Belgian Go Federation

This week end, 16 top European amateurs fought to become the fifth European professional go player.

Ukranian Artem Kachanovskyi beat his countryfellow Andrei Kravets in final and join the four ex-amateurs who already qualified as pros through similar competitions in 2014 (Lisy, Jabarin) and 2015 (Shikshin, Surma).

Complete results can be found here: http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=40

AlphaGo will face its ultimate challenge: a 5-game challenge match in Seoul against the legendary Lee Sedol, the top Go player in the world over the past decade

Read everything about the match here:
http://deepmind.com/alpha-go.html

(comments on youtube are planed)

Here some reactions and prognoses by some pro players:
http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=36

Antti Törmannen (ex-7d from Finland) had been insei since some months by the Nihon Ki-in in Japan.

He has just been promoted professional by special recommendation "due to satisfactory results in the insei league and pro examen" (like late Hans Piesch some ...18 years ago).

Congratulations to him !

Here you can read an interview of Antti:
http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=26

On february 20 and 21 the 26th Leuven Tournament will be held. You can learn more and register here .

On June 6th the BGF organizes the 2015 Belgian Blitz Championship. This tournament is open and free for all BGF members.

More information here

On the first weekend of Juli the 8th Antwerp Go Tournament will be held.

Prize money will be atleast € 500 but will scale up number of participants.

More Information and registration
Registered players

The 2nd Pro-qualification-tournament, which took place 6-7-8 March, selected the 2 new European pro among the "top" European (amateurs - of course) players.

These are Ilya SHIKCHIN and Mateusz SURMA
(my guess was right :-)

www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/

They join Pavol LISY and Ali JABARIN, the 2 first European "home-made" pro, who qualified trough a tough competition last year
(see: http://www.eurogofed.org/results/proq14.htm)

On Sunday 01/06 (2 PM to 6:30 PM) the BGF organises the Belgian Blitz (quick games) championship, open to and free for all members of the BGF.

More info: www.gofed.be/node/746

Following the example of the USA, and thanks to the sponsoring of a rich Chinese company, the EGF (European Go Association) has started a European pro organisation !

The 2 first European professionals will be designated among 16 candidates through 3 tournaments in May and June.

Here is the CV of the 16 candidates:
http://www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/#players

These candidates have been selected going down the European rating list, among the amateurs younger than 40 ready to try to become a pro. (for the record, here is the list of the invitated players:
http://www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/#invited)

Here is the presentation of the selection system:
http://www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/#tournaments

NB: my guess: Pavol Lisy and Mateusz Surma, who are both very young (18).

A regret: the best amateur European player, Ilya Shickchine, has declined, with 2 other "big shots" Antti Törmannen and Artem Kachanovski :-(

By now, Gu Li (China) and Lee SeTol (Korea) are commonly considered as the 2 best players in the world.
But who of them is the strongest one ?
Some sponsors succeeded in organising a jubango (a match of 10 games) to find this out. There will be about one game a month all along 2014. In November, we will know who is the n° 1 world player (well, non offically of course, but the whole go community will watch carefully this prestigious event).

More info here: http://www.gogameworld.com/2013/11/28/superstar-showdown-gu-li-vs-lee-se...