Belgian Go Federation

More informations by following this link.

The Phenix Go Club organizes his 13x13 tournament!

Registration starts at 19:00.
First round at 19:30.

Settings: 20 mn/game, 5-6 rounds depending on attendance, handicap 2.5 diff = 1 stone

Where: Outpost Game Center, rue de la tribune 8, 1000 Brussels

Organizer: Michael Silcher (+32 475 97 81 77)

http://goclubdelft.nl/node/add/registration

http://paris2013.jeudego.org/

The European Team Go Championship is played on PandaNet-IGS.

official website: http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Kwinten Missiaen (3d) played one day earlier than the rest of the team
and showed them the way to go. His oponent , Joseph Renner (2d) adopted a
big moyo strategy. Finally Kwinten managed to capture a piece of the moyo
between his invading groups and forced his win by resignation.
Next day,

Jan Ramon (4d) was the first to finish his match against
Félicien Mazille (2d). His opponent made skillfull sabaki in the upper
right corner, but failed to attack the cutting stones of Jan. A little
while later, the sabaki was turned into a surrounded heavy group with one
eye and white resigned.

Dominique Versyck (1d) won next in quite spectacular fashion against
Lorenz Trippel (1d). First he managed to give his opponent three weak
groups, sacrificed one of his own and finally captured a big group, en
passant creating a nice double ko (move 193).

Usually finishing first, fresh 5d Lucas Neirinck had to work a little bit
harder this time to the Swiss talent John Walch (3d), finally winning
with 14.5 points.

Switzerland – Belgium: 0 - 4
Board 1: John Walch (ectoplasm) - Lucas Neirinck (cucurucucu) Friday 12th 20hr 0-1 W+14,5
Board 2: Félicien Mazille (dragonrojo) - Jan Ramon (janr)
Friday 12th 20hr 0-1 B+R
Board 3: Joseph Renner (shmoolong) - Kwinten Missiaen (kwik)
Thursday 11th 20hr 0-1 W+R
Board 4: Lorenz Trippel (betterlife) - Dominique Versyck
(dversyck) Friday 12th 20hr 0-1 B+R
 
Games will be available on http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Note: games can be directly downloaded from the commented game section. You need to register with an active account to do so.

