Website of The International Go Federation

Pandanet Go European Team Championship (PGETC) is an annual go competition in which member countries of the European Go Federation (EGF) are represented by teams consisting of 12 players. The tournament is organised in two stages: online league and final.

In the online league, all the teams are split into groups of ten. Each group plays a round-robin with approximately one match per month. Each team lines up four players for a match. After the online league is finished, the two most successful teams of each group traverse up to the next league, and two teams finishing last fall down to the preceding one. In the A group, the top four teams are qualified for the final. Normally, the final is organised live at the spot at the European Go Congress (EGC), two days before the Congress starts. Last year the EGC was cancelled, so the final took place online. This year the EGC is cancelled as well, so we can expect the same format of the final.

The 11th season of the PGETC started in October 2020. The last round of the A league was played on 18 May, so now it’s decided which teams enter the final:

• Russia
• Poland
• France
• Ukraine

Among the teams who entered the final this year, Russia became champion five times, France was victorious three times including the previous two seasons, while Ukraine won the tournament once.

Below you can see a record of the game played between Mateusz Surma 2p and Artem Kachanovskyi 2p in the 9th round of the 11th PGETC online league on 18 May.

Report by Artem

The third edition of the Corona Cup took place online from 8 March till 20 April. 400 participants from 39 countries took part in the competition – the tournament repeated the record achieved by the second edition (400 participants as well; the first edition had 361 participants). Most European countries were represented. Besides, there were participants from countries such as Argentina (1 participant), Brazil (2), Canada (1), Chile (2), China (3), India (2), Kyrgyzstan (1), Singapore (3), and USA (13). From all the countries, Germany had the biggest number of representatives: 63 players.

After six rounds, Kim Seong-Jin 8d remained undefeated, thus winning the third edition of the Corona Cup. Kim Young-Sam 8d was the runner-up this time, being defeated only by the winner. He was victorious in the first two editions of the Corona Cup. The third place went to Stanislaw Frejlak 7d.

Here are the top five places:

1. Kim Seong-Jin 8d
2. Kim Young-Sam 8d
3. Stanislaw Frejlak 7d
4. Lukas Podpera 7d
5. Lucas Neirynck 6d

Below you can find a record of the game played in the 4th round between Kim Young-Sam 8d and Kim Seong-Jin 8d.

For more details see the tournament table in the EGD.

Report by Arterm

The European Grand Prix is a series of tournaments held during the calendar year. Those participants who take the top places in these competitions collect so-called ‘bonus points’. At the beginning of the next year, the Grand Prix Final is organised by the EGF. The players who have won at least one Grand Prix tournament, plus several players who have a top score in the bonus points list, fight for the title of the winner of the Grand Prix. Besides, the two players who have the top score in the bonus points list are automatically qualified for the Grand Slam – the most prestigious competition in Europe with a main prize of €10,000.

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 outbreak almost all the Grand Prix tournaments were cancelled. The Grand Prix Final had to take place online. The winner was Ilya Shikshin 4p.

As the situation with the coronavirus doesn’t seem to get much better at the beginning of 2021, the EGF introduced several changes to the Grand Prix:

1. From now online and mixed competitions are officially allowed to be a Grand Prix tournament, with a condition of applying strict anti-cheating measures.
2. New level of Grand Prix tournament appeared – Level D. Level D tournaments provide half as many bonus points as Level C, and the winner gets ‘half of the seat’ in the Grand Prix Final – he has to win one more Level D competition in order to qualify. At the same time, it’s twice cheaper for the organisers to apply for the Level D event. This is the way to stimulate the organisers of relatively small online tournaments to apply for the Grand Prix – bonus points attract strong European players to participate, which in turn motivates the weaker players to take part as well.
3. Grand Prix tournament organisers have to provide prize money for each bonus point won by the participants. The amount of the prize money depends on the level of the event.

Even though the pandemic restrictions are not getting better, this year there are several tournaments in the Grand Prix Calendar already.

Report by Artem

European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC) is an annual online Go competition. European countries are represented by teams consisting of youth players. Each round teams have to line up five players of different age categories:

• one player U20
• two players U16
• two players U12

This year there have been four rounds. The team of Russia remained undefeated, thus winning EYGTC for the 6th time.

Last year the winner was the team of Germany, which was the only time when the team of Russia didn’t win the competition.

For more details please see the EYGTC 2020/21 webpage.

Report by Artem

This year European Grand Prix Finale took place on the Online Go Server from January 8 till 31. Top 16 European players were fighting for the title of the Grand Prix Winner. The competition is a culmination of the Grand Prix – a series of tournaments held during the year 2020.

The group stage didn’t bring any surprise, with the favourites getting first or second places to qualify for the knock-out stage.

This year, as the competition was held online, all the knock-out matches had best-of-three format.
In the final, Ilya Shikshin 3p (Russia) defeated Artem Kachanovskyi 2p (Ukraine) with a score of 2:0.
Here are the top four places of the tournament:

1. Ilya Shikshin 3p (Russia)
2. Artem Kachanovskyi 2p (Ukraine)
3. Pavol Lisy 2p (Slovakia
4. Stanislaw Frejlak 7d (Poland)

For more details, please see the Grand Prix Finale 2021 webpage.

Below you can see the game records of the final match between Ilya and Artem.

Report by Artem