World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC) is an annual go event organised by the International Go Federation (IGF). Each IGF member country nominates one representative, and in total usually there are around 70 participants.

The WAGC is held since 1979. In 2020, for the first time in go history, the tournament was to take place in one of the European countries – Russia, Vladivostok city. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the tournament was postponed till 2021. The new dates for the 41st WAGC are June 2–10, 2021. The location remains the same.

Unfortunately, the pandemic doesn’t seem to get any better even despite the vaccination. Due to this reason, the organisers of the 41st WAGC decided to allow online participation for those representatives who are not able to arrive in Vladivostok. In that case, national federations whose representatives play online must ensure the presence of a referee or an official of the federation in the playing-room and/or video monitoring of the competition process. More information on this aspect will be announced by the organisers later.

Representatives from 77 countries are invited to participate in the 41st WAGC:

1. Asia: 17 countries and territories
   Brunei, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Korea, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia,
   Mongolia, Nepal, DPR Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam
2. Near and Middle East: 3 countries
   Iran, Israel, Turkey
3. Europe: 37 countries
   Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom
4. Africa: 3 countries
   Madagascar, Morocco, South Africa
5. North & Central America: 7 countries
   Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, United States
6. South America: 8 countries
   Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela
7. Oceania: 2 countries
   Australia, New Zealand

In case you are an official of the national go organisation in one of the listed countries, and you have not received an invitation yet – please use the following email address to contact the WAGC organisers: n.kovaleva@gofederation.ru (Natalia Kovaleva).

For more information see the 41st WAGC website: https://wagc2020.org/

Report by Artem