Website of The International Go Federation

This year the European Youth Go Championship (EYGC) took place online from the 15th until the 17th of October. The tournament brought together more than 130 participants from 18 countries.

With anti-cheating measures applied, the online EYGC had the same format as the annual face-to-face event: six rounds of MacMahon competition played out over three days, starting from the 15th of October.

Traditionally, the EYGC consists of three separate tournaments in different age categories: U12, U16, and U20. Below are this year’s winners in each category:

• U12: Vjacheslav Shpakovskij 1d (Russia)
• U16: Alexandr Muromcev 5d (Russia)
• U20: Oscar Vazquez 6d (Spain)

In the U12 category, Russia showed exceptionally good results by occupying the top seven places.

European professional go players commented on several games from each round on the EGF Twitch channel.

For more information, visit the web page of the EYGC 2021.

Report by Artem

Dina Burdakova 5d

This year the European Women’s Go Championship (EWGC) took place online on 4–5 September. The tournament brought together 30 participants from eleven European countries.

After six rounds of intense struggle, two players remained with only one defeat: Dina Burdakova 5d and Virzhinia Shalneva 3d, both of them representatives of Russia. Dina was ahead on the first tie-breaker – the sum of opponents’ scores (SOS), so she claimed the champion’s title. Last year’s winner, Natalia Kovaleva 5d, finished third, losing only to her fellow countrywomen – the winner and the runner-up.

For Dina Burdakova it was the second victory in the EWGC. Her first triumph was in 2014 in Kazan, Russia.

For complete results see the tournament table in the EGD.

Below you can find the record of the game played in the fourth round between Dina Burdakova 5d and Natalia Kovaleva 5d.

Report by Artem

Ryan Li 3p

The first Transatlantic Professional Go League (TPGL) started on the 15th of May 2021, this time with two American pros and two amateurs joining the six European professionals.

All the players were split into two groups of one American pro, one amateur, and three European pros. A round-robin was played out in order to decide two players in each group to qualify for the playoffs.

Ilya Shikshin 4p and Artem Kachanovskyi 3p passed the selection in the first group, while Ryan Li 3p and Tanguy Le Calve 1p were first and second, respectively, in the second group.

According to the results of the playoffs, here are the final standings for the first four places:

1. Winner: Ryan Li 3p
2. Runner-up: Ilya Shikshin 4p
3. 3rd place: Artem Kachanovskyi 3p
4. 4th place: Tanguy Le Calve 1p

The final was played on the 15th of August between Ilya Shikshin 4p and Ryan Li 3p. Ryan won with a score of 2-0.

It’s noteworthy that Ryan already joined the European Professional Go League earlier, in the second season, and was victorious that time as well: he beat Ilya in the final with a score of 3-1.

For more information such as the tournament tables and the records of the games, visit the 1st TPGL web page.

Below you can find the record of the second game of the final between Ryan Li 3p and Ilya Shikshin 4p.

Report by Artem

After the Coronavirus pandemic started, all European go tournaments went online.

This summer, face-to-face go events are finally starting to come back. Probably that is the result of quarantine restrictions being lifted in many countries thanks to large-scale vaccinations.

A number of traditional summer go camps took place in various countries: France, Poland, Croatia, and Hungary. Besides, an international go tournament took place in Pardubice, Czechia on July 17–18: Moyo Open 2021, Bonus Point Level C tournament. A total of 49 participants from eight countries participated in it, with Lukas Podpera 7d emerging victorious.

Tournament hall of the Moyo Open 2021, Pardubice (Czechia)

Another international competition is scheduled to take place from July 30 until August 1 in Hague, The Netherlands: Dutch Open, Bonus Point Level B tournament. At the moment 44 participants from 12 countries have pre-registered.

For more details see the calendar of the European Go Federation.

Report by Artem

The 41st World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC) took place in Russia, Vladivostok from June 3 till June 9. It was the first time for this event to take place in a non-Asian country.

Each IGF member country has a right to line up one representative for the WAGC. This year the total number of participants was 57.

Due to the COVID-19 traveling restrictions, participants who could not reach Vladivostok were allowed to play online with anti-cheating measures applied.

After six rounds of intense struggle, Ma Tianfang 7d from China won the title of world champion. He was followed by Chan I-Tien 7d from Chinese Taipei and Kim Dabeen 7d from South Korea.

The best result among European players was demonstrated by Lukas Podpera 7d from Czechia who took 4th place. He lost only to the champion, Ma Tianfang.

Stanislaw Frejlak 7d finished 5th in the final standings. He demonstrated impressive performance by defeating Morikawa Shunji 5d from Japan on round three and the champion Ma Tianfang on round four. Stanislaw was close to beating the record of European players at the WAGC – 3rd place (Ronald Schlemper in 1991 and Artem Kachanovskyi in 2013). Unfortunately, Stanislaw lost the 5th game to Chan I-Tien 7d from Chinese Taipei and the 6th game to Lukas Podpera 7d from Czechia.

The victory of Stanislaw against Ma Tianfang was the second time when a European player defeated a representative of China at the WAGC. Ronald Schlemper did it for the first time in 1991.

For more information such as tournament table and photography see the 41st WAGC website.

Below you can view the record of the game between Stanislaw and Ma Tianfang.

Report by Artem