Belgian Go Federation

We are very happy to announce the birth of a new Go club in the College Matteo Ricci.

Go clubs in schools are not new and this activity is developing progressively and steadily in Belgium.
The club has started a couple of weeks ago and has around 20 players.
Most of the other Go clubs in the secondary education domain are handled by teachers (often math teachers...). Here it's the first time we have a club created by a student: Adam Beguin - who also plays in the Phenix Go club.

We wish the Go club of the College Matteo Ricci to be successful in enlightening the spirit of its players !

Note: by chance, Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionaire (1552-1610) who lived in China has been the first Westerner to report about the existence of the game of go (weichi) !

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As a reminder, the Federation helps the creation of new Go clubs with material and advice.
In the case there is no Go club nearby, if you feel you have the motivation for it, we would be happy to help you to start one. And even if you don't have much time (or are a bit lazy ;)) you may also become a "point of contact". In any case just contact us. ;)

Chinese female 5-d JiaHui Chen won unbeaten the 36th edition of Brussels tournament, ahead of the favourite, Zihan Yan (CH, 6d).
JinMing He (CH, 3d) completed this all-Chinese podium.

Best Belgian players were Sven Cuyt (4th) and Gabriel Mercier (5th), both with 3/5, while last year's winner, Lucman Bounoider ended 6th with a 2/5 score.

There were 52 participants.

JiaHui Chen was the only unbeaten participant. Players with 4 wins were: Renaud Gaban (3-k), Jonathan Pittonet (4-k), Kenny Bebacq (5-k), Thomas Lemaire (8-k), Eric Baijot (10-k), Gaëtan De Menten (12-k), Marie Evrard (14-k) and Léo Guillaume (18-k). Congratulations to them !

Complete results: https://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T221029O

The Korean Prime Minister Cup is the Korean version of the World Amateur Championship.

The 2022 has been won by 1. Jung-Sun KIM (Korea), who ended unbeaten (but in absence of representative from China).
Five competitors got a 5/6 score: in the order after tie-breaker:
2. Yu-Chang LAI (Taïwan),
3. Minoru OZEKI (Japan)
4. (best European and best Westerner) Rob Van Zeijst (Netherlands) (who is nearly 60 years old)
followed by the representative of 5. Vietnam and of 6. New-Zeeland.

Our representative was Lucas Neirynck, who ended 22th out of a field of 52 competitors, with a 3/6 score and rather expected results: + against Iran, Columbia and Finland; - against Japan, New-Zeeland and France.

Completed results here: http://kpmc.kbaduk.or.kr/eng/result/gameTable.asp

Frenchman Benjamin Dréan-Guénaïzia (6-d) is the 2022 European champion.
He won (rather surprisingly) the final against the great favourite (in absence of Russian Ilya Shikchine), Ukranian Artem Kachanovskij (2-p).
Frederick Blomback (Sweden, 6-d) won the small final against Serbian Nikola Mitic (7-d).

Artem is suffering the "Raymond Poulidor's syndrome": up till now, he has never been European champion. He was finalist in 2022, 2021 and 2019, and semi-finalist in 2020 and 2017.

Complete results of the European Championship: https://www.eurogofed.org/egc/2022.html

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The Korean professional Won Jin Choi (1-p) won unbeaten the open tournament, ahead of his countrymen Kim Yuchan (another 1-p) (9 wins out of 10 rounds) and Kim Dohyup (7-d) (with 8/10).
Chinese Yang Yaolin ("5-d") ended 4th with 7 wins.
Best European is Stanislaw Frejlak (PL, 1-p), 6th with 6 wins.
To be noticed: the great performance of the young Italian (16 years old) Davide Bernardis ("4-d") who ended 8th with 6 wins (he beat a Korean 7-d and Cornel Burzo, 6-d).
And also the good results by our 2 Belgian participants: Sven Cuyt, 3/4 as a 2-d and Wouter Baert, 4/5 as a 8-k. Congratulations to them.

Complete results of the open tournament: https://egc2022.ro/main-wallist/

Young teenagers Kevin Yang and Alexander Qi topped a competitive field at the North American Go Federation’s (NAGF) 2022 Pro Qualification tournament and were granted the pro statute in the American Go Association.

Both are 14 years old ...and have learned to play just 5 years ago !

F.i. Kevin Yang reached shodan by October 2019 and jumped to 7d in August 2021 (and thus pro in June 2022).

Kevin's score against European pro players in a recent on-line competition (https://www.eurogofed.org/pros/league/transatlantic2.html) is amazing: 10 wins, 1 defeat !

I wonder whether such quick progressions have already been seen before, even in Asia (?).

Sven Cuyt (1-d), our rising star and Belgian champion, has won the 2022 edition of the tournament of Ghent.
He remained undefeated, ahead of the dutch Martin Bierbooms (2-d), Bram Vandenbon (2-d), Dominique Versyck (2-d) and the winner of the Belgian Championship Haisen Huang (2-d).
There were 13 participants.
Complete results here: https://www.gofed.be/webfm_send/589

Come and enjoy !
https://www.gofed.be/node/1325

For this 2022 edition, the final of the Belgian championship was again played in the Belgium-China association.

The championship was marked by a disappointing number of participants (not even 8 members were registered at the start) and last minute forfeits of Lucas and Gints (Gints was still able to play half the tournament) because of Covid restrictions.

But also, this edition was full of suspense and surprising results, especially as the best ranked and thus favorite Thomas Connor got eliminated after Sven managed to claim victory against him twice, once by just half a point!

And finally in the end it's Yong Sen Huang who wins the final against Sven after a sharp game ending with a deadly Ko.

Here is the final standings:
1. Yong Sen Huang (1d)
2. Sven Cuyt (1d)
3. Thomas Connor (4d)
4. Gints Engelen (1k)
5. Joost Vannieuwenhuyse (2k)
6. Guy Dusausoy (4k)

Thanks to everyone to have made this event exciting and congratulation to the winner Yong Sen Huang!

As Yong Sen Huang is not a Belgian citizen, Sven Cuyt is the 2022 champion of Belgium. Congratulation to him also !

The Ghent Go Tournament is back. More Info.

Register here.

Haisen Huang (aka Huang Yongsen) (1-d) won the 32th edition of the tournament of Leuven, ahead of Sven Cuyt (1-d), both with 4 wins.
Gints Engelen (2-k) took the bronze medail and Marie Jemine (1-d), back to a tournament after a long absence, took 4th place.
There were 28 participants.
Complete results here: https://www.gofed.be/tournament/results?tournament=LEU&year=2022