Website of The International Go Federation

The Pandanet Go European Team Championship (PGETC) is a competition that is divided into two stages: an online league lasting from October to May and a face-to-face final taking place at the European Go Congress (EGC). In 2020 and 2021 the EGC was cancelled, so the PGETC final took place online.

The teams participating in the online league are divided into four groups, from A to D, each consisting of eight to ten teams. Each group plays a round-robin, according to whose results the teams traverse up and down the leagues in the next season, and the four top teams from the A league are qualified for the final.

After the last round of league A took place on the 17th of May, the four teams qualified for the final are now decided: France, Ukraine, Czechia, and Poland. This year’s EGC will take place in Romania traditionally during the last week of July and the first week of August.

For more details, such as the tournament table and game records, visit the web page of the PGETC.

Below you can find a record of the game played in the last round of the PGETC online league A between Ali Jabarin 2p (Israel) and Mateusz Surma 2p (Poland).

 

 

Report by Artem

The 49th Paris International Tournament took place on April 16-18 and brought together 142 participants from all over Europe. The competition is included in the European Grand Prix 2022 as a Bonus Point Level B event.

After six rounds of intense struggle, Dai Junfu 8d remained undefeated and was thus crowned the winner. He was followed by Cornel Burzo 6d and Valerii Krushelnytskyi 6d. Complete results can be found on the website of the tournament.

Below you can find a record of the game played between Dai Junfu 8d and Valerii Krushelnytskyi 6d in the last round of the Paris International Tournament.

 

 

Report by Artem

The European Youth Go Championship took place in Prague on 10–12 March and brought together 114 participants from 15 countries. During the four days prior to the Championship, a training camp was held by Andrii Kravets 1p, Lukáš Podpěra 7d, and Jan Šimara 6d.

The Championship consisted of six rounds and on 12 March the winners were decided. Six young players topping the tournament table in U12 and U16 age categories are qualified for participation in the World Youth Go Championship, which will be held online this year. The winner of the U20 category will represent Europe in the Globis Cup. Below you can find the top three prize-winners of each age category.

Under 12:

1. Bende Barcza 5k
2. Alper Sulak 1d
3. Alexandru-Nicolas Patrascu 9k

Under 16:

1. Vsevolod Ovsiienko 4d
2. Yuze Xing 2d
3. Anna Melnyk 1d

Under 20:

1. Arved Pittner 5d
2. Davide Bernardis 4d
3. Denis Dobranis 4d

The complete results you can find here.

Report by Artem

The first online tournament between the Fudan University Team (Shanghai, China) and the European Students’ Team was held in August–September 2020. The competition was played in a win-and-continue format, and Fudan University won with a score of 11:10.

The second event of this kind began in September last year and concluded this month. It started from a youth match played between promising players under 12 from Europe and children studying at the Blue Elephant School in Shanghai. Each team consisted of six players. After three rounds played out with switching opponents, Europe won with a score of 16:2.

The second part of the Festival was a win-and-continue tournament between the main teams consisting of eleven players each. This time it was Europe who won with a score of 11:10. For details, see the report by Stanisław Frejlak, the European team leader.

Below you can see the deciding game of the win-and-continue tournament, played on the 12th of February between Artem Kachanovskyi 2p and Shi Rui 5d.

 

 

Report by Artem

Overview of European Go in 2021

After the COVID-19 pandemic started, most European tournaments moved online. Major competitions organised by the EGF, such as the European Championship and the Grand Prix Finale, had to adapt to the online form as well. In the recently concluded 2021, however, international travel restrictions were smoothly loosened, and starting from summer we observed a significant rise of face-to-face go events.

At the beginning of June, the 41st World Amateur Go Championship took place in Russia. For the first time in the history of this event, one of the EGF member countries hosted it. The tournament was organised in a mixed form, with a part of participants playing in Vladivostok, while those who could not attend the event in person were allowed to join online.

The final of the Pandanet Go European Team Championship took place online in August; the team of France won it for the third year straight.

Dina Burdakova 5d won the online European Women’s Championship in September.

Natalia Kovaleva 5d and Dmitrij Surin 6d won their seventh European Pair Go Championship, which took place in Niš, Serbia, in September as well.

The European Youth Go Championship was played out online in October, bringing together 131 participants.

Lukáš Podpěra (left) playing against Stanisław Frejlak in the final of the 6th Pro Qualification

October also saw the EGF certifying a new professional player, Stanisław Frejlak, who won the 6th European Professional Qualification Tournament in Leksand, Sweden.

The European Championship took place online in November and December. Ilya Shikshin won this tournament for the eighth time, matching the record of Jürgen Mattern who claimed his eight championships between 1965 and 1979. Ilya has also won the online Grand Prix Finale at the beginning of the last year.

The cherry on the cake was the Grand Slam tournament in Belgrade: after a break of almost two years for most of the top European players, they have finally met over the board again. The winner was Artem Kachanovskyi 2p.

Besides the listed major go competitions, a lot of smaller go events took place in Europe last year: various summer go camps, Moyo Open in Pardubice, Dutch Open in The Hague, Grand Slam Qualification, Helmut Wiltschek Memorial in Vienna, etc.

To sum up, this was a bright and successful year for go in Europe, giving go players hope of seeing each other more often in real life. To learn more about the tournaments mentioned here, visit the EGF website.

Report by Artem