Belgian Go Federation

The 36th Leuven go tournament (30 + 31/05) was organised this year in a location, in the university buildings.

There were 28 players, ranging from 16k-4d.

Winner was Lucman Bounoider, who remained unbeaten.
Three players ended with 4 wins: Frank Segers (5k, Leuven, BE), Patrick Breitkopf (6k, Aachen, DE), Dao Duy Khanh (10k, Vietnam).
Congratulations to them for their excellent result.

The top three of the tournament was

Lucman Bounoider (4d, Hoshi, BE)
Yannick Kuy (2d, Hoshi, BE)
Yuanze Gao (3d, Hoshi, BE)

so it seems that Hoshi is the place to be in Belgium to train your go!

The full results can be found at https://europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T260530A

Here are some more pictures while we were playing games.

The Korean Prime Minister Cup (KPMC) is the Korean version of the WAGC (World Amateur Go Championship) organised by the Nihon Ki-In.

2026 world amateur champion is Chinese Fu Yu (8-d), who won all his games.
Best European is Jan Prokop (CZ, 6-d) who ended 5th.
Our Belgian representant, François Gonze (4-d), ended 39th (out of a field of 52 competitors) with a 2/7 score.

Complete results of the main Tournament: https://eurogofed.org/newsp/2020/2025%20KPMC/KPMC_2025_National_Standing...

This year, a parallel tournament for the young players (under 15 years old) was organised.
Winner is the Taïwanese Tsang Minf Ruel (7-d).
Our "guy" was our rising star Joachim Laloux (3-k), who ended 15th (out of 28 players) with a 3/6 score (...and a win against a 1-k)

Complete results of the Youth Division (< 15 years old): https://eurogofed.org/newsp/2020/2025%20KPMC//KPMC_2025_Youth_Standings....

And here is a report by Damir Medak (in which you see a nice picture of François and Joachim playing a game in the pair tournament :-)
https://eurogofed.org/index.html?id=518

Xinghong Chen (China, 5-d) won the 39th edition of the Brussels tournament with a perfect score (5 wins).

He ends ahead of Fu TianYu (6-d), of the last year's winner, Kaku Maekawa (6-d) and of Cornel Burzo (6-d), all with 4 wins.

5th and best player with 3 wins was the young (8 years old !) prodigy Larion Syrotkin (3-d, Ukraine) (who managed to beat Cornel Burzo !).

This 39th edition met a big success: there were 74 participants, among whom 10 4-d or stronger

Complete results here: https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/663

Alexander Qi from USA is a prodigy: he learned to play at 8, he became pro at 14.
And he is now world champion U18, ahead of the best Korean and Chinese rising stars !
A milestone for the Western go community !

more info here:
https://usgo.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=454497&item_id=123478
https://usgo.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=454497&item_id=124686&

Kevin Prist (3-d) has won the 15th edition of the tournament of Ghent, ahead of our young rising star Joachim Laloux (4-k; 14 years old) and Bram Vandenbon (2-d).
To be noticed: Guillaume De Keijser (4-k) win against Bram.
There were 9 participants.

Complete results: https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/662

Tianfang Ma from China has won the 2025 edition of the WAGC (World Amateur Go Championship), ahead of Japanese Minoru Ozeki (2nd) and Korean Sawoo Kim (3rd).
They all got 7 wins out of 8 rounds (Ozeki won against Ma but lost to Kim, who lost to Ma).

Among the 4 players with 6 wins, Lukas Podpera (CZ, 7-d) ended 6th and is the best Western competitor.

Our guy this year was Kevin Prist (3-d). He ended 30th out of a field of 52 players, with a 4 wins/4 defeats score. To be noticed: he managed to beat Geert Groenen (NL, 6-d) !

Complete results: https://leago.gg/event/wagc2025/standings/r/7

François Gonze won the 2025 Leuven tournament ahead of (with one SODOS point) Lucman Bounoider, both ended with 4 points out of 5.
This is his 4th triumph in Leuven (he had aleady won it in 2014, 2016 and 2019)
Three players got also 4 points: young Belgian rising star Joachim Laloux (14 years old), Guillaume Léo and Kevin Durant.
To mention: the return of an old figure: Guy Belmans has played his 1st Belgian tournament since...2003.
There were 25 participants.
Complete results: https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/660

Lucman Bounoider (3-d) won all his games in the 2nd edition of the Hoshi Brussels tournament (05-06/ 04), ahead of Olivier Drouot (3-d), Kevin Prist (3-d) and Yannick Kyu (1-k).

There were 14 participants.

Complete results: https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/657

Olivier Drouot wins this 2024 edition of Rapid Games Belgian Championship (12 min per player + 10 sec / move, handicap - 2).
Second and Belgian Rapid Champion is Lucman Bounoider.

A high level tournament with many Dan and high SDK players but only 7 participants (and half of the participants are board members...).
Still a lof of suspense for the win and many tense situations for games that have been confortably played from home.

Final result

1 - Olivier Drouot - 6 victories - Winner of the Rapid Belgian Championship !
2 - Lucman Bounoider - 5 victories - Belgian Rapid Go Champion (Olivier has the French nationality)!
3 - Jan Ramon - 3 victories
4 - Renaud Gaban - 3 victories
5 - Guillaume De Keijser - 3 victories
6 - Michael Silcher - 1 victory
7 - Jean-Denis Hennebert - 0 victories