Belgian Go Federation

6 out of the 7 "European made" pro participated in the 1st edition of this on-line league (Mateusz Surma did not participate).

Artem won the final against Pavol Lisy (3-0), who had defeated Ilya Shikchine in the challenger designating match.

Complete results: https://www.eurogofed.org/pros/league.html

On 19/05/2020, Belgium team, composed by Lucas Neirynck (+), Jan Ramon (+) Lucman Bounoider (-) Gabriel Mercier (-) makes draw against United Kingdom in the 9th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/599

Belgium ends in the middle of B-league (5th out of 10 teams).
Serbia ends 1st and goes up in A-league and Italy, who ends 2nd, will play a barrage match against Israël to possibly do the same.

Definitive Standings: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

In A-league, Russia, France, Czechia and Ukraine will play each other in a final tour this Summer to find out who will succeed France, winner of last year.

The Corona Cup is an on-line tournament organised by Lukas Podpera.
This tournament meets a great success with 360 participants from all parts of Europe.

Ex-yoengusaeng (ex-insei) Kim Young Sam appeared - once more - to be too strong for the European competitors: he wins unbeaten the Corona Cup.

Behind Kim, Pavol LISY (SK, 2p) ended second with 5 wins.

Four players follows with 4 wins: Benjamin DREAN-GUENAIZIA (FR, 6d), Ilya SHIKSHIN (RU, 3p), Anton CHERNYKH (RU, 6d) and Sinan DJEPOV (BG, 5d). Ben makes a great performance, and so did Anton and Sinan, who are still teenagers !

Outside the "top group", Vassili JAKOVLEV-CHERNUSHEV (RU, 4d) managed to win 5 games.

Inversely, strong players as Artem KACHANOVSKIJ (UK, 2p), Lukas PODPERA (CZ, 7d), Stanislaw FREJLAK (PL, 7d) only got a mild 3-3 score...

Lucas NEIRYNCK (BE, 5d) scores 2 wins.

Complete results here: https://goweb.cz/turnaj/corona-cup-2020/

News from Artem Kachanovski:
The team of Europe plays this time against the Chinese Junior National Team.
Each team will have ten players.
Two rounds are scheduled: one on 19/04 and one on 20/04 at 12:00 CEST. Each round there will be ten games played.
The Chinese team is composed by professional players of maximum 16 years.
Artem stated : "if we win at least 1 game, it will be already a brilliant result".

Results: https://www.eurogofed.org/china-europe/1st-junior/pairings-results.html

Comments on the results: European players, even the professional ones, have still to grow: China won 18-2 ! (wins by Viktor Lin and by Ali Jabarin; many games were lost by resignation after only +/- 150 moves) :-(

This tournament (described in the news here under) turned out as a nightmare for the European team. :-(

Ariane Ougier (FR, 4d) lost to the Chinese female representative, who was then soon outcasted by Benjamin Dréan-Guénaizia (FR, 6d).

Benjamin won the next game too, before losing to a certain Yu Suhao (6d).

This Yu Suhao crushed the rest of the European players - 9 straight wins - including the strongest European amateurs and even some professionals !
(in this order) he eliminated: Benjamin Dréan-Guénaizia (FR, 6d), Anton Chernykh (RU, 6d), Cristian Pop (RO, 7d), Lukas Podpera (CZ, 7d), Alexander Dinerstein (RU, 3p), Stanislaw Frejlak (PL, 7d), Ali Jabarin (IL, 2p), Mateusz Surma (PL, 2p) and Artem Kachanovskii (UK, 2p) !

China won 10-2, only 3 of the 10 members of the Chinese team had to play ! What a lesson of humility for Europe !

More comments on this match by Artem here: https://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=292

photo Yu Suhao: https://www.eurogofed.org/newsp/2020/1st%20China-Europe%20match//yu-suha...

On 07/04/2020, Belgium team, composed by Lucas Neirinck (+), Jan Ramon (-) Gabriel Mercier (+) and Dominik Versyk (-) makes draw against Netherlands (on paper stronger than us) in the 8th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/598

Belgium stays presently in the middle of league B and will very likely remain in this league next year. There is still one round to play (we will play UK)

Standings after the 8th round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

The 30th edition of the Leuven Go Tournament was won by Gabriel Mercier (2D) and Nicolas Flagothier (2D), who ended with 4 wins each and the same SOS and SODOS!

Third place was shared by Joren Oris (1k) and Sven Cuyt (1D).

Six other people managaged tot win 4 games out of 5.

Although there were no high dan players, 35 people participated in the tournament, which was organised by a new tournament director, Tom Van Doorsselaere and which saw un unusual high consumption of coffee, Duvel and cake.

Complete results: https://www.gofed.be/tournament/results?tournament=LEU&year=2020

On 04/02/2020, Belgium team, composed by Lucas Neirinck (+), Jan Ramon (+), Gabriel Mercier (+) and Nelis Vets (+), crushed the Swedish one by 4-0 in the 6th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/596

Belgium is presently 3th out of 10 teams and can dream to be promoted in A-division.

Standings after the 6th round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

Mid-Januari, Belgium team (Lucas Neirinck +, Gabriel Mercier (-), Joost Van Nieuwenhuyzen (–) et Laurent Teirlinck (+)made a draw against Finland in the 5th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/595

Belgium is presently 5th out of 10 teams.

Standings after the 5th round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

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).