Belgian Go Federation

The annual General Assembly of the Belgian Go Federation is the sovereign instance of our federation.

All the members can express their point of view, wishes, critics, suggestions, offer of help (:-),...for the forthcoming year/s.

The president will present the 2017 activity report; and the tresorer the 2017 financial report.

Then, we discuss the future activities and we vote the 2018 budget.

Last but not least, the (new) board is elected.

The annual general assembly of the Belgian Go Federation will take place on Sunday 14 January at 3:30 PM in Brussels.
The exact location is L'Eau Chaude / Het Warm Water 25 rue des renards 1000 Bruxelles

You are very welcome !

PS: in particular, we would very pleased to welcome the club responsibles !

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 !

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.

François Gonze was recently interviewed by Daily Science about his passion. Read the full interview in French by following this link.

The recently open China Cultural Center in Brussels will show a movie related to go on the 9th and 11th of May. It is open to everyone and free, but it is necessary to register in advance.

More information on:

http://www.cccbrussels.be/coming-soon/cs-events/chinese-movie-nights-the...

Although the match is already won by AlphaGo, the remaining games are played to the full. Lee Sedol won game 4 holding white thanks to a brilliant move in a difficult middle game. This move was even qualified as "god move" by Gu Li, 9p.

This win is quite important from a symbolic point of view. It also exposes some weaknesses of AlphaGo that were invisible so far.

Game 5 will be held on Tuesday 15 March. It has been agreed that Lee Sedol will hold black.

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/go-grandmaster-lee-sedol-grabs-consolation-...

AlphaGo, the go playing software developed by Google Deepmind, has defeated Lee Sedol with three straight wins in their long awaited match!

This amazing achievement comes five months after AlphaGo won 5-0 against Fan Hui. Most of the commentators before the match predicted that AlphaGo had no chance to win against such a strong player as Lee Sedol. However, AlphaGo proved them wrong and edged Lee Sedol in every part of the first three games.

An amazing feat occurred recently. The go software AlphaGo developed by Google DeepMind beat Fan Hui in a 5 games match with a clean 5-0!

This is a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Please read more at the following links.

http://deepmind.com/alpha-go.html
http://www.britgo.org/deepmind2016

Hello dear all!

Next season of Pandanet Team European Championship should start next September (I'm still waiting for complete information). I decided to apply as next Belgian Team Captain if everyone agrees. Other Captain Candidates are welcome

Furthermore I would like to know who is ready to take part in the coming glorious fights against players from all over Europe ! Belgium is anchored in B league: we have to fight this year to make better results. Despite it is "only" B-league, there are pro players (Pavol Lisy and Ali Jabarin both 1p). It is a golden opportunity for us to play against such strong players and watch their games against our best elements!

By the way, it does not take a lot of time: around one game (2h30) per month, usually on tuesday evening.

In order to prepare next season I would like to know who is ready to take part in the event (we need 12 players). Please fill the next doodle (only for Belgian Players): fill your complete name and precise whether you want to play this year. If you are unavailable please let us know.

http://doodle.com/vxsru2vigd8eh5vw

Waiting for all of you!
Best regards,
Gabriel Mercier.

A sad news: Go Seigen, considered by many as the greatest player of the 20th century (if not in history) just passed away. He was 100 years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Seigen