Belgian Go Federation

The Weekend Tournament of the European Go Congress in Pisa gathered 653 players (among whom 10 Belgian ones).

It has been won by the Chinese pro Liao Xingwen (6p) who remained unbeaten.

Behind him, with one defeat: three Korean amateurs: Yoon Nam-gi (2nd), Kim Young-sam (3rd) and Hong Sung-won (4th),
and another Chinese pro, Liu Sijia (5th).

Further, among a dozen of competitors with 3 wins, best European are Artem Kachanovskyi and Alexander Dinerstein...

Best Belgian is Lucas Neirynck (5d), 28th, with 3/5.
Congratulations to Joost Vannieuwenhuyse (1k) and Bart Caers (10k) who both got 4 victories.

Complete results here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16DnlQ5JNrUR1f9c3Gk46O4QupCrB5wTE/view

The European championship was organized this year in Pisa, along with the European Go Congress.

This competition is reserved to the 32 best European players.

The system is a knock-out tournament with 2 "lives (till the 1/4 of finals).

The favorites were of course the 7 participating pros. Nevertheless, two of them failed to reach the quarter of finals:
* Andrei Kravets (UA), who lost in the 2nd round to Thomas Debarre (FR, 6d) and to Cornel Burzo (RO, 6d) in the looser's pool
* Alexander Dinerstein (RU) who surprisingly lost already in the 1st round to Johannes Obenaus (DE, 6d) and in the looser's pool to another pro, Ali Jabarin (IL).

Thus three amateurs (7-d): Dusan Mitic (RS), Cristian Pop (RO) and Stanislaw Frejlak (PL), joined five pros in the quaterfinals. But all lost, respectively against Shikchin, Surma and Lisy (proving the gap between pros and amateurs). In the only pro duel, Ali Jabarin eliminated Artem Kachanovskyi.

In the semifinals, Ilya Shikchin got rid of Mateusz Surma while Pavol Lisy prevailed on Ali Jabarin.

By beating Ilya Shikchin (RU, 2p) in final with 2,5 pts, Pavol Lisy (SK, 2p) became European champion 2018, succeeding to Ilya, who was reigning champion since 2016.

Ali Jabarin ended 3rd by winning the "small final".

Here are the complete results:
https://egc2018.it/en/european_championship.html

PS: our compatriot Lucas Neirynck (# 29 in the EGC ranking list) has the right to compete, but was promptly eliminated with all the honors : he lost in the 1st round to Mateusz Surma (PL, 2p) - one of the "big shots" - and in the 1st round of the looser's pool to Anton Chernykh (RU, 6d).

Following the resolution of the General Assembly, the Federation has adopted this year a new formula for the interclubs.

They were (supposed to be) organized in 2 rounds:
- a preliminary phase with (expectfully) two regional pools of 3 to 5 clubs, and
- a final phase with 4 clubs (= the 2 best clubs of each pool).
(read details here: in NL: https://www.gofed.be/node/1087; in FR: https://www.gofed.be/node/1084).

Unfortunately, this new formula met a modest success: only 4 clubs competed (Leuven, Gent, Antwerp and Brussels-Phénix) !

It was decided that the final phase was not necessary, as the 4 best clubs were already known.

Leuven emerged as winner with 6 points ahead of Gent (6 pts), Brussels-Phénix (4 pts) and Antwerp (2 pts).

Round 1: Leuven-Gent 2-1 Phenix-Antwerp 2-1
Round 2: Leuven-Antwerp 3-0 Gent-Phénix 3-0
Round 3: Phénix-Leuven 2-1 Gent-Antwerp 2-1

Two players played and won 3 games: Gertjan Verhaeren, 8-k (Gent) and Sven Cuyts, 4-k (Leuven).

A few weeks after having won in Liège, Wang Zichen (CH, 4d) also triumphed undefeated in the 2018 edition of the tournament of Antwerpen.

2nd was Huang Yongsen, 1d with 3/5.

