Belgian Go Federation

Starting from March 21, the EGF professionals (except Surma) play in an online league at https://online-go.com/ every Saturday and Sunday at 18:00 CET/CEST. One match is played per day: a single pair of participants will play a two game match, switching colours in the second game. Another participant will comment these games live on the EGF Twitch channel.
Tournament system: Round-robin, "best of 2" in each match (2 games with alternating colors).

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

Onze Noorderburen lanceren een mooi initiatief: een "Nederlandse Internet Go Competitie (NiGC)" die de organisatoren ook voor alle Belgische spelers willen openstellen. De server wordt uitgerust met een chatmodus zodat spelers met elkaar kunnen praten en / of commentaar kunnen geven op hun partijen. De voertaal zal nederlands zijn.
Meer info en aanmelden: www.nigc.nl.

The tournament system is "arena" tournament. Each round there is a game: one player from each team.
Each team is composed by 10 players, ranked in order of increasing strength. The loser is eliminated, while the winner keeps playing in the next round. The tournament is over when one of the teams has no players anymore. The Chinese team consists of strong amateur players (some of them - top amateurs, world champions). Our European team has a few pros, the rest are strong amateurs.
More info here: https://www.eurogofed.org/1st-china-europe-match/

On 03/03/2020, Belgium team, composed by Lucas Neirinck (+), Gabriel Mercier (-), Nelis Vets (-) and Joost Vannieuwenhuyse (-) was beaten by Turkey 1-3 in the 7th round of the ETPC.

Results: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/597

Belgium is presently 4th out of 10 teams, but there are only 2 points difference between us and Netherlands, who is 9th...and who will be our next opponent in April.

Standings after the 7th round: https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps (extreme right on the screen).

A nice initiative by Lukas Podpera (CZ): https://www.eurogofed.org/tm/files/tournaments/Corona%20Cup%202020%20-%2...
More than 350 participants, among whom plenty of pro and strong amateurs (# 24)
Results here: https://goweb.cz/turnaj/corona-cup-2020/

The 2020 festivals season will start soon with a few important events in Bruxelles.

--> The Made in Asia festival is postponed to September (see below) because of Corona virus.

EPFC - Enseignement de Promotion et Formation Continue

https://www.epfc.eu
CANCELLED
Avenue de l’Astronomie, 19 - 1210 Bruxelles

Bruxelles Games Festival

https://brusselsgamesfestival.be/en/
CANCELLED
Parc du Cinquantenaire - Brussels

Made In Asia

https://www.madeinasia.be
Friday 4 September 12:00 – Sunday 6 September 18:00
Brussels Expo - Laeken

I Love Science Festival

https://ilovescience.brussels/en/practical-information
Friday 13 Novembre 9:00 → Sunday 15 Novembre 18:00
Brussels Expo (Palais 1) - Laeken

The Belgian Go Federation will be there in these festivals to present the game of Go and play many mini-board games with festival visitors.
To participate, you don’t need to be of very high level, but enthusiasm and a bit of preparation for presentation and pedagogy is needed.

If interested, your help would be very welcome: then please take contact with secretary@gofed.be.
We will need a minimum of 3-4 volunteers every day.

Leuven is the second tournament by order of importance (behind Brussels):

Info and registration: https://www.gofed.be/en/tournament/leuven.

In two weeks on the weekend of the 30th November we hold the Preliminaries of the Belgian Championship. In this 7 round tournament the 4 best placed players qualify for the Belgian Championship Finals were they will be joined with 4 best placed players from the finals of 2019. The tournament is open to all members of the BGF and only to members.

Unfortunately a definitive location has yet to be decided, hopefully we can bring you news on this soon.

You can register by sending a mail to board@gofed.be stating your name, club and level.

More info

(tekst in NL hieronder; text in English hereunder)

Le congrès européen de go constitue l'événement majeur de la vie du go en Europe.

Il rassemblera plus de 600 joueurs à Bruxelles pendant 2 semaines, du 19 juillet au 3 août !

Le congrès, c'est, avant tout, le plus grand tournoi "open" d'Europe, en 10 rondes.

C'est aussi le championnat d'Europe - réservé à l'élite des Européens - qui désignera le champion d'Europe 2019;
ainsi que la phase finale du championnat d'Europe des Nations.

C'est, par ailleurs, maints tournois annexes moins formels: parties rapides, "rengos", 9*9, pour enfants,...

C'est enfin, des cours, des parties commentées, des parties simultanées animés par des joueurs professionnels (plus de 20 seront à votre disposition tous les jours !) sans oublier quantité d'événements connexes en soirée, plus funs les uns que les autres.

Plus d'information ici: http://egc2019.eu/

PS: nous avons besoin de volontaires (belges) pour aider à l'organisation. Si vous êtes disponible, ne fût-ce pour quelques heures, contactez-nous via: volunteers@egc2019. Merci d'avance.

***

(text in English hereunder)

Het Europese go congres is het hoogtepunt van het Europese go-jaar en hiervoor zullen meer dan 600 spelers zich verzamelen gedurende twee weken, van 19 juli tot 4 augustus!

Het congres is vooral het grootste “open” tornooi van Europa met tien rondes.

Het is ook het Europees kampioenschap, gereserveerd voor de Europese elite, waarmee de Europese kampioen 2019 zal aangeduid worden, alsook de eindronde van het Europees landenkampioenschap.

Daarnaast zijn er ook nog talrijke minder formele neventornooien: rapid partijen, “rengo”, 9*9, kinderen,..

Er zijn ook lessen, becommentarieerde partijen, simultaanpartijen door professionele spelers (> 20 zullen elke dag tot jullie beschikking zijn!) zonder alle randactiviteiten tijdens de avond te vergeten, sommige nog prettiger dan de andere.

Meer info op: http://egc2019.eu/

PS: wij zoeken naar (Belgische) vrijwillers om mee te helpen.
Als U bereid bent om een te zijn, contact ons via: volunteers@egc2019. Wij danken U bij voorbaat.

***

The European Go Congress is the biggest go event one in Europe and there will be more than 600 participants this year, between 19th of July and 04th of August.

The EGC if at first the biggest open Go tournament in Europe, 10 rounds tournament open to everyone.

Also, it's the place of the European Championship Final, only for best European players ! Along with this, there is the European Team Go Championship Final.

Furthermore, there is a lot of smaller and informal tournaments such as rapid tournament, blitz tournament, children tournament, rengo tournament, 9x9 tournament,...

But EGC is not only about competition but also about training and entertainment so there will be commented games, free-lectures for all level players, simultaneous games with professional players (> 20 pro players available each day !) and a lot of fun or go-related activities in the evenings.

More information available here: http://egc2019.eu/

PS: any (Belgian) helping hand is welcome, even for a few hours. Ready to help us ? then contact us via: volunteers@egc2019. We thank you in advance !

More info: https://www.gofed.be/en/tournament/leuven