his 2 lost games by 0,5 pt.
He learned go in July 2013 as autodidact (there are no many go players in Bulgaria) and was already 4d one year and few months later! This is the quickest progression ever in Europe. Last but not least, Sinan is 16 years old!

This year 45 people attended the Leuven Go Tournament.
Lucas Neirynck (4D) won the tournament (5/5), second place was for François Gonze (3D) who lost only to Neirynck and third place was for Jan Ramon (4D), who lost to the numbers 1 and 2.
Other players who scored 4 points were Larisa Popescu (2k), Louis Baudaux-Song (7k), Laurens Teirlinck (10k) and Pascal Wezenberg (14k).
Full results :
http://www.gofed.be/tournament/results?tournament=LEU&year=2017
or http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php…

Ilya Shikshin won the 2nd edition of the "European pro European Championship", but only thanks to SOS tie-breaker.
As the reporter put it: "it could barely be any closer" !

Ilya was already open European champion.

There were 6 participants: the 5 "home-made (European-made) pros" (Pavol Lisy, Ali Jabarin, Mateusz Surma, Ilya Shikshin and Artem Kachanovsky)were joined by Alexandre Dinerchtein (Russia, 3p in Korea).

Missing were the following European pros: Fan Hui (I have heard he decided to stop to play tournaments), Catalin Taranu, Svetlana Shikshina (plus, of course, the European pros who live in far east Asia: Maria Zakharchenko, Antti Törmanen and Diana Köszegi).

Enjoy a thorough report here:
http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=105

On 7th of February, Belgian team (Gerald -, Jan + - by 40,5 pts against a ex-multi European champion...well, in 1967 and in 1971...but still ! :-), Nelis + - by 0,5 point, oef/ouf -, Gabriel +) picked its 1st victory against the worst placed team, Croatia.

This was an important victory...but Belgium is far from being saved...

Complete results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/348

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

Here are:

1. The reflections of a dozen of Korean professionals on AlphaGo

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10210499878164941&id=1584704...

2. A video published by Hwang In Seong analysing Alphago's innovations (= heterodox moves):
https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=64ddaJ2H6rU&u=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D...

Enjoy ! :-)

On 10th January, Belgian team (François -, Jan -, Nelis -, Gabriel -) has been crushed by the Danish one (0-4, all resignations !).
Belgium is now penultimate and thus threaded by demotion to C-class more than ever. Let us cross the finger for the 5 remaining rounds. It is just halfway of the competition...

Complete results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/347

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