European Go Congress 2019 in Brussels, Belgium Concludes

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The main organisers (from the left): Vincent Lochen, Marie Jemine, and Gabriel Mercier

The European Go Congress 2019 was held in Brussels, Belgium from 20 July to 3 August. This year the venue of the congress was in the heart of Brussels, and its location turned out to be perfect for both playing and sightseeing. Even the famous statue, Manneken Pis, was just a stone’s throw away.

With over 800 participants, this year’s EGC was popular as ever, although it not quite as packed as the previous two congresses in Pisa, Italy and Oberhof, Germany, both of which had over 1,000 participants. Even so, everybody had a great time playing the game and meeting many friends (old and new), as well as trying out the famous Belgian beers.

This year there was a fierce fight in the decisive game of the European Championship. After a drawn-out battle, finally Ilya Shikshin 3p defeated Artem Kachanovskyi by the smallest of margins, half a point.

You can read more impressions on this year’s European Go Congress on the EGF website.

The final game: Ilya Shikshin 3p (left) and Artem Kachanovskyi

Final Showdown In Latin American Pandanet League

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After ten rounds the league stage of the 3rd Pandanet Go Latin American Team Championship comes to its final round with a triple tie at the top of the table. On this Pandanet event, the top two teams at the end of the league earn a spot to play a face-to-face final match during the 3rd Latin American Go Congress in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

So far Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have all 8 points, but on this final round Brazil will be facing Colombia, most likely meaning that only one of them will earn a seat in the final match.

Considering the importance of this final showdown, the Brasil Nihon Kiin will be hosting Zirui Song 1p from the American Go Association for a live game commentary on the Brazil v. Colombia second board match. This match will be played between Brasil’s Feng Wang 5d and Colombia’s Juan David Ramírez 4d. You can follow the broadcast on Brazil Nihon Kiin’s Twitch channel on Sunday August 11th at 19:30, GMT -6.

Zirui Song 1p, AGA

You may also follow all the games of this round directly on the Pandanet client where another very interesting match is taking place: Argentina v. Chile, where both teams have lined up their best players including Argentina’s Fernando Aguilar.

As a conclusion we will have a spectacular closing for the league stage of the Pandanet Go Latin American Team Championship so don’t miss it!

Ilya Shikshin 3p From Russia Becomes European Champion 2019

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Ilya Shikshin 3p

European Championship is organised as a part of the European Go Congress. Starting from year 2018, European Championship is a competition of 32 top European players with a double elimination system until the quarterfinals. Starting from the quarterfinals, the tournament becomes single elimination. Selection of participants is based on European Go Database rating.

This year European Championship was held on July 21–28 in Brussels, Belgium. 32 players from 15 different countries participated, among whom were seven professional players. Live Twitch stream from the first board was organised, as well as a broadcast on the Pandanet Go server for the top boards.

Ilya Shikshin 3p from Russia remained undefeated in all of his games and won the title of the European Champion 2019. In the final he played against Artem Kachanovskyi 2p from Ukraine, and won that game by a minimal margin of 0.5 points. You can view the final game below.

All the details including tournament table and game records you can find at the official webpage of the competition.

For more information please read the following articles at the European Go Federation website, written by Antonius Claasen. He wrote a separate article about each day of the European Championship:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8

 

Download SGF

 

Report by Artem

France Wins The Pandanet European Team Championship 2018–2019

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View from the tournament

This year the next four teams were qualified to play in the final of the Pandanet European Team Championship:

France
Romania
Ukraine
Russia

More details about their way to the Final you can read at the article dedicated to the Pandanet qualification tournaments.

Traditionally, Pandanet European Team Championship Final is played right before the European Go Congress, at the same venue. This year the final took place in Brussels, Belgium on July 19–20.

As usually, round robin system was used, with each team playing each other: in total three matches.

This year France became the European Team Champion, winning all the matches in the final. Second was Russia, losing only to France. Ukraine was third, winning their only match against Romania. Here is the final order of the teams:

1. France
2. Russia
3. Ukraine
4. Romania

It was the second time for France to become the European Team Champion. In total it was the 9th season. Russia won 5 times, Ukraine was champion once and once Czechia won this competition.

You can see more details about the Final at the official webpage.
For more information please read an article on the EGF website written by Antonius Claasen.
For more photos please see the photoalbum.

Brazil Announces Boot Camp with Mateusz Surma 2p Prior to 3rd Latin American Go Congress

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Brazil’s Go Association Brasil Nippon Kiin has recently announced the celebration of a Boot Camp with Mateusz Surma 2 dan professional from the European Go Federation from September 30th to October 9th in Sao Paolo, Brazil. This boot camp will take place prior to the 3rd Latin American Go Congress which will be held from October 12th to 15th.

Mateusz Surma 2p from Poland

The camp is a ten-day long course in which each day several training sessions on different topics will take place, such as life and death, yose problems, and game reviews. Besides this, several games are to be played between contestants such as league games, rapid games, and yose games. The camp will essentially have a Korean Doojang setting with activities from 9 am to 6 pm.

