Website of The International Go Federation

Dr Demis Hassabis is a co-winner of this year’s Nobel prize in chemistry.
Hassabis, 48, CEO and co-founder of Google DeepMind, developed the AI model AlphaFold to predict protein structures.

Hassabis visited the Nihon Ki-In, the Japanese headquarters of the game of Go, in Tokyo in late November 2024.

Hassabis, a chess master, learned Go when he was a student in Cambridge, UK, and used that knowledge to develop AlphaGo, a Go AI that became famous for defeating top human professional Go players.

After a ceremonial match against one of Japan’s top players, Yuta Iyama 9p, at the Yugen No Ma room, Hassabis said that AlphaGo laid the groundwork for later development of the AlphaFold model. AlphaGo defeated one of the strongest professional Go players, Lee Sedol 9p, in a best-of-five match in 2016.

Mr Hassabis was awarded an amateur 9-dan diploma by the president of the Nihon Ki-In, Takemiya Yōkō, because his creation AlphaGo has contributed greatly to the development of Go in the world.

The Nanyang Cup World Go Masters Tournament is a new knockout international tournament for the strongest professional players in the world. North America, Europe, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia were invited to nominate one player each. The first four rounds were held on 2–6 November in Chengdu, China. The semi-finals and final will take place in Singapore in February and March.

The European representative, Andrii Kravets 2p, lost to Gu Zihao 9p in the first round. You can see the game record below.

Report by Artem

Mateusz Surma plays Lukas Podpera in round 5. Photo by Tiberiu Gociu

The Confucius Cup took place in Dublin on 21–22 September, attracting 36 participants from 12 countries including several top European players.

After five rounds, three players had four points: Mateusz Surma 3p, Lukas Podpera 7d, and Cornel Burzo 7d. The first tie-breaker criterium was mutual game, so Mateusz claimed the Confucius Cup – he beat Lukas on round five. Lukas was the runner-up because he defeated Cornel on round four. Mateusz lost to his compatriot Koichiro Habu 5d on round two. You can see the tournament table in the EGD.

Below is the record of the game played between Mateusz and Lukas on round five.

Report by Artem

The European Student Championship was held on 7-8 September in Novi Sad, Serbia. Traditionally the smallest of the European Championships, this competition brought together ten participants from Serbia, Bulgaria, and Czechia.

The winner was Sinan Dzhepov, 5d who remained undefeated in all five rounds. Leon Defer 3d lost only to the winner and thus was the runner-up, and Vuk Dusanic 1d finished third. Below is the record of the game played in round 4 between Sinan and Vuk.

Report by Artem

The 66th European Go Congress (EGC) was held on 26 July–10 August in Toulouse, France. As ever, numerous players from all around the world came to enjoy their favorite game.

The official events traditionally held at the EGC were the individual European Championship (EC) and the face-to-face finals of the Pandanet European Team Championship. Andrii Kravets 1p won the EC second year straight and the winner of the Team Championship was the team of the host country, France.

The Open European Championship was attended by an impressive number of participants: 869. The winner was Kim Jitae 8d, a guest from South Korea. As usual, the EGC hosted many other exciting events, such as the Weekend Tournament, Rapid, Pair, etc. There were several unique events such as the game between the former European Champion Benjamin Dréan-Guénaïzia 7d and SenseRobot operated by the AI, and the 2nd ISGS International Conference on Go Studies dedicated to AI’s impact on Go.

Next summer, the EGC will take place in Warsaw, Poland – the registration is already open on the EGC 2025 website.

Report by Artem