Belgian Go Federation

Korean Hyunjae Choi is an undefeated World Amateur Champion (and will thus now become professional).
2nd was Chinese Yuqing Hu with 7/8.
Good suprise: the next 3 are European contestants: Artem Kachanovski (UA), Ilya Shikchin (RU) and Pavol Lisy (SK).
The Japanese representative is 8th !

Lucas Neirynck (BE) made 3/8 (37th) (best player among those with 3 wins).

More info here: http://ranka.intergofed.org/
NB: one of Lucas games is commented by Michael Redmond, 9-p

The information about the Go camp (information in Dutch and French)is updated on the website. The playing site will be at Nessonvaux, as last year. The teachers will be strong Belgian players. We hope to see you at the Go Camp!

Ex-chinese professional Fan Hui (who has recently got the French nationality) became last week the new European champion.

He defeated in final young (18) Pavol LISY from Slovakia (who was the winner in the last Brussels tournament).

In the little final for the 3rd place, opposing 2 other young talents, Mateusz SURMA (PL) beat Thomas DEBARRE (FR).

Results of the finals:
http://egc2013.go.art.pl/EGC-finals.html

Note the elimination of two great favourites Ilya SHIKCHIN and Artem KACHANOVSKI in the 1st round (= quarter finals) of the finals (respectively by LISY and DEBARRE), and the bad result of multiple European champion Alexander DINERSTEIN, who even failed to qualify for the finals !

Complete results of the main tournament:
http://egc2013.go.art.pl/EGC2013_main.html

Still, Ilya SHIKCHIN did win the WE tournament, beating among others, Fan HUI !

Results of the WE tournament:
http://egc2013.go.art.pl/weekend.html

Results: http://www.eurogotv.com/tournament/showresults.php?toernooicode=T130511H

The American Go Foundation just released a new book free for download. It is a complete introduction to the game of go, known as baduk in Korea. The rules are thoroughly explained with lots of examples and exercises to guide the beginner to master the rules.

This is most certainly a nice book to recommend to newcomers in clubs and it could be used as a teaching material. You can download it by following this link : http://agfgo.org/downloads/LoveBaduk.pdf .

As expected, Belgium was severly beaten by Austria, one of the 3 strong teams of the B-division.

Finland (1st, next year thus in A-league), Austria (2nd, will play a match against Israël to possibly climb into A-league) and Netherlands (who ended 3rd at tie-break and will thus stay in B-league) dominated by far the other teams.

Thus this match did not matter for the final standing: Belgium ended 4th (out of 10 teams).

Here are the detailled results of the 9th round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/95

Here are the final standings of this 3rd edition if the European Team Championship:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

PS: the 4 best teams of the A-division (Russia, Ukraine, Czechia and Hungary) will play against each other during the next European Congress in Poland this summer to designate the champion team...

Belgian team made 2 draws in Mars and April against Italy and UK.

It is now certain that we wil stay in B-class next year (not be promoted neither be demoted).
It remains just one round to play.

Here are the results of the 7th round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/93

And here those of the 8th round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/94

Finally, here are the standings after 8 out of the 9 rounds:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

(you see also the domination of the Eastern countries in A-class !).

In the second weekend of the Belgian Championship, Kevin Prist lost against Jan Ramon and Lucas Neirynck lost against Kwinten Missiaen. As Jan had already lost to Lucas in the first weekend, before the last round three players had 7 points.
In the last round, Jan won from Bram Vandenbon.
But Hitchcock was hanging by, as Lucas and Kevin were to meet in this last round: Should Kevin wins, Jan would be Belgian champion. If Lucas wins, Lucas would be champion.
The game, which lasted very long and counted nearly 400 moves (both players ended with negative points !), was finally decided with the last ko !
Kevin felt short of just ONE ko thread and thus lost by half a point. Ironically enough, there was actually still another ko thread ...that a tired and byo-yomied Kevin did not see !
So, Lucas became a little luckily Belgian champion 2013, and Jan an unfortunate silver medal.
In the end, the first five (qualitiving) places went to Lucas Neirynck, Jan Ramon, Kwinten Missiaen, Kevin Prist and Bram Vandenbon (curiously enough, places 1 to 7 are the same as in 2012 !) See full results

The first week-end of the Belgian Go Championship ended today. Two players have 5 wins: Lucas Neirynck and Kevin Prist. See http://www.gofed.be/tournament/results&tournament=BC&year=2013 .

Some games have been broadcasted on KGS with the account BelChamp13.

Christopher Annachachibi, a Belgian player from Brussels, just launched a website dedicated to the game of go. He describes it as a "plateforme d’échange de connaissances et d’expériences sur le Go. Commentaires de parties en ligne ou hors ligne."

There is also a nice guide for beginners. Have a look at http://c2p.hisoland.be/ .