To cover the registration fee for both the Boot Camp and the Congress and for fundraising itself, Brazil Nippon Kiin has launched a fundraising campaign through the Catarse platform. On the platform, you will be able to choose one of several levels of funding, starting from just covering the Congress participation fee all the way to cover both Congress fee and the full ten-day Camp fee. Check it out to see which level suits you best!

You may check the full schedule for the camp on the Brazil Nippon Kiin Facebook event.

You may visit 3rd Latin American Go Congress English website here. Both events promise to be great experiences.

Large Participation in 5th Latin American Youth Go Tournament Las Tres Águilas

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On the weekend of the 29th and 30th of June on the Online Go Server, the Fifth ‘Torneo de las tres Águilas’ took place. This online event is organized for Latin American youth players and was held with support of the Ibero American Go Federation.

It was played on two categories, 13×13 for players between 30k and 20k and 19×19 for players above 20k. In total 46 youngsters took part, representing the following countries: Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, or Mexico.

Las tres Águilas means ‘The three Eagles’, which comes from the animal names used in ancient China to refer to the level of the players: Eagle, Tiger, and Dragon. The nine classic ranks, which later came to be known as Pin in China, Gup in Corea and Dan in Japan came out of this classification:

Blue Eagle: 1 dan
Silver Eagle: 2 dan
Golden Eagle: 3 dan
Blue tiger: 4 dan
Silver Tiger: 5 dan
Golden tiger: 6 dan
Blue dragon: 7 dan
Silver dragon: 8 dan
Golden dragon: 9 dan

The tournament has taken the Blue, Silver and Golden Eagles so the to certify the top 3 youth players in Latin America with the aim that their path in go will make them become tigers or perhaps even dragons.

Check out the top 3 players and full results of each category, as well as pictures of contestants on the official event website.

13×13 Category: Golden Eagle Arturo Cisneros (left) and 19×19 Category: Blue Eagle Camilo Mirt, both from Ecuador

Report by Emil García

Europe Wins First Transatlantic Professional Go Team Championship

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This year it was the first time when Europe and America faced each other in an official professional go match. Five players participated from each side. The tournament had a ‘win and continue’ format, similar to the famous Nongshim Cup. All games were played online with live commentary on Twitch. You can see all the details on the official tournament website.

The European team consisted of five European Go Federation professional players:

Pavol Lisy 2p (Slovakia)



America’s team had five American Go Association professionals:

Andy Liu 1p (USA)
Calvin Sun 1p (USA)
Gansheng Shi 1p (Canada)
Eric Lui 1p (USA)
Ryan Li 1p (Canada)



At first Mateusz Surma 2p (Poland) won three games in row, leaving only two American pros left in the competition. You can read interview with Mateusz after the first two rounds. You can find game records there as well.

In the fourth game Mateusz played against Eric Lui 1p (USA). It was a hard case for the referee: Mateusz ran out of time due to lag, even though Mateusz had made his move in time (Mateusz’s proctor could vouch to this). In the end, the referee decided that the result should be Mateusz’s loss by time.

In the next two games, Eric managed to make the score even, beating Ali Jabarin 2p (Israel) and Pavol Lisy 2p (Slovakia). After the bright 3:0 start for Europe, America was back in the match with a 3:3 score.

In the next game Artem Kachanovskyi 2p (Ukraine) finally stopped Eric.

As Artem couldn’t play the next game with the given schedule, the European team used the substitution rule, and in the next game Ilya Shikshin 3p (Russia) played Ryan Li 1p (Canada) instead of him. Ilya won, and America had no players left in the team, while Europe still had 2 players left: Ilya and Artem.

Thus, the European team won the title of the Transatlantic Champion and a generous prize money of 10,000 Euro. Congratulations!

More details including the game records you can find the article on the EGF website written by Artem Kachanovskyi.

Report by Artem

European Pros at the Chinese C League 2019

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The European Team

This year Europe again was represented in the Chinese C League. Chinese League is a yearly set of 3 separate leagues: A, B, and C. In order to get to the A League, a team has to take 1st or 2nd place in the B League, while in order to qualify for the B League a team has to take place 1–3 in the C League. C League is open for all registering teams. A League is a long-term competition happening during the year, while B and C Leagues are a one-time tournament.

With the generous sponsorship of the Tsinghua Weiqi Foundation, this was the third time for Europe to participate in the C League. Here are some statistics from the previous years:

2017: 3 draws, 4 losses, place 26/26
2018: 2 draws, 4 losses, place 28/29 (1 technical victory against bye)

This year the European team managed to get its first match victory, achieving the result: 1 victory, 2 draws, 4 losses, place 31/32.

Number of wins by the boards in the team:

Ilya Shikshin 3p, Russia: 2/7
Pavol Lisy 2p, Slovakia: 2/7
Mateusz Surma 2p, Poland: 1/7
Artem Kachanovskyi 2p, Ukraine: 3/7

We can say that the first achievement of Europe was not to take the last place in year 2018, while the next one this year was to get the first victory. Let’s hope we can see more and more bright results from Europe in the future!