The world amateur go championship was held this year from 12th to 18th May in the city of Guangzhou, in the south of China.
I was the Belgian representative, among 55 represented countries. This is lower than in the Korean prime minister cup, due to the fact that the flight ticket has to be paid by the participants themselves or by local federations. Therefore, there were about 25 players less than in the kpmc, and the level was also much higher (as the missing players were from smaller federations, i.e. with a lower level). The pairing system was a Chinese special pairing, close to the Swiss one. The rules were IGF rules, with 6.5 points komi. As there was an odd number of countries, China was allowed to have one more participant, and chose a local 3rd dan player (who had quite bad results)
The participants arrived on the 11th of May, welcomed by a very hot temperature (around 30 degrees the whole week), and a quite humid weather. We were offered accommodation in a luxurious five-star hotel in the center of the city, the Bai Yun hotel, named after the mountain next to Guanzhou
On the 12th we had the morning to take some rest. During the afternoon, the drawing of the contestant numbers took place. This is very important as in the Chinese pairings people tend to play with players having numbers close to them. America, Korea, China France had number 1, 16, 31 and 46 to avoid playing with each other too fast, as they were the 4 best countries in each other’s contest. As for me, I picked the number 42. After the drawing, there was the IGF meeting, with the presentation of the countries, a report on the igf tournaments and activity, and the application of new igf members. On the evening we attended the opening ceremony, with a banquet and speech from town members and Igf important members.
The 13th was the first day of the contest. I played against the Canadian 6th dan in the morning, and lost only by very few, then against the Bulgarian 3Q in the afternoon, and won. That day the North Korea player played against the second China player and won. On paper, it seemed to be already a crucial game, but in fact the second Chinese player was not a top one, and Nord Korea won easily.
The 14th was the second competition day. I started against the Mexican player and won, and then lost against the English player. The first interesting game of the day was Japan-South Korea, won by Korea. In the afternoon, there was the USA-Japan game. The Japanese player was ahead on the board, however when he pushed on the clock, it didn’t work and unfortunately he fell out of time. After calling the referee, they discussed, and the victory of the American player was eventually announced. The Japanese player won all his games after that one, however 6/8 wasn’t enough, and he never came back in the run for the title.
The 15th was the third day of competition. I started against the Norwegian 4th dan, and won. I was quite happy to be at 3/5, since I aimed at 4/8. In the afternoon I competed against the Slovenian 5th dan, and lost after a very intense fighting game. In the 5th round there was the game North Korea-South Korea, which ended with a South Korea victory. In the next game, South Korea met China, which was the most important game of the competition. After a very hard game, the Chinese player won by 2.5 points. He was then alone with only wins.
The 16th, I was first paired with the Bosnia-Herzegovine player, who was 2nd dan (but won against a 4d the game before). He played very well, and managed to win. In the last game I was paired with the Argentine player, 5th dan. Again the game was close, but I lost. At the end I finished with only 3/8. There was no big surprise in the last day: China continued winning all his games, Korea too. The best European players were Pal Balogh and Yuri kuronen, with 6/8, ranked 6 and 7. Yuri played against the American player on the last round, and he tried to force the win, saying that Yuri had played a move and took it back, which wasn’t the case since he didn’t actually release the stone. This time, however, the referee said that it wasn’t a fault. Yuri won against USA by 9.5 points. In the evening, we attended the closing ceremony, with the price giving.
On the 17th, we had the first a cultural meeting in the morning, where we played with local go players. We had some free time in the afternoon. Some went to visit temples, others went to the hotel swimming pool. In the evening we did a cruise on the pearl river, which is the river crossing the town. It was really nice, as we saw all the big buildings of the city lightened in the dark.
Finally, we left on the 18th.
This competition was really enjoyable. Meeting so many players from other countries was just awesome. I wish good luck for the Belgian player in 2013.

François Gonze

First edition of a new competition: a friendly team championship, that will take place in Cafe Zurenborger, Dageraadplaats, Antwerpen this year.

Principles:

a) Teams of 3 players, freely composed (not obligatory of the same club).
b) 1 day (16/09).
c) 4 games p pers. (12 per team).
d) 45 minutes, no byo-yomi
e) Handicap - 2 stones (difference of points - 200) (max 9 stones)
f) games rated for the classement (but with a discounted rating, because of short time and, for most games, because of played with handicap)
g) first table (sorted by rank - 1st being the strongest) makes nigiri, the next table reverses the colours and so on.
h) system (round-robin,...) will be function of the number of participating teams

Registration for the 2011 European Team Go Championship on PandaNet will open soon. As Belgium took part successfully to this tournament last year, we can make up a team for this year. If you want to subscribe, please notify etgc2011 at gofed.be. There is no level limit to apply, you just need to be a member of the BGF.

The rounds are usually played at 8pm, on Tuesday, but we arrange the schedule according to everyone's wishes. In each meeting, four Belgian players face four foreign players, ranged by strength; but don't worry, there are different leagues according to the average level of the team, so we won't play against players too strong or too weak for us. You can find more information on the official website: http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

A team can welcome at most 12 players. It allows us a big flexibility, since only 4 players have to play each match (there are 9 rounds a year, but as the year begins in Sept/Oct and ends in May, it makes about one game per month). We arrange the meetings by Doodle, it's very convenient.

At the EGF meeting in Bordeaux, it was decided that the games played in the league online could be integrated to the European ranking (though having a very small impact because classed as "class C games" and only counted after the end of the league).

So if you want to play, please write an email to etgc2011 at gofed.be. Enjoy!