Bronze medal was Dominique Versyck (2d) (3/5), despite his loss to the young and promising Louis Baudaux (3k).

Jelle Janssens (5k) made 4/5.

There were 14 participants.

Complete results can be found here.

Chan Yi-Tien (Chinese Taipei) won undefeated the 39th World Amateur Go Championship. He has already been amateur world champion in 2014.

Korean Sangcheon Kim was the only player with one loss and took second place.

Six players finished with six wins: in that order: Chen Wang (CH), Stanislaw Frejlak (PL)(best Westerner), Fukashi Murakami (JP), Juri Keronen (SF), Dusan Mitic (RS) seventh and Jose Islas (MX).

Our representative was Thomas Connor, who ended 32th out of 61 competitors with 4 out of 8 (losses against Oscar Vazquez (SP), Christian Pop (RO), Benjamin Dréan-Guenaiza (FR) and Switzerland; wins against Brazil, Portugal , Venezuela and Macau).

Complete results here: https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/event/amakisen/worldama/39/result.html

Wang Zichen from China (4d) won undeafed the tournament of Liège with 4 victories, ahead of Thomas Connor (4d) (3/4) and Marie Jemine (2d) (2/4)...
There were 16 participants.

Complete results here:
https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/504

Belgian team (Lucas +, Jan +, Gabriel -, Joost -) made a draw against Lithuania (which ends 2nd) in the last round of the 2017-2018 season of the European Team Championship.

Belgium ended 1st, with 13/14 points (6 victories, 1 draw).
And is promoted to B-league for the next season !

Congratulations to all our players !

Results of the round:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/433

Standings:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

PS: in this competition, an Italian player has been disqualified after being accused of receiving the help of "Leela", a program of professional strenght. Nevertheless, many observers think the cheating is not proven...(to be followed).

The 2018 edition of the European Youth Championship just ended in Kiev.

In the category under 12, the winner is Stefan Adrian Rolarita (2k, RO). He was 2nd last year. Favorite Artem Pishchalnikov (1k, RU) ended 2nd.

In the category under 16, winner is Arved Pittner (3d, RFA), who was 4th last year, ahead of Solal Zemor (1d, F).

In the category under 20, results are:
1. Sinan Djepov (5d, BG (yes, Bulgaria !)(7th last year)
2. Matias Pankoke (5d, RFA) (4th last year)
3. Elian Joan Grigoriu (4d, RO)(6th last year)
4. Oscar Vazquez (5d, ES) (Oscar had been European champion, but in category under 16 last year...and, incidentally, European champion under 12 in 2014)
5. Valeri Kryshelnytskyi (5d, UA) (was 2nd under 16 last year...and, incidentally, European champion under 12 in 2013)

Complete results here: http://eygc2018.org.ua/?page_id=484

PS: it seems to me that they are not so many impressive European "rising stars" younger than 16 for the being time...Hope I'm wrong

Lucas Neirynck (5d) did it once more: he won (unbeaten) the 2018 Belgian Championship.

This is his 8th title (in 9 participations).
And a record: Jan Bogaerts won 7 titles; Alain Wettach, 6.

Ended on the podium: François Gonze (4d) with 8/9, and Thomas Connor (4d) with 7/9.

The 2 others competitors who qualify theirselves directly for the 2019 finals (should the system not change) are: Lucman Bounoider (3-d) and a surprising Thibaut Pillon, from Switzerland (1d).

Complete results here: https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/420

Team team won 4-0 the 6th round of the European Tean Championship against Bulgaria.

Lucas Neirynck won, against one of the European rising stars, Sinan Djepov (17 years old), the only very strong Bulgarian player.
And so did Kwinten Missaen, Dominik Versyk and Vincent Quoilin.

With this victory, Belgium is already sure, before the last round, to reintegrate the B-league next season.

Result of the round: http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/432

Standings: http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

PS: in A-league, note that France is till leading...