Belgian Go Federation

In order to celebrate its 25 years existence, the European Go Cultural Center organises a special tournament on the week-end of the 21st and 22nd of October.

The EGCC is located in Amstelveen, only a 2 hours drive from Brussels. This is an excellent opportunity to take part to a major European event, close to Belgium.

Full information and registration form are available under the following link: http://www.go-centre.nl/Events/AnniversaryTournament.php

Recently, 2 series of commented AlphaGo games were published on the net.

1. Michael Redmond, the 9-d pro from USA, makes very detailed review of all the 50 games AlphaGo played against itself
(remenber: these games were given as a heritage to the Humanity by DeepMind, when Google decided to quit the world of go).

Up to now, 7 games have been commented.

The comments exist on 2 forms: vidéo and sgf files (which are more detailed...but less entertaining).

The level is rather high (difficult for a double digit kyu player), but still the comments are very interesting...

You can find the videos here:
game 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsN9BRInys
game 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83B6MfrCAsg
game 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bybkv-8zegg
game 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVwcTZBJR3g
game 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ugqVWcPE_4
game 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IChbHs6LTg
game 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNPpbgI2Sa8

2. No less interesting: Fan Hui and Ke Jie comment the 3 games of the match AlphaGo - Ke Jie (they spreak chinese but subtitles are available in English).
Especially interesting is that Fan Hui asked "live" AlphaGo what it should have played in case of alternative moves...

Game 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIu9P9wEIsc&feature=youtu.be
Game 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF486mbvAOI&feature=youtu.be
Game 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUZxe7bXKxo&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy !

Chinese Zhao Yikang won unbeaten the 2017 edition of KPMC (the Korean Prime Minister Cup; Korean version of the World Amateur Go Championship) ahead of the Japanese and of the Korean representatives.
Five players ended with 5/6, among whom the best Western player was the Mexican Abraham Florencia and best European was the Russian Dimitri Surine.

This year, "our guy" was François Gonze. He ended 16th with a 4/6 score (wins against Ireland, Singapour,Sweden and Macao; lost against Netherlands and VietNam).

Note also the participation of the (ex ?) player from Brussels Philippe Fanaro, who represented Brazil and ended 32th with a 3/3 score.

There were 56 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 mid-September.
This time Belgian Team will play in C-League and there will be 7 matches all over the year (11 last year).
If you want to be a member of the Belgian team, please just fill the doodle (with your first name, family name and rank):

https://doodle.com/poll/4qvqpkf33s5we3z6

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

Condition to be a member of the Team:
1° Having belgian citizenship.
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 months (on internet).
4° Fill this doodle before 31th of August with complete name and rank.
5° Send me before 31th of August your Pandanet account username (http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet).
You can contact me through KGS (search for liusasori in Belgian Room) or Facebook (on Belgian Go Federation group)

Complete schedule will be send at the beginning of the season so I expect you to put it in your agenda and to free your tuesday evenings ????

This is a great opportunity to play against other european players (and even pros sometimes) without leaving your room !

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

With great expectations for this year (we have to come-back in B-league!).
your devoted team captain,
Gabriel Mercier.

Zhang Tao (CH, 5p) wins undefeated the open European championship.
His countrywoman Li Xiaoxi (CH, 2p) ended 2nd having just lost against him.
Bronze medal - and 1st European - is Mateusz Surma (PL, 1p), who only lost against the 2 Chinese pros.
Winner of last year edition of the open championship, Kim YoungSam (KR, 7d), finished 4th with 7/10.
Follows another 7d Korean, Lee Kibong, best player on SOS tie-breaker among the 6 players with 6/10...
There 821 participants, among whom 17 Belgian ones.

Complete results: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/open-european-championship...

Kim YoungSam won the WE tournament (in which the Chinese pros did not take part)ahead Pavol Lisy (SK, 1p) and the new European pro, Andrii Kravets (UK, 1p), who both only lost to Kim.
There were 635 participants, among whom 19 Belgian ones.

Complete results: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/weekend-tournament/

Globally, the Belgian results are in the average, with some remarkable performance:
in the main tournament: 4/5 for Thomas Connor (3d), Gabriel Mercier (3d) and Philippe Tranchida (4k); 5/7 for Laurens Teirlinck (5k)
in the WE tournament: 5/5 (!) for John Cassidy (7k); 4/5 for Philippe Tranchida (4k), Roel Van Nyen (3k), Victor Schneider (4k) and Juliette Brault (15k).
Congratulations to them !

Ilya Shikchine (RU, 1p) won the final of the European championship against Mateusz Surma (PL, 1p).

He is thus European champion, for the 5th time (2007,2010,2011,2016,2017).

Here are the complete results of the 2017 European championship: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/european-championship/

And here is the report by EGF: http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=144 (cf. point 2)

The European go congress has just begun.
During the 1st week, the best 24 European players will fight for the title of "European Champion" in a knock-out tournament with 2 lives (in the first rounds).
You can follow this here: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/european-championship/

The "open" championship (with some very strong non-Asiatic competitors) is no less captivating.
You can follow the results round by round here: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/open-european-championship...

By winning the 2017 pro qualification tournament, Ukranian Andreii Kravets (7d) becomes the new (6th) EGF pro.

He defeated in final young Austrian Viktor Lin.

Andrii was one of the favorites: according to the EGF rating list, he is (...was !) the strongest European amateur player, and he had lost in the final last year to his compatriot Artem Kachanovskyi...

Congratulations to him !

Complete results:
http://www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/index_2017.html

The big surprise was the young Oscar Vasquez from Spain, who reached the 1/4 finals. Oscar had climbed from 2-d to 4-d after few month training in China. He is just 14 years old !

Read the report by EGF here: http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=138

Bram Vandenbon is the winner of the 2017 edition of the Gentse Go Toernoi (he was already holding the title). There were 13 participants.
Please note the surprising victory of Joost (2k) on Dominique (2d).

Here are the results: https://www.gofed.be/files/gofed/tournaments/results/GEN2017.txt

In Antwerpen, Jefferson Huang (3d), back in the official Belgian go life and who had won the 1st edition in 2008, emerged from a field of 8 (a somewhat desappointing figure) players.

Still, M. Huang was defeated by Laurens Teirlinck ("8-k") with 8 handicap stones. Laurens, whose progression is constant, was the only competitor who remained unbeaten.

Complete results here: https://www.gofed.be/files/gofed/tournaments/results/ANT2017.txt