Belgian Go Federation

Mid-december, Belgium (Lucas Neirynck +, Jan Ramon -, Gabriel Mercier - , Nelis Vets +) made a draw against Italy in the 4th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/594

Belgium is presently 6th out of 10 teams.
Standings after the 4rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

South Korean Go master Lee Sedol, widely considered as one of the greatest Go players of the modern era and only human to score a win against AlphaGo, announced his retirement.

Lee, 36 years old, had started playing Go when he was six years old and has turned professional in 1995.

In a career spanning 24 years, Lee scored 18 victories in global competitions and 32 wins in local events.

He declared his retirement was primarily motivated by the invincibility of AI Go programs.

See this article: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20191127004800315

Info van de VRT: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2019/11/28/wereldkampioen-bordspel-go-stopt...

The club of Leuven prolongs its national title

This year, six clubs have participated.

Completed results: https://www.gofed.be/node/1140

On 19/11, despite having mobilized one of strongest possible team (Lucas 6d, François 4d, Jan 4d and Lucman 3d), Belgium has been beaten by Serbia.

Still, note the remarkable victory of Lucas - by half a point ! - against Dusan Mitic, one of the two terrible "Mitic brothers" (his brother Nikola did win, against François).

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/593

Standings after the 3rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen)

The results of the 2019 interclub are in. We had 6 participating clubs this year Ath,Phénix, Hasselt, Gent, Leuven and Antwerpen. Leuven was ultimately victorious with Gent and Ath in second and third place respectively

Detailed results can be found here

Jan Ramon triumphed unbeaten in the 2019 edition of our Brussels tournament.

The big surprise was the 2nd place by Sven Cuyts (1k), who won against two 3d and two 2-d competitors !

Dick Riedeman (3d), best player with 3 wins by the SOS tie-breaker, completed the podium.

Beside Sven, 4 (other) participants got 4 wins: Kenny Debacq, Ondrej Skacel (from...Czechia) en two members of Riedeman's family. Congratulation to them !

Complete results here: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T191026E

In the history of the Brussels tournament, it is the 1st time that a kyu player ended on the podium (see: https://www.gofed.be/en/tournament/brussels). Without willing to minimize Sven's impressive achievement, this was only possible because of the desappointing small number of "dan" competitors (#6!).
Actually , there were only 38 participants in total, also the smallest ever number for a Brussels tournament.
This being said, all of them have had good time...and those who were absent are wrong !

In the 2nd round (played on 29-10-2019), Belgian team made a draw against Lithuania.

The Belgian team was composed by Jan Ramon (4d) (+), Lucman Bounoider (3d) (+), Gabriel Mercier (2d) (-) and Nelis Vets (2d) (-)

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/592

Standings after the 2nd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen)

Belgian team made a flying start in the new edition of the European team championship: in the 1st round, Belgian competitors (Lucas, Jan, Lucman, Gabriel) crushed their Swiss rivals by 4-0 !

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/591

Standings after the 1st round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen)

Chinese Xin HE remained unbeaten in the 14th edition of the KPMC (Korean Prime Minister Cup, more or less the Korean version of the World Amateur Championship).

He ended ahead of:
CHOI Won Jin from Korea (who only lost to He),
KAWAGUCHI Tsubasa from Japan (who only lost to Choi) and of
LO Sheng-Shieh from Taïwan (who only lost to Kawaguchi).

Best Westerner (and European): young (he is 15 years old) German raising star Arved PITTNER (5d), who ended 5th.

Our representative, Dominik Versyk (2d) ended 36th out of 62 competitors, with a 3/6 score (expected wins against Bulgaria, Ecuador and Brunei, and expected defeats to USA, Australia and Netherlands).

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

32 competitors representing almost all the best European players have been struggling for the title of European Champion in a specific competition: the European Championship.

The system of this tournament is a mix of double knockout and single knockout systems.
Its starts with a double knockout in the first 5 rounds.
In the second phase, the last 8 players compete for the championship in a single knockout tournament from the quarters of finals to the final.

1. Preliminaries rounds:

After three rounds in the main knockout, and two in the looser section, 4 players remained unbeaten: favourites pro Ilya Shikchine, Mateusz Surma and Pavol Lisy, joined by the surprising Lukas Podpera (7D, CZ), who took revenche of his lost final in the pro qualification tournament some weeks ago by beating new pro Tanguy Le Calvé (1p, FR).
In the winners section, most results were the ones expected...But still, some surprises occurred:
-The two greatest surprises were the victories of 2 amateurs against professionals competitors: Jonas Welticke (6d, DE) defeated Alexander Dinerstein (3p, RU) in the 1st round, whereas Lukas Podpera (7d, CZ) triumphed over Artem Kachanovskyi in the 2nd round.
- Russian Vjacheslav Kaymin (6d) eliminated two opponents better ranked than him: Cristian Pop (7d, RO) in the 1st round, and Stanislav Frejlak (7d, PL) in the second one (but he finally lost to Ilya Shishine in the 3rd round).
In the losers section, there were some astonishing results: in the 1st round, Antoine Fenech (5d, FR) got rid of Csaba Merö (6d, HU), Oscar Vazquez (5d, SP) eliminated Nikola Mitic (7d, SE) and "home player" Belgian representative Lucas Neyrinck (5d, BE) surprised Cristian Pop (7d, RO). In the 2nd round, pro Alexander Dinerstein was eliminated by Stanislas Frejlak (7d, PL)...who also put another pro, Tanguy Le Calvé, out in the 5th round of the losers' section !

2. Quarter of finals:

After the last round of the losers section, the 8 quarter- finalists in the European Championship were known.
Five of the eight active European professionals were still in the race (the 3 missing ones being: Andreii Kravets - did not take part in the European Championship -, Alexander Dinerstein and Tanguy Le Calvé). The 3 surviving "amateurs heroes" were Lukas Podpera, Viktor Lin and Stanislaw Frejlak.
And 2 of these 3 amateurs made even their way up to the semi-finals: as Lukas Podpera prevailed over Ali Jabarin, and Stanislaw Frejlak over the last year winner, Pavol Lisy (taking his revenge of his defeat against him last year in Pisa).
A more expected result was the victory of Ilya Shikshin over Viktor Lin, whereas the duel between the 2 pros Mateusz Surma vs. Artem Kachanovskyi turned in favor of the latter.

3. Semi-finals:

Semi-finals offered us Lukas vs. Ilya, and Stanislaw vs. Artem.
Here, there was no wonder again: the 2 pros won.

4. Small final (for the 3rd place)

Lukas Podpera took the bronze medal by beating Stanislaw Frejlak in the small final

5. Final:

In the end of a gripping final, Ilya won just by HALF A POINT against Artem, and is 2019 European champion (for the 6th time !).

Complete results here: https://www.eurogofed.org/egc/2019.html