Belgian Go Federation

Belgium team, composed by François Gonze +, Jan Ramon -, Gabriel Mercier + and Nelis Vets +, won against South Africa (3-1) in the 4th round of the C-league of the European (yes) Team Championship.

Belgium team dominates now the C league...but it remains 3 rounds to run...

Result of the round: http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/430

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

PS: note also France's nice victory on Russia in the A league
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/413
France is now leader in A-league !

The Selection Tournament of the Belgian Championship 2018 took place on the week-end of the 25th and 26th of November in Antwerpen.

This year, 17 players took part to this tournament, a great success!

The biggest surprise of the week-end was the performance of Lucman Bounoider, 3d: he remained undefeated, winning his games against Oscar Vazquez, 5d and Thomas Connor, 4d. Congratulations to him!

The five seats for the finals of the Belgian Championship are given in order to:

1. Lucman Bounoider
2. Oscar Vazquez
3. Thomas Connor
4. Thibault Pillon
5. Bram Vandenbon

They will play in the finals against Lucas Neirynck, Gabriel Mercier, François Gonze, Kwinten Missiaen and Nelis Vets.

In case one of the finalists drops off, the next candidates are:

6. Victor Schneider
7. Joost Vannieuwenhuyse
8. Marie Jemine

Full results of the tournament can be found here.

After wins on Georgia (4-0), Slovakia (3-1) and Croata (3-1), Belgium team remains unbeaten after 3 rounds in the European Team Championship in C-league.

If things go on like this, Belgium will reintegrade next season the B-league (from which we were demoted last year)...but the season has just begun...

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

Results:
round 1: http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/427
round 2: http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/428
round 3: http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/429

The 32nd Brussels Tournament took place on the weekend of the 28th and 29th of October.

Jonas Welticke, 6d, from Germany, won the tournament undefeated. Second was Chen Qi, 4d, and third Oscar Vazquez, 5d.

Complete results can be found under this link.

Chinese Zhao Yikang won unbeaten the 2017 edition of KPMC (the Korean Prime Minister Cup; Korean version of the World Amateur Go Championship) ahead of the Japanese and of the Korean representatives.
Five players ended with 5/6, among whom the best Western player was the Mexican Abraham Florencia and best European was the Russian Dimitri Surine.

This year, "our guy" was François Gonze. He ended 16th with a 4/6 score (wins against Ireland, Singapour,Sweden and Macao; lost against Netherlands and VietNam).

Note also the participation of the (ex ?) player from Brussels Philippe Fanaro, who represented Brazil and ended 32th with a 3/3 score.

There were 56 participants.

Complete results here: http://kpmc.kbaduk.or.kr/eng/result/gameTable.asp

Zhang Tao (CH, 5p) wins undefeated the open European championship.
His countrywoman Li Xiaoxi (CH, 2p) ended 2nd having just lost against him.
Bronze medal - and 1st European - is Mateusz Surma (PL, 1p), who only lost against the 2 Chinese pros.
Winner of last year edition of the open championship, Kim YoungSam (KR, 7d), finished 4th with 7/10.
Follows another 7d Korean, Lee Kibong, best player on SOS tie-breaker among the 6 players with 6/10...
There 821 participants, among whom 17 Belgian ones.

Complete results: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/open-european-championship...

Kim YoungSam won the WE tournament (in which the Chinese pros did not take part)ahead Pavol Lisy (SK, 1p) and the new European pro, Andrii Kravets (UK, 1p), who both only lost to Kim.
There were 635 participants, among whom 19 Belgian ones.

Complete results: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/weekend-tournament/

Globally, the Belgian results are in the average, with some remarkable performance:
in the main tournament: 4/5 for Thomas Connor (3d), Gabriel Mercier (3d) and Philippe Tranchida (4k); 5/7 for Laurens Teirlinck (5k)
in the WE tournament: 5/5 (!) for John Cassidy (7k); 4/5 for Philippe Tranchida (4k), Roel Van Nyen (3k), Victor Schneider (4k) and Juliette Brault (15k).
Congratulations to them !

Ilya Shikchine (RU, 1p) won the final of the European championship against Mateusz Surma (PL, 1p).

He is thus European champion, for the 5th time (2007,2010,2011,2016,2017).

Here are the complete results of the 2017 European championship: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/european-championship/

And here is the report by EGF: http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=144 (cf. point 2)

The European go congress has just begun.
During the 1st week, the best 24 European players will fight for the title of "European Champion" in a knock-out tournament with 2 lives (in the first rounds).
You can follow this here: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/european-championship/

The "open" championship (with some very strong non-Asiatic competitors) is no less captivating.
You can follow the results round by round here: http://www.egc2017.eu/events/main-tournaments/open-european-championship...

By winning the 2017 pro qualification tournament, Ukranian Andreii Kravets (7d) becomes the new (6th) EGF pro.

He defeated in final young Austrian Viktor Lin.

Andrii was one of the favorites: according to the EGF rating list, he is (...was !) the strongest European amateur player, and he had lost in the final last year to his compatriot Artem Kachanovskyi...

Congratulations to him !

Complete results:
http://www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/index_2017.html

The big surprise was the young Oscar Vasquez from Spain, who reached the 1/4 finals. Oscar had climbed from 2-d to 4-d after few month training in China. He is just 14 years old !

Read the report by EGF here: http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=138

Bram Vandenbon is the winner of the 2017 edition of the Gentse Go Toernoi (he was already holding the title). There were 13 participants.
Please note the surprising victory of Joost (2k) on Dominique (2d).

Here are the results: https://www.gofed.be/files/gofed/tournaments/results/GEN2017.txt