Website of The International Go Federation

European Grand Prix Finale 2018. Game for the first place: Pavol Lisy 2p (Slovakia) vs Ilya Shikshin 3p (Russia)

European Grand Prix is an annual series of tournaments in Europe. Players who take the top places in these tournaments collect so-called ‘bonus points’ during the calendar year. After the year is finished, a tournament named ‘Grand Prix Finale’ is organised by the EGF. According to the bonus points standings, 16 players are selected to participate.

Beyond getting selected for the Grand Prix Finale, players with bonus points get a few other benefits:

• Two players qualify for the Grand Slam, the most prestigious tournament in Europe with €10,000 prize money for the first place
• Top four players according to bonus points standings in the end of the year get so-called ‘nomination points’. These points are also collected for taking top places in several major tournaments of Europe, and can be used to nominate for the competitions for which the EGF gets invitations from Asia: MLily Cup, IMSA events, and so on.

Attracted by the above benefits, top European players are interested in participating in the tournaments that are part of the Grand Prix. When top players come, naturally weaker players are attracted as well. This is the idea of how the whole system should work: the tournaments should get more popular.

This system was launched in year 2014, and at that time there were only five competitions in the European Grand Prix. This year a new record was reached: 15 tournaments. It seems that the competition between the top players this year was even more tough than usually.

On 16–17 November there was a bonus points tournament in Budapest, Hungary. This competition doesn’t usually attract too many strong players from abroad, due to the limited prize fund. But this year there were six professional players participating, which is a huge number for such a small tournament. This can be explained: the top four players with bonus points were really close, so all of them came to the tournament. Most probably, their participation attracted other strong players too.

After the tournament in Budapest, the top four places in the bonus points standings are still very close, except for the obvious first place:

• Mateusz Surma: 58
• Ilya Shikshin: 48
• Artem Kachanovskyi: 44
• Pavol Lisy: 43

There is just one more tournament left in this year’s Grand Prix: the one in London on 28–31 December.

The Grand Prix Finale will take place 16–19 January in Leksand, Sweden. 14 players are already qualified. One more will be selected in London as a winner of the tournament, and one more will be selected as a player with the highest bonus points that is not yet qualified.

In the meantime, ten tournaments have already applied to be part of the 2020 European Grand Prix.

For more information please see the following links:
European Grand Prix
European Grand Prix 2019 Standings
European Grand Prix Finale 2018
International Nominations Standings

Report by Artem

On October 19th, the Korean Cultural Center alongside the Korean newspaper ‘El Coreano’ organised the 3rd Baduk Festival in the ‘Museo de las Culturas del Mundo’, which is an old colonial building located next to the Zócalo square in the heart of Mexico City.

The Festival had the presence of the Korean professional player Yoonyoung Kim 4p, who played simul games with assistants. Also several friendly games were played between the assistants, divided into three categories. The Festival’s main event was a Mexico v. Korea Team Match. Each team consisted of five players and the match consisted of three stages: a relay one-board game, a one-to-one game and a rengo game with a sudden-death time setting.

In the one-board relay game, each team member would play 25 stones and then switch places with the next player in line. The remaining four players who weren’t playing at the moment were allowed to discuss the game preparing for their turn. The player who went last would be the one to finish the game. In this game the Korean team managed to secure a safe lead which granted them the first 2 points of the match.

Organisers and winners of the youth match and team match

In the one-to-one match, each of the five Mexican players played with one Korean player. It’s worth mentioning the diversity of the Mexican team, which on one side had Mr José Chacón, a 70-year-old long-life go promoter, and on another side also had Diego Luciano, a 13-year-old boy who spent over a year studying go at KIBA, a go school in Korea. Korean players were mainly businessmen who have been living in Mexico for several years. In this format Mexico obtained four victories and Korea one. In this way Mexico added 4 points to the score while Korea added one, setting a 4-3 score for Mexico. At the same time when this match took place, a three-versus-three youth team match was played between Mexican and Korean players.

The Rengo game, which was worth another two points, would decide the final outcome of the match. Players weren’t allowed to discuss among themselves but the team captains got a chance to call one time out which would pause the game for three minutes and allow them to discuss during that interval. The game went bad for Mexico from an early stage when they entered a ko fight which endangered a whole group, having to permit profit as long as its group remained safe. Later on the Mexican team made a deep invasion which allowed Korea to gain even more profit. Even though later on Mexico managed to capture a rather large group, they were still behind. Near the end of the game one of the Korean players oversaw a major yose move, allowing an entrance into their territory, at the end of the game Mexico won by 1.5, giving them the remaining match points so they emerged as the winners.

After this game, Yoonyoung Kim 4p gave a commentary about the rengo match for all the audience in which she stated it had been a miracle that Mexico had won the game.

After the game commentary, the closing ceremony took place where the winning team got a 600-USD prize and the loser a 300-USD prize. Small prizes were raffled, including a double flight to Seoul sponsored by Aeromexico. Overall it was a great event where people enjoyed sharing through go.

We’re already looking forward for the next festival!

Report by Emil García

The European Go Congress (EGC) can definitely be called the biggest go event in Europe. It takes place annually and lasts for two weeks, starting at the end of July and finishing at the start of August. Usually it brings together from 500 to 1,000 participants.

EGC consists of various go events and competitions: European Team Go Championship Final, European Go Championship (individual), Pair Go Tournament, and so on. Aside from that, participants can enjoy studying go with teachers, participating in lectures, simultaneous game sessions, and game reviews.

Besides being a go event, for many people EGC is an opportunity to travel, to meet old friends, and to make new ones.

Each year EGC takes place in a new country. EGC 2019 was held in Brussels, Belgium. There were around 800 participants, and it was a great go event. For more information, you can read an article about EGC 2019 here.

As for the EGC 2020, it will take place in Ukraine in the city called Kamyanets-Podilskyi from July 25 to August 9. The tournament venue is located on an island in the historical centre of the city, and there are numerous attractions all around. It’s going to be an unforgettable experience for every participant!

For more information about the EGC 2020, please read an article on the EGF website.

Report by Artem

Ilya Shikshin 3p v. Yi Lingtao 7p

MLily Cup is an international professional tournament with a large prize fund. The selection of participants goes through various preliminary tournaments: general one, one for female players, and one for amateurs. Some stronger players such as Ke Jie and Park Junghwan are also ‘seeded’ to the main tournament without a need to pass the preliminary. Additionally, two players from Europe and two players from America are invited. In the end there are 64 players who get the right to play in the first round of the MLily Cup.

This year Europe was represented by Ilya Shikshin 3p (Russia) and Artem Kachanovskyi 2p (Ukraine). America sent Jiang Mingjiu 7p and Andy Liu 1p.

Ilya got a sensational victory for Europe in the first round. He won against Yi Lingtao 7p from China, who was considered a clear favorite in that game.

All the rest of the western pros lost in the first round.

On the second round Ilya lost against Baek Hyeonu 7d from South Korea.

For more detail please read an article on the EGF website.

Report by Artem

Colombia and Mexico finished as top two teams on the Pandanet Go Latin American Team Championship, after long 11 rounds on which 12 countries played against each other. This grants this two teams a seat in a final match to be held in Sao Paulo Brasil during the 3rd Latin American Go Congress.

The final will be played on October 12th at 09:00 UTC-3 on three boards:

From Colombia: Juan Burgos, Brandal Henao and Fernando Manrique
From Mexico: Abraham Florencia, Emil García and Sebastián Ríos

Mexico, who has won the two previous championships will be going into its third final.

Follow all three games through Pandanet broadcast and also follow the top board live feed from the Brasil Nihon Kiin twitch channel.

Report by Emil García