You can find more information in the following articles on the EGF website:

C League 2017: article by Ali Jabarin (2p, Israel)
C League 2018: article by Artem Kachanovskyi (2p, Ukraine)
C League 2019: article by Artem Kachanovskyi (2p, Ukraine)

Report by Artem

6th Mexican Go Congress concludes successfully

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Congress playing hall

The 6th Mexican Go Congress took place on the 19th floor of the Tlatelolco Tower on June 22–24. Players ranging from age 10 to 70 found themselves matching on the 6th Mexican Open Go Championship in which a total of 50 players took part and where two rounds were played each day.

Defending champion Abraham Florencia

After the first day, four players remained undefeated on the upper McMahon band so on the second day semifinals were played between José Chacón against Abraham Florencia and Changha Kim against Emil García. Resulting winners Abraham Florencia and Changha Kim faced each other on the 4th round in which Florencia came up victorious. Without any major upsets on the last day, Florencia turned out to be this year’s champion, defending his last year title. Check the full results here.

Pair Go Championship

The other championship played was the 2nd Mexican Open Pair Go Championship in which ten couples participated, setting up a record on female participation in the Mexican Go Congress. One round was played each day and the undefeated champions after three rounds turned out to be the 12-year-old Paola Yaretzi and her teacher Siddhartha Avila.

Jiyoung Park 1p lecture

This event saw the presence of three pro players: Jiyun Park 5p and Jiyoung Park 1p, both from the Korean Baduk Association, and Zirui Song 1p from the American Go Association. On the first day, Jiyun Park 5p offered a lecture on how go proverbs apply to real board situations. You can check out the video here. On the second day, Zirui Song gave a lecture about life and death problems where the ultimate problem turned out to have a totally unexpected outcome. Feel free to check out this mind twisting problem in his lecture video. On the third and last day Jiyoung Park gave a lecture about the 2nd game between Alphago vs Lee Sedol and about the patterns that arise from positions in the game.

The last activity on all the three days was the simultaneous games exhibition. Each of the pros played against from six to eight players, so in total around 60 games were played in this stage. Most of the games were victories for the pro guests.

It’s also worth recognising the Guanajuato Go Club’s members’ participation, which has become an important part of the Congress attendees.

This event was made possible to the support of the Mexico’s National University UNAM through its Sports Direction and its Science Faculty. We also want to give special thanks to Congress staff and supporters José Chacón, Dafne Rios, Milosh Trnka, Carlo Spindola, Ricardo Quintero, Edgar Barrientos, Javier López, Sebastián Ríos, Dante Hernández, Rebeca Peña, and Eduardo Jiménez.

Report by Emil García

Jiyun Park 5p playing simul games

Group photo

Pandanet European Go Team Championship: Qualification Tournaments

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Pandanet European Go Team Championship has been held in Europe since 2010. There are two stages in this competition: online league and face-to-face final. The online league is open to all European countries. It lasts from September till the May of the following year and consists of several separate leagues: A, B, C, and D. Each league has 10 teams participating in it, and round robin system is used. According to the final results of each league, two top teams go one league up in the next season, while two teams which finished last go one league down. Naturally, in league A top teams do not go up, as there is no next league. Instead, four top teams from the A league meet in the face-to-face final in July. The final is held right before the European Go Congress at the congress venue. The winner is announced the European Team Champion. Of course, there is also generous prize money for the participants of the final. You can find more information at the competition webpage.

Russia v. Poland

This year it was the first time when the organizers changed the structure of the competition. The qualification to the face-to-face final was different. There were two separate qualification tournaments, held live. Half of the A league teams participated in one tournament, while the other half participated in the other. Additionally, two top teams from the B league joined the competition. Teams which finished higher in the online league started with more points in the qualification tournament, thus having an advantage. From each of the qualification tournaments, two teams with the highest score were selected for the final.

The first qualification tournament was held in Palic, Serbia on June 14–16. France and Hungary started the tournament having two points, as they finished second and third in the online league. Romania and Israel started with one point. Austria and Serbia were the two top teams from the B league and started with zero points. The teams played each other in round robin system. France was undefeated and finished first, having drawn against Hungary and Serbia. Romania was second with three wins, having one draw against Israel and one loss against France.

The second qualification tournament was held soon after the first one in Kostelec nad Ohri, Czechia on June 19–21. Russia and Ukraine started with 2 points, as they finished first and fourth in the online league. Czechia and Poland started with 1 point, while Germany and Italy had zero points as the two teams finishing last in the online league. Same as in the previous qualification tournament, round robin system was used. Ukraine finished first, having four wins and only one draw against Russia. Russia was second, having draws only against Ukraine and Poland.

From the qualifications, four teams qualified to the final: France, Romania, Ukraine, and Russia. The final will take place in Brussels, Belgium on July 19–20.
Report by Artem