Belgian Go Federation

Belgian team won the last round against Slovakia 3-1 (wins by Lucas, Jan and Gabriel; loss by Sven), and ends at the 1st place of the C-league.
That means that the team will play in the B-league.
Congratulations to all members of the team !

Results of the round here: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/788
Final standings: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Belgian team has been defeated for the 1st time this season.
Norway won 3-1 against a Belgian team in which Lucas Neirynck and some other "big shots" did not play this time, and thus less strong than usually.

Before the last round, Belgium remains leader, but Lithuania (who did win this round) has catched up: both teams have 9 points.
And further, Spain (8 points) and even Norway (7 points) can still hope to climb in B-league !
Hitchcocks's suspense thus ! :-)

Results of the round here: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/787
Standings: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

In the 5th round of the European Team Championshipon played on 22/03, Belgium team (Lucas +, Jan Ramon -, Lucman Bounoider - and Sven Cuyt +) made (only) a draw against Ireland (2-2).

Belgium remains leader, 2 points ahead of Lithuania, with still 2 rounds to play.

Results of the round here: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/786
Standings: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

NB: in 1st division, Russian team has been excluded (decision of the EGF/IGF).

Belgian team won once again (Lucas Neirynck +, Jan Ramon +, Lucman Bounoider +, Gabriel Mercier -), this time against the most direct concurrent, Lithuania (for the 1st time this season, the Belgian lost a game).

Belgian dominates the C-division more than ever.

Complete results here:
3rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/785

Standings after 4 rounds:
https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

The European Grand Prix is an annual series of tournaments with the top-finishers collecting so-called “bonus points”, these tournaments include the European Championship and the Grand Slam + various international competitions held by local organizers.
The idea behind the Grand Prix is to incentivize strong European players to attend various competitions all around Europe.

The EGF invites the 16 most successful participants, who are divided into four groups of four players.
A round-robin (every one plays everyone) is played out in each group in order to determine the two players that will qualify to the knockout stage.

"Our" Lucas Neirynck was one of the 16, but was logically eliminated in the 1st stage despite a victory to Jan Prokop (6-d, CZ): he was defeated by Mateusz Surma (2-p) and Ilya Shikchine (4-p).

The usual suspects qualified for the quarters of finals, in which a big surprise was the elimination of Artem Kachanovskij (2-p) by Nikola Mitic, a mere 7-d.
The other results were: Lisy-Surma 1-0, Jabarin-Vazquez 1-0 and Shikchine-Podpera 1-0.
In semi-finals, Lisy beat Mitic and Shikchine beat Jabarin.
In final, Shikchine won, proving once again he is definitively the strongest European player !

Belgian team goes on his impressive start in the 12th European Team Championship: our team (composed this time by Jan Ramon, Lucman Bounoider, Gabriel Mercier and Sven Cuyt) won the 3rd round on the same score as the one of the first 2 rounds: again a sweeping victory 4-0 !

Complete results here:
3rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/784

Artem Kachanovskyi (UKR, 3p) won the 2021 Grand Slam, the richest doted European competition (5.000 € for the winner), by beating in final the Frenchman Tanguy Le Calvé (FR, 1p).

Tanguy had surprisingly beaten the great favourite Ilya Shikchine (RUS, 4p), 8 times European champion, in semi-final !
(in the 1st round, Tanguy had eliminated Alexander Dinerstein, 7 times European champion; and in 2nd round / quarters of finals, Pavol Lisy, 1 time European champion).

Ilya did win the little final against Mateusz Surma (PL, 2p).

Here are the results: https://www.eurogofed.org/grandprix/grandslam2021.html

The club of Ath has won the 2021 interclubs season, ahead of last year winner, Leuven.

Five clubs had registered at the beginning of the year, but after just one round Brussels-Pantin dropped off (without officially notifying the organizers). Finally, this club was given a general forfeit.

Here is the final standing:
1. Ath 6 pts
2. Leuven 5 pts
3. Brussels - Phenix 4 pts
4. Gent 3 pts

And here are the results of each round: https://www.gofed.be/node/1242

10 years after the last edition of the Belgian Rengo Championship, it was high time to resurrect it. This year the tournament took place on Sunday 19 December, on which day we saw 4 pairs battling it out for eternal glory, and also for the title of 2021 Belgian Rengo Champions:

Sven Cuyt (1d) and Gints Engelen (2k)
Naomi Bensel (4k) and Yvan Nollet (4k)
Raoul Richard (6k) and Umut Inal (8k)
Thomas Lemaire (6k) and Guillaume Jouret (8k)

Despite the arguably high stakes, the tournament unfolded as a rather jolly affair: every 10 minutes or so the sound of ticking clocks would be interrupted by fits of laughter at one of the tables. Most participants not having had much Rengo practice during the pandemic, the question "is it my turn" resounded countless times. Sometimes, when a group was on the verge of dying, a prayer to the Go'ds could be heard (specifically: by the player whose turn it was not).

In all this merriment, 3 rounds were played. At the end, Sven Cuyt (1d) and Gints Engelen (2k) found themselves undefeated and thus became the 2021 Belgian Rengo Champions!

Here are the full results:

ROUND 1:
Raoul Richard and Umut Inal - Thomas Lemaire and Guillaume Jouret
Sven Cuyt and Gints Engelen - Naomi Bensel and Yvan Nollet (1)

ROUND 2:
Raoul Richard and Umut Inal (4) - Sven Cuyt and Gints Engelen
Thomas Lemaire and Guillaume Jouret (1) - Naomi Bensel and Yvan Nollet

ROUND 3:
Raoul Richard and Umut Inal (1) - Naomi Bensel and Yvan Nollet
Sven Cuyt and Gints Engelen - Thomas Lemaire and Guillaume Jouret (4)

Favourite Ilya Shikchine (RU, 4-p) became European Champion this year.
He defeated Artem Kachanovskii (UK, 3-p) in final (2-0).

Ali Jabarin (IL, 2-p) won the "little final" against Pavol Lisy (SK, 2-p) to take the bronze medal.

It is his 8 European title (Ilya has already been European champion in 2007, 2010, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2019 and in 2020). He equalizes the record of late Jürgen Mattern (DE, 6-d) (who has been also 8 times European champion, in the 60's and the 70's).

Completed results: https://www.eurogofed.org/egc/2021.html

PS: in the preliminary rounds (4 pools of 4 players), Lucas Neirynck (BE, 6-d) won against the European rising star, Oscar Vazquez (SP, 6-d), but later lost to Jonas Welticke (DE, 6-d) and to Dusan Mitic (SR, 7-d)...and was eliminated.