May 25th

Today players arrived. In the Narita airport, there was a significant effort to avoid 'pandemic influenza', all employees having masks and all immigrants having to fill a form saying that they did not cough the last 10 days or so. Tomorrow, there is a transfer to the playing site, Kakegawa city, in Shizuoka prefecture. The first two rounds of the tournament will be played on May 27th.

May 26th

After the transfer to Kakegawa city, there was the classical "orientation" session with the reading of the rules and demonstration of the clocks. At the end of this meeting, the pairings for the first round were drawn. Belgium will face Japan on table 23.

Next there was the IGF general meeting. It is interesting to note that the situation of international go is changing. The sponsoring for WAGC is decreasing, and probably next year the flight will not be sponsored anymore. Another change is that the WAGC will not always be organized in Japan, but also in other countries, such China. The next KPMC will be held from 23rd to 28th of October 2009 together with two other events (website)

May 27th

In the morning, I lost my game against Japan. It seems I forgot several proverbs, and I only realized when I was behind in the running battle. In the afternoon I captured three Philipine groups.

Japanese people are very kind and helpful. However, sometimes the language barrier causes some challenges. I spent 20 minutes unsuccessfully asking how to dial an international phone number at the hotel reception desk. Fortunately, modern hotels have broadband LAN and skype supports calls to regular phones.

May 28th

I started the second day by winning from Peru in a fairly interesting game.

During lunchtime there was a tea ceremony. Even though essentially this consists in getting a cup of tea and drinking it, there are a few subtle but important details. There is for instance the rotating of the cup. Even though the cup is perfectly circular, it has a picture which is called the center. The lady offering the cup rotates the cup (to mix and cool the hot tea a bit and) to let the center face the drinker as a sign of respect. Next, the drinker rotates the cup again, as one should not drink facing the center.

In the afternoon, my hallucination contained more liberties than the reality. I had to resort to several too expensive ko fights.

May 29th

In the morning my South-African opponent resigned, after having taken the four corners and (according to the comments of a professional) having missed numerous opportunities to invade correctly the center exploiting my too defensive defence.

In the afternoon my white opponent went for influence by playing a 5-5 and 4-6 opening. The game became interesting and complicated, involving several big ko fights. The amount of mistakes of my opponent nearly approached mine, and he won by 2.5 points.

At the top of the tournament, the last unbeaten players, China and Korea faced each other in the sixth round. In the end China won.

May 30th

My seventh game much resembled my 5th. My opponent used the same joseki variation in the beginning which was not known to the pro but not necessarily bad. I was again forced into playing for influence. It seems my opponent played two kikachi too much, which costed him my 7.5 points margin.

The last round and hence the last chance to score a point was against Russia. It was my second game with white, and my only one with a diagonal fuseki and no moyo. Despite a few mistakes in the fuseki, I managed to capture a few stones in the middle game. However, due to approaching byo-yomi, I forgot about a variation which cutted of 7 of my stones. I was however very lucky that my opponent just lost one liberty in yose, and by enlarging my captured group I could capture 6 stones myself in oiotoshi. Finally, I won by 2.5 points, probably thanks to the 15 stones in 10 minutes byo-yomi rithm which allowed to play reasonable endgame. I was very happy to again score 5 victories.

the tournament was won by China. From our neighboring countries we can note the good results of Laurent Heiser (Luxembourg) and Thomas Debarre (France).

May 31st

On the last day, there was a friendship match with the local people in the morning. It is interesting to see the contrast between the old men who say that they play fast but in fact use quite some time and avoid fights, and the young kids who are asked to think well but play fast and are not afraid of fighting. I have to admit that using a lddder that does not work as a source of ko threats may in some cases be a remarkably good idea.

In the afternoon.the participants went sightseeing to a zen temple. It was a relatively large complex. We got invited to practice zen. The priest first explained that one should sit straight on the mat, look at a point 1 metre in front, and thing nothing. He then continued with hitting the interested participants (making loud snaps), explaining that this was to remmind zen practicers that they should think nothing. Next, he also reviewed the history of the temple.

It took 4 hours to get through the traffic jam to Narita hotel with its English speaking staff.