Belgian Go Federation

Along with the "European Pro Championship" (in February) and the "European Championship" (during the EG Congress, in July), the most (qualitatively) important European tournament of the year is the "Grand Slam Tournament", organized in Berlin.

The "Grand Slam" is a tournament making part of the European Grand Prix (EGP) which has existed now for a few years in Europe and which is sponsorised by CEGO (a Chinese firm). The EGP consists of a series of bonus point tournaments throughout the whole year in which the Grand Slam tournament counts for many points (I do not enter the details).

We report here the results of the 2017 (and 3rd) edition:

In the ¼ finals, there were still 2 amateurs left: Tanguy Le Calvé (FR, 6d) and Andreii Kravets (UA, 6d) while professional Catalin Taranu (RO, 5p) had already been eliminated by Alexander Dinerstein in the preliminary round.

In ¼ final,
Shikchin won against one of the 2 amateur, Le Calvé,
Dinerstein won against Jabarin,
Kachanovski against Surma and
Lisy against the other amateur, Kravets.

In semi-finals,
Dinerstein took the advantage on Shikchin,
and so did Kachanovski against Lisy.

The winner of the 3rd edition of the Grand Slam is…finally Kachanovski, who triumphed over Dinerstein in final, while Lisy won the small final for the 3rd place to a probably demotivated Shikchin...

Complete results: http://www.eurogofed.org/EuropeanGrandPrix/grandslam2017.html

Belgium team made a great result yesterday in the European Team Championship: she/he managed to make a draw against the leader, Poland!

Gerald lost logically against the pro (!) Mateusz Surma and so did Lucas; but Jan and Nelis won their game.

Despite this great result, Belgium remains in the relegation zone. The last round on 16th May, against Slovakia, a direct competitor - both team have 6 points, will be decisive!

Complete results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/351

Present standings:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Oscar Vazquez (4d), the young (14 years old) Spanish rising star, won the 2nd edition of the tournament of Liège.
Second was Belgian champion Lucas Neirynck (5d) and Thomas Connor (3d) ended as bronze medail.
All three ended with 3 victories (out of 4 rounds).

Detailed here: https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/398

Korean Park Junghwan remains unbeaten in the 1st edition of the World Championship which took place last week in Osaka.

2nd is Mi Yuting from China (who only lost to Park).

"Deep Zen Go", who/which represented the A.I. side, ended 3rd, thanks to its/her/his (:-) victory over...

4th - and last - Japanese Iwama Yuta, who did not gain a single victory
(this is rather worrying for Japan, beacause Yuta is by far the strongest Japanese go player !).

Most of the games were very disputed.

The results: http://www.worldgochampionship.net/english/

***

PS: meantime "Deep Zen Go" is not longer the 2nd strongest go program in the world (behind AlphaGo/Master): the (2nd) strongest program is now a chinese one, "Fine Art". "Fine Art" is improving so incredibly quickly that many expect him to catch up AlphaGo soon !
Read more about "Fine Art" here: https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/2017/03/20/inside-tencents-ai-lab-how-...

This WE, Lucas Neirynck (5d) conquered a new Belgian Champion title. He even remains unbeaten (9/9).
With this 7th title (!), he now equals the record of Jan Bogaerts, who had also been 7 times Belgian champion.

Gabriel Mercier (2d...now probably 3d) did a great performance by finishing second (7/9), ahead of bronze medail Kwinten Missiaen (3d), 6/9.

Also directly qualified for the 2018 finals are the 4th. François Gonze (4d) and the 5th. Nelis Vets (2d).

Surprisingly enough, Jan Ramon (4d) (5/9) will have to play the preliminaries rounds next year. And so will have Bram Vandenbon (2d), Joost Van Nieuwenhuizen (2k) and the 2 younsters, Louis Baudaux and Victor Schneider (both 6k).

Here are the detailled results: https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/397
or: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T170311K

(and here is the palmares of the Belgian Championship since 1st edition: http://www.gofed.be/node/260)

On 21th of March, our team managed to make a draw against the "on paper" stronger team of Netherlands.

Lucas won against Gilles Van Eeden (6d), one of the strongest European players in the 80'and 90's. And Gabriel triumphed over a 3d.
François and Nelis lost logically against stronger (6d) players...

Despite this performance, Belgium stays in the red zone. There is still 2 rounds left...

Complete results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/350

Present standings:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

After the 1st WE (5 rounds played out of the 9), Kwinten Missiaen (3d) and Lucas Neirynck (5d) remained unbeaten.
As they are 2 points ahead of the other competitors, their encounter in the second part of the finals could be decisive for the title...even if everything remains possible.

In the "peloton" of players with 3 points: Bram Vandenbon (2d), Jan Ramon (4d), François Gonze (3d) and Gabriel Mercier (2d).

Further, Nelis Vets (2d) has 2 points, Joost Vannieuwenhuyse (2k), 1 point, and our "rising stars" Louis Baudaux (6k) and Victor Schneider (6k) - who replaced Kevin Prist (3d) and Joris Oren (1k) who were not free - are still waiting for a feat...

On 28th of February, Belgian team (Lucas +, Kwinten -, Nelis -, Gabriel +) made draw against Sweden.
Three rounds left to be played...Belgium remains in the red zone...

Complete results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/349

Present standings:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

The go server Tygem has just organized a match between Kim Seung-Jun (also known as "Blackie"), a famous 9 dan professional player, against the 5 home-made European pros (Ilya Shikchine, Pavol Lisy, Artem Kachanovskij, Mateusz Surma and Ali Jabarin).

All games were played without komi (Kim playing white, of course).

The final score is 3-2 for Kim (Ilya and Mateusz won).

Conclusion: according to this result, it seems that "our" pros have really a professional strength: the handicap between top professional players and young beginning professionals is currently estimated to be of 1 to 2 stone/s.

More detail here: http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=99
PS: enjoy the genial move 224 by Kim in his game against Ali !

More than 200 young participants (among whom many Russian ones) played the European Youth Championship organized in Grenoble.

There were 3 categories:

Under 12 (92 participants !): winner was Ivan Klochikhine (RU, 4k)

Under 16 (79 participants): winner was Oscar Vasquez (SP, 3d) (who used to play in Belgium some years ago), ahead of Valeri Krushelnytskyi (UA, 4d)

Under 20: the all-Russian podium is composed by Vjacheslav Kajmin (RU, 5d) ahead of the great favourite Grigorij Fionin (RU, 6d) and Anton Chernykh (RU, 5d).
(Kajmin was European champion in 2015 and in 2016 in category "under 16")

Complete results here:
http://eygc2017.jeudego.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/EYGC-20_final-res...
http://eygc2017.jeudego.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/EYGC-16_final-res...
http://eygc2017.jeudego.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/EYGC-12_final-res...

***

Another point: did you know Sinan Djepov ?
I would like you to note the good performance of Bulgarian Sinan Djepov (BG, 5d), one of the European rising star.
Sinan managed to defeat Fionin (the favourite) and lost his 2 lost games by 0,5 pt.
He learned go in July 2013 as autodidact (there are no many go players in Bulgaria) and was already 4d one year and few months later! This is the quickest progression ever in Europe. Last but not least, Sinan is 16 years old!