Belgian Go Federation

End April, Belgian team (Jan, Nelis, Dominique, Gabriel) lost heavily (0-4), like the 2 previous month, this time against the future champion of B-League, Israël (pity for Jan on table 1: Ali Jabarin, the pro, did not play).

There is now a last round to be played. With 2 points more than the potentially descending teams, Belgium should avoid relegation...

Here are the results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/294

And here the standings after this round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

The most (qualitatively) important European tournament of the year was organized this WE in Berlin (top amateurs had to fight in a preliminary tournament to join the European pros for this Grand Slam tournament).

Ali Jabarin (1-p, IL) won 1st prize (10.000 € !) by beating in final Artem Kachanovski (1-p, UA)
(winner of the 1st edition last year, Ilya Shikchin, lost already in 1/4 finals)...

Here are the results:

Preliminary round
Lukáš Podpera vs Artem Kachanovskyi B+Resign
Alexander Dinerchtein vs Andrij Kravets W+Resign
Catalin Taranu vs Csaba Mero W+12.5
Dusan Mitic vs Cristian Pop W+2.5

Quater Final
Artem Kachanovskyi vs Ilya Shikshin W+Resign
Pavol Lisy vs Dusan Mitic W+Resign
Alexander Dinerchtein vs Ali Jabarin B+5.5
Mateusz Surma vs Catalin Taranu W+1.5

Semi-Final
Mateusz Surma vs Ali Jabarin B+6.5
Pavol Lisy vs Artem Kachanovskyi B+3.5

Final:
Ali Jabarin vs Artem Kachanovskyi W+Resign

Small Final: Mateusz Surma vs Pavol Lisy B+Resign
Place 5-6: Alexander Dinerchtein vs Catalin Taranu W+Resign
Place 7-8, Dusan Mitic vs Ilya Shikshin W+Resign

Dominique Versyck (2-d) made his comeback into Belgian go life by winning the 1st edition of the tournament of Liège. Second was Guillaume Lescuyer (2-k)

There were an encouraging 22 participants.

Complete results:
Results

In April, Belgian team (Jan, Kwinten, Nelis, Gabriel) lost heavily (0-4) like previous month, this time against Hungary.

With 2 rounds still to be played, Belgium is now 8th out of 12 teams in this B-league, having only 2 points more than the potentially descending teams !

Here are the results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/293

And here the standings after this round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Lucas Neirynck conquered his 6th title of Belgian Champion (see palmares here: http://www.gofed.be/node/260).
He remained unbeaten in the finals of the Belgian Championship.

François Gonze ended at the 2nd place.

Gabriel Mercier, Kevin Prist and Jan Ramon, ex aequo, completed a (large) podium.

These 5 players are qualified for the 2017 finals.

Thomas Connor, Nelis Vets, Vincent Quoilin and Joost V. will have to fight in the premiminaries to get a qualifying place to the finals...

PS: Wang Yue was absent (and informally replaced by Tom, a double digit kyu)

Here are the results:

1. Lucas Neirynck 9/9
2. François Gonze 7/9
3. Gabriel Mercier, Kevin Prist and Jan Ramon 6/9
6. Thomas Connor 4/9
7. Nelis Vets 4/9
8. Vincent Quoilin 2/9
9. Joost Vannieuwenhuizen 1/9
10. Tom 0/9

details: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T160319T

So as to think about something else in this dark day...
This dynamic video shows the day-to-day evolution of the top 10 go players since 1974...

Interesting to see the emergence of China and Korea since 1990...(and sudden AlphaGo's appearance at 2nd place a few days ago)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRvlyEpOQ-8

DeepMind’s groundbreaking artificial intelligence (A.I.), AlphaGo, defeated Lee Sedol in the final game of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match, winning the five game match with a 4–1 score.

AlphaGo now goes down in history as the 1st computer Go program to defeat a top professional player, and was awarded an honorary professional 9 dan rank by the Korean Baduk Association (note: AG is even ranked nr 2 on http://www.goratings.org/ :-).

More info on https://gogameguru.com

PS:....among many others sites and articles...the event was largely commented !
For instance: Michael Silcher (member of the board) was interviewed on RTBF. Listen to him here: http://www.rtbf.be/radio/podcast/player?id=2091036&channel=lapremiere

François Gonze, 3d won the tournament of Leuven with a perfect score. Lucas Neirynck, 5d ended 2nd (4-1); Jan Ramon, 4d completed the podium (3-2).

This edition met a big success with a total of 46 participants!

Complete results: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T160220D&p...

To participate in this tournament, competitors must have professional status and passport of EGF member.

There were 5:
Fan Hui (FR)
Mateusz Surma (PL)
Ilya Shikshin (RU)
Ali Jabarin (IL)
Alexander Dinerstein (RU)

Missing professional players were: Pavol Lisy, Guo Juan, Catalin Taranu, Antti Tormannen and Svetlana Shikshina.

Impressively enough, Fan Hui won unbeaten (4-0) !

All the other pros, except Alexander Dinerstein (0-4), got a 2-2 score (Mateusz Surma winning the tie-break games to end as 2nd).

Complete results here: http://senseis.xmp.net/?EuropeanProfessionalGoChampionship

End February, Belgian team (François + , Kwinten -, Nelis +, Gabriel -) made a draw against UK in the 7th round.

Belgium is now in the middle of the "peloton" (6th out of 12 teams) in this B-league.

Here are the results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/291

And here the standings after this round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps