Belgian Go Federation

Two Korean professional, Lee Young Sin (5-P) and Yoon Young Min (3-P) paid a visit in Belgium on 25, 26 and 27/10.

On Friday 25/10, we organised a event session in Leuven, during which they played simultaneous games, after some tsumego exercices as upwarming. Desappointing: there were only 8 members present ! :-(

On the WE of 26 and 27/10, the 2 pros were present during the Brussels tournament to comment the game(s) of every participants who whished to have his/her game(s) reviewed.

The Belgian Go association thanks them for their visit.
And thanks also the Korean baduk Association for making this event possible !

Zhang Yuanbo won the Brussels tournament ahead of Antoine Fenech and Benjamin Blanchard. See the full results

Due to the very low number of participants registered in October, we decided to give the Student and Youth Championships another try. We reschedule them in three weeks time. The tournaments will be played on KGS from Monday 18 November on. Please follow this link for registration : http://www.gofed.be/en/tournament/youth .

To participate in this tournament, you need to be a 2013 member of the Belgian Go Association, to hold Belgian nationality, to
be under 30 and, if you are more than 19 years old, to be a full time student.

(remark: best player aged less than 20 will be the "2013 Belgian young champion").

The Go Camp 2013 attracted some18 go players from September 12 to 15 in Nessonvaux. According to all of them, it was a success: simultaneous games, lessons, games and even a barbecue! We will update pictures soon.

The Belgian Go Federation is proud to announce that the 28th Brussels Tournament will take place at Palais du Midi, in the city center of Brussels, from 26th to 27th october 2013. Please follow this link for more details.

Korean Hyunjae Choi is an undefeated World Amateur Champion (and will thus now become professional).
2nd was Chinese Yuqing Hu with 7/8.
Good suprise: the next 3 are European contestants: Artem Kachanovski (UA), Ilya Shikchin (RU) and Pavol Lisy (SK).
The Japanese representative is 8th !

Lucas Neirynck (BE) made 3/8 (37th) (best player among those with 3 wins).

More info here: http://ranka.intergofed.org/
NB: one of Lucas games is commented by Michael Redmond, 9-p

The information about the Go camp (information in Dutch and French)is updated on the website. The playing site will be at Nessonvaux, as last year. The teachers will be strong Belgian players. We hope to see you at the Go Camp!

Ex-chinese professional Fan Hui (who has recently got the French nationality) became last week the new European champion.

He defeated in final young (18) Pavol LISY from Slovakia (who was the winner in the last Brussels tournament).

In the little final for the 3rd place, opposing 2 other young talents, Mateusz SURMA (PL) beat Thomas DEBARRE (FR).

Results of the finals:
http://egc2013.go.art.pl/EGC-finals.html

Note the elimination of two great favourites Ilya SHIKCHIN and Artem KACHANOVSKI in the 1st round (= quarter finals) of the finals (respectively by LISY and DEBARRE), and the bad result of multiple European champion Alexander DINERSTEIN, who even failed to qualify for the finals !

Complete results of the main tournament:
http://egc2013.go.art.pl/EGC2013_main.html

Still, Ilya SHIKCHIN did win the WE tournament, beating among others, Fan HUI !

Results of the WE tournament:
http://egc2013.go.art.pl/weekend.html

Results: http://www.eurogotv.com/tournament/showresults.php?toernooicode=T130511H

The American Go Foundation just released a new book free for download. It is a complete introduction to the game of go, known as baduk in Korea. The rules are thoroughly explained with lots of examples and exercises to guide the beginner to master the rules.

This is most certainly a nice book to recommend to newcomers in clubs and it could be used as a teaching material. You can download it by following this link : http://agfgo.org/downloads/LoveBaduk.pdf .