European Professional Online Go League: Season Two Starts

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The first season of the European Professional Online Go League lasted from March 21 to May 17. Six European professional players played a round robin, according to results of which semi-final and final were played. The winner was Artem Kachanovskyi 2p (Ukraine).

The second season of the League starts on June 20. In the first match Pavol Lisy 2p (Slovakia) will play against the special guest of the league, Ryan Li 1p (Canada). The match will be commented live by Ali Jabarin 2p (Israel) and Tanguy Le Calve 1p (France) on the European Go Federation Twitch channel.

For more information please see the following links:
Announcement of the second season of the League on the EGF website
European Professional Online Go League webpage

Report by Artem

Latin American Youth Player Diego Luciano Snatches Two Victories in Team Match Against China

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Diego Luciano 1d from Mexico

In an unforeseen turn of events, Mexico’s youth player Diego Luciano 1d managed to score a 2-0 record in the 1st China v. Ibero-American Internet Weiqi Friendship Competition which took place on OGS on the 27th and 28th of May.

These two victories made for an overall 9-1 result for China in each of the two rounds of the match. The teams consisted of six male, two female, and two youth players each. The pairings were the following:

Round 1

  1. Cui Qianjin v. Abraham Florencia (MEX)
  2. Fernando Aguilar (ARG) v. Zhang Fanzhou
  3. Wang Xue v. Carlos Pérez (CUB)
  4. Juan Samper (COL) v. Guo Weidong
  5. Chen Jingzhao v. Adrian Villalta Cerdas (CR)
  6. Adrián Oliva (ECU) v. Yang Yongjiang
  7. Li Chunfang v. Renate Reisenegger (CHL)
  8. Rosario Papeschi (ARG) v. Li Yang
  9. Hao Tong v. Diego Luciano (MEX)
  10. Klaus de Aguiar (BRA) v. Li Hongyi


Round 2

  1. Fernando Aguilar v. Cui Qianjin
  2. Zhang Fanzhou v. Abraham Florencia
  3. Juan Samper v. Wang Xue
  4. Guo Weidong v. Carlos Pérez
  5. Adrián Oliva v. Chen Jingzhao
  6. Yang Yongjiang v. Adrian Villalta Cerdas
  7. Rosario Papeschi v. Li Chunfang
  8. Li Yang v. Renate Reisenegger
  9. Klaus de Aguiar v. Hao Tong
  10. Li Hongyi v. Diego Luciano


While the outcome of the match was pretty much predictable, Diego’s results bring some light for the development of youth go in this region.

We leave you both of Diego’s game records for your review.

 

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World Women Team Conquest: Ukraine v. Latin America

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The World Women Team Conquest will have its fifth episode this weekend with a women’s team match between Ukraine and Latin America.

The match will be played on seven boards on June, Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 at 12:00 GMT-3 at KGS. Three boards will be played on Saturday and the remaining four on Sunday.

On the Latin American side, the Ibero American Federation Gender Commission’ assembled the team with players from seven different countries, so it promises to be a diverse encounter. For further information on the match, you may check this link.

The World Women Team Conquest (WWTC) is an initiative born in France, and basically consists of matching balanced female teams of 5–10 players in exhibition events and broadcasts with live commentary on Twitch.

The objective, in words of the founders, is ‘making visible that these women players exist, and that despite their small number, they are just as talented! Putting them forward, whatever their level, is helping them find their place in clubs and federations, but also encouraging the arrival of new players.’

This is the first time that France is not playing in the match, giving hope to broaden the movement into new territories and regions.

Report by Emil García

Pandanet Go European Team Championship: 2019–2020 Online League Finished

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The Pandanet Go European Team Championship (PGETC) is a competition that consists of two stages: online league and final tournament.

All the teams are divided into four leagues, from A to D. According to the online stage results, the top four teams of League A qualify for the final. The teams that claim the top places in the leagues B, C, and D are promoted to the upper league in the next season, while the teams that take the last places in the leagues A, B, and C are demoted.

In the 2019–2020 season the following four teams took the top four places in the League A, thus qualifying for the Final:

  1. Russia
  2. France
  3. Czechia
  4. Ukraine



The final is usually organised as a live tournament two days before the European Go Congress, at the same venue. This year, however, the European Go Congress is not going to happen, and the European Go Federation has not yet decided whether the final will take place online or as a separate live tournament.

For more information you can see the PGETC tournament page.

Report by Artem

First Online Team Match Between China and Latin America to Take Place in OGS

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On May 28th and 29th at 9 am GMT+8 (Beijing time), the first online team match between Latin American and Chinese players will take place on OGS.

The team match will be played on ten boards. Six male, two female, and two youth players make up the team on both sides.

