Belgian Go Federation

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).

The 30th edition of the Leuven Go Tournament was won by Gabriel Mercier (2D) and Nicolas Flagothier (2D), who ended with 4 wins each and the same SOS and SODOS!

Third place was shared by Joren Oris (1k) and Sven Cuyt (1D).

Six other people managaged tot win 4 games out of 5.

Although there were no high dan players, 35 people participated in the tournament, which was organised by a new tournament director, Tom Van Doorsselaere and which saw un unusual high consumption of coffee, Duvel and cake.

Complete results: https://www.gofed.be/tournament/results?tournament=LEU&year=2020

On 04/02/2020, Belgium team, composed by Lucas Neirinck (+), Jan Ramon (+), Gabriel Mercier (+) and Nelis Vets (+), crushed the Swedish one by 4-0 in the 6th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/596

Belgium is presently 3th out of 10 teams and can dream to be promoted in A-division.

Standings after the 6th round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

Mid-Januari, Belgium team (Lucas Neirinck +, Gabriel Mercier (-), Joost Van Nieuwenhuyzen (–) et Laurent Teirlinck (+)made a draw against Finland in the 5th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/595

Belgium is presently 5th out of 10 teams.

Standings after the 5th round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

Mid-december, Belgium (Lucas Neirynck +, Jan Ramon -, Gabriel Mercier - , Nelis Vets +) made a draw against Italy in the 4th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/594

Belgium is presently 6th out of 10 teams.
Standings after the 4rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

South Korean Go master Lee Sedol, widely considered as one of the greatest Go players of the modern era and only human to score a win against AlphaGo, announced his retirement.

Lee, 36 years old, had started playing Go when he was six years old and has turned professional in 1995.

In a career spanning 24 years, Lee scored 18 victories in global competitions and 32 wins in local events.

He declared his retirement was primarily motivated by the invincibility of AI Go programs.

See this article: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20191127004800315

Info van de VRT: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2019/11/28/wereldkampioen-bordspel-go-stopt...

The club of Leuven prolongs its national title

This year, six clubs have participated.

Completed results: https://www.gofed.be/node/1140

On 19/11, despite having mobilized one of strongest possible team (Lucas 6d, François 4d, Jan 4d and Lucman 3d), Belgium has been beaten by Serbia.

Still, note the remarkable victory of Lucas - by half a point ! - against Dusan Mitic, one of the two terrible "Mitic brothers" (his brother Nikola did win, against François).

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/593

Standings after the 3rd round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen)