Belgian Go Federation

After 9 comes 10: Lucas Neirynck remains undefeated Belgian Champion for the 10th time in 11 participations with a global score in these 11 finals of 85+/6- (37 consecutive wins since 2016).

For the 2nd time, the final of the Belgian Championship was organized as a knock-out tournament with "2 lives" (see: Tournament rules in Dutch and French)

Unfortunately, 2 qualified competitors did not participate (sickness):
- Jan Ramon (4-d),
- Gabriel Mercier (3-d)
They were replaced by reservist Laurent Calmus and the remaining place was left empty.

There was a little surprise during the 1st day of the competition with the elimination of Huang.
The semi-finals, played the 2nd day, opposed Lucas to Gints (winner: Lucas) and François to Sven (winner: François)..
Sven won the "little final" very quickly and climbed onto the podium.
And Lucas, as you know already, won in the final.


Here is the final standings:
1. Lucas Neirynck (6-d)
2. François Gonze (4-d)
3. Sven Cuyt (1-k)
4. Gints Engelen (3-k)
5. Huang Haisen Jefferson Yong Sen (2-d)
6. Joost Van Nieuwenhuizen (1-k)
7. Laurent Calmus (5-k)
8. bye

Eight European pro players participated in the 5th European Pro Championship
Ilya Shikchine appeared to be the strongest: he won 6 out of his 7 games.
He is followed by a trio : Andrii Kravets, ALi Jabarin and Mateusz Surma (all with 4/7).
Noteworthy: Artem Kachanoskyi, winner of the last year edition, ended at a desappointing last place (2/7).
Complete results: https://www.eurogofed.org/epc/2020.html

32 top European players, amateur and pro - selection made according to the European ranking, participate in this event played "on-line" (among the top 10 European rated players, only Pavol Lisy and Cristian Pop do not play).

Lucas Neirynck has won in 1st round against Sinan Djepov (BG, 5d), and will now play Alexander Dinerstein (RU, 3p) in the 2nd round on 5th October 9:30 AM.

Results to be followed here: https://www.eurogofed.org/egc/2020.html

Lucas Neirynck is our representative in the 2020 KPMC (Korean Prime Minister Cup), which is the "Korean version" of the World Amateur Go Championship. There are 61 participants.

All games are played on-line.

Through the first part of the tournament, Lucas qualified from a group of 4 European countries by finishing 2nd (defeat to Hungary, but wins against Cyprus and Turkey).
http://kpmc.kbaduk.or.kr/eng/media/news_view.asp?news_no=158

He lost in the 1st round of the final rounds of the tournament, a knock-out tournament with the 32 qualified competitors.

Quarters of final are: Korea-Canada, South Africa-Japan, China-USA, Taïwan-Hong Kong
Semi finals: Japan - Korea and China - Hong Kong
Final: Japan - China (yes, Japan won to Korea ! )
Winner: Tianfang Ma (China)

Complete results: http://kpmc.kbaduk.or.kr/eng/tournament/final.asp

6 out of the 7 "European made" pro participated in the 1st edition of this on-line league (Mateusz Surma did not participate).

Artem won the final against Pavol Lisy (3-0), who had defeated Ilya Shikchine in the challenger designating match.

Complete results: https://www.eurogofed.org/pros/league.html

On 19/05/2020, Belgium team, composed by Lucas Neirynck (+), Jan Ramon (+) Lucman Bounoider (-) Gabriel Mercier (-) makes draw against United Kingdom in the 9th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/599

Belgium ends in the middle of B-league (5th out of 10 teams).
Serbia ends 1st and goes up in A-league and Italy, who ends 2nd, will play a barrage match against Israël to possibly do the same.

Definitive Standings: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

In A-league, Russia, France, Czechia and Ukraine will play each other in a final tour this Summer to find out who will succeed France, winner of last year.

The Corona Cup is an on-line tournament organised by Lukas Podpera.
This tournament meets a great success with 360 participants from all parts of Europe.

Ex-yoengusaeng (ex-insei) Kim Young Sam appeared - once more - to be too strong for the European competitors: he wins unbeaten the Corona Cup.

Behind Kim, Pavol LISY (SK, 2p) ended second with 5 wins.

Four players follows with 4 wins: Benjamin DREAN-GUENAIZIA (FR, 6d), Ilya SHIKSHIN (RU, 3p), Anton CHERNYKH (RU, 6d) and Sinan DJEPOV (BG, 5d). Ben makes a great performance, and so did Anton and Sinan, who are still teenagers !

Outside the "top group", Vassili JAKOVLEV-CHERNUSHEV (RU, 4d) managed to win 5 games.

Inversely, strong players as Artem KACHANOVSKIJ (UK, 2p), Lukas PODPERA (CZ, 7d), Stanislaw FREJLAK (PL, 7d) only got a mild 3-3 score...

Lucas NEIRYNCK (BE, 5d) scores 2 wins.

Complete results here: https://goweb.cz/turnaj/corona-cup-2020/

News from Artem Kachanovski:
The team of Europe plays this time against the Chinese Junior National Team.
Each team will have ten players.
Two rounds are scheduled: one on 19/04 and one on 20/04 at 12:00 CEST. Each round there will be ten games played.
The Chinese team is composed by professional players of maximum 16 years.
Artem stated : "if we win at least 1 game, it will be already a brilliant result".

Results: https://www.eurogofed.org/china-europe/1st-junior/pairings-results.html

Comments on the results: European players, even the professional ones, have still to grow: China won 18-2 ! (wins by Viktor Lin and by Ali Jabarin; many games were lost by resignation after only +/- 150 moves) :-(

This tournament (described in the news here under) turned out as a nightmare for the European team. :-(

Ariane Ougier (FR, 4d) lost to the Chinese female representative, who was then soon outcasted by Benjamin Dréan-Guénaizia (FR, 6d).

Benjamin won the next game too, before losing to a certain Yu Suhao (6d).

This Yu Suhao crushed the rest of the European players - 9 straight wins - including the strongest European amateurs and even some professionals !
(in this order) he eliminated: Benjamin Dréan-Guénaizia (FR, 6d), Anton Chernykh (RU, 6d), Cristian Pop (RO, 7d), Lukas Podpera (CZ, 7d), Alexander Dinerstein (RU, 3p), Stanislaw Frejlak (PL, 7d), Ali Jabarin (IL, 2p), Mateusz Surma (PL, 2p) and Artem Kachanovskii (UK, 2p) !

China won 10-2, only 3 of the 10 members of the Chinese team had to play ! What a lesson of humility for Europe !

More comments on this match by Artem here: https://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=292

photo Yu Suhao: https://www.eurogofed.org/newsp/2020/1st%20China-Europe%20match//yu-suha...

On 07/04/2020, Belgium team, composed by Lucas Neirinck (+), Jan Ramon (-) Gabriel Mercier (+) and Dominik Versyk (-) makes draw against Netherlands (on paper stronger than us) in the 8th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/598

Belgium stays presently in the middle of league B and will very likely remain in this league next year. There is still one round to play (we will play UK)

Standings after the 8th round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).