To choose the Latin American players, the Ibero American Go Federation (FIG) held three separate qualifiers: male, female, and youth, in which designated players by National Go Associations met to decide the region representative team. The male qualifier was played on a double knockout system while the female and youth qualifiers were played on Swiss systems.

You can check out both teams’ full roster and the detailed schedule of the match by country in an article about the match on the FIG’s webpage.

‘This is a great opportunity to strengthen bonds between Latin America and China, and an online match is a great idea especially in these times when most people are working or studying from home. We are really glad Ms Zhang Wei from the Chinese Weiqi Association contacted us to make this happen,’ Emil García, Captain of the Latin American team, reports to IGF.

We will bring you more updates once the match is finished, so stay tuned!

Report by Emil García

Decisive Next Round on Pandanet Latin American League

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With two rounds remaining in the 4th Pandanet Latin American Team Championship, anything can still happen.

In the A League, Argentina is the leading team with five victories and one defeat, but behind it, four teams: Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, are all tied on four victories.

Next round will be decisive, considering that Brazil will play Peru and Argentina will play Mexico. All of them are looking to secure a spot at the top, as the top two teams at the end of the league will get the chance to play a face-to-face final match at the 4th Latin American Go Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina in mid-October.

At the bottom of A League, things are also unsettled considering that the bottom two teams will drop to the B League. This round, Chile is facing Colombia, with the losing team falling in the demotion zone despite having three victories.

In B League, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Ecuador are all tied at the top with four victories each, so it is not yet clear which two teams will ascend to League A.

Follow this round matches on Sunday, May 24th, 19 hrs GMT-6 in the Latin American TeamChamp Room on Pandanet.

You may look at the complete table of A League here and of B League here.

Report by Emil García

1st Female Latin American Go League Culminates with Teaching Games by Cho Hye-Yeon 9p

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The winners of the 1st Female Latin American League, Renate Reisenneger and Claudia Flores (both from Chile), both got to play a teaching match with Cho Hye-Yeon 9p from KBA, and the games were broadcast online.

After each game, much to the audience’s delight, Cho provided insightful reviews explaining how she viewed and thought about the games. You can watch the full record of the event here.

Also, the best-placed double digit kyu player, Andrea Zelener from Argentina, got a chance to play a teaching game with her countryman Fernando Aguilar 6 dan.

It’s worth mentioning that this is the first Latin American Female league ever, and it was organised by the Ibero American Go Federation Gender Commission in an attempt to promote female participation of the game.

The league was played from the 2nd to the 29th of March and 13 players from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela took part.

We hope to bring you more news on activities for female players so stay tuned!

Report by Emil García

Corona Cup: Online Tournament with 361 Participants

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The Corona Cup, a European online tournament named after the ongoing pandemic, has now finished, more than a month after its start. The tournament was held online on the KGS go server. The Corona Cup became extremely popular, attracting many tournament-goers who are for the time being not able to participate in live tournaments. The total number of participants was exactly 361, same as the number of intersections on the go board!

The winner of the tournament was Kim Youngsam 8d (South Korea). Players from 30 different countries took part in the competition.

For more information, please see the following links:
Corona Cup Announcement
Corona Cup Tournament Table

Report by Artem

European Go Congress 2020 Moved to 2021

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Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, go tournaments in Europe are getting postponed and cancelled.

European Go Congress 2020 was planned to take place in July–August 2020 in Ukraine, Kamyanets-Podilskyi. It has now been decided that due to the emergency situation of the COVID-19 outbreak, this summer the European Go Congress will not be organised.

In year 2021, the European Go Congress will take place at the same location as was planned for the year 2020: Ukraine, Kamyanets-Podilskyi. European Go Congress 2022 will take place in Romania.

For more information, please see the article on the EGF website: EGC 2020 in Ukraine is moved to year 2021.

Report by Artem

1st China Junior v. Europe Online Go Match

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Soon after the 1st China v. Europe Online Go Tournament has finished, one more online competition between China and Europe was organised. This time the European team played against the Chinese National Junior Team.

This competition is called the 1st China Junior v. Europe Online Go Match. Both the Chinese and European teams lined up ten players. The Chinese team consisted of professional players, at most 16 years old, while the European team was a mix of professional players and strong amateurs.

The match had two rounds scheduled on 19–20 April, one round each day. In each round ten European players were paired up against ten Chinese players.

In both of the rounds the Chinese team won with a 9-1 score. In the first round it was Viktor Lin 6d (Austria) who won his game against Wang Yucheng 1p (China), while in the second round Ali Jabarin 2p (Israel) won against Jin Yucheng 3p (China).

For more game records and complete results please see the match results webpage.

 

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Report by Artem