Belgian Go Federation

The 2nd Pro-qualification-tournament, which took place 6-7-8 March, selected the 2 new European pro among the "top" European (amateurs - of course) players.

These are Ilya SHIKCHIN and Mateusz SURMA
(my guess was right :-)

www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/

They join Pavol LISY and Ali JABARIN, the 2 first European "home-made" pro, who qualified trough a tough competition last year
(see: http://www.eurogofed.org/results/proq14.htm)

On Sunday 01/06 (2 PM to 6:30 PM) the BGF organises the Belgian Blitz (quick games) championship, open to and free for all members of the BGF.

More info: www.gofed.be/node/746

Following the example of the USA, and thanks to the sponsoring of a rich Chinese company, the EGF (European Go Association) has started a European pro organisation !

The 2 first European professionals will be designated among 16 candidates through 3 tournaments in May and June.

Here is the CV of the 16 candidates:
http://www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/#players

These candidates have been selected going down the European rating list, among the amateurs younger than 40 ready to try to become a pro. (for the record, here is the list of the invitated players:
http://www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/#invited)

Here is the presentation of the selection system:
http://www.eurogofed.org/proqualification/#tournaments

NB: my guess: Pavol Lisy and Mateusz Surma, who are both very young (18).

A regret: the best amateur European player, Ilya Shickchine, has declined, with 2 other "big shots" Antti Törmannen and Artem Kachanovski :-(

By now, Gu Li (China) and Lee SeTol (Korea) are commonly considered as the 2 best players in the world.
But who of them is the strongest one ?
Some sponsors succeeded in organising a jubango (a match of 10 games) to find this out. There will be about one game a month all along 2014. In November, we will know who is the n° 1 world player (well, non offically of course, but the whole go community will watch carefully this prestigious event).

More info here: http://www.gogameworld.com/2013/11/28/superstar-showdown-gu-li-vs-lee-se...

For your information: the very best European players (all are pro or 7-dan) will play an internet tournament every Monday and Thursday at 7 PM between 23/01 and 13/02...
Il will certainly be very enjoyable to watch !

http://www.wbaduk.com/event/european/players.asp

The preliminaries of the Belgian Championship 2014 will take place on November 23rd-24th, 2013. The tournament place will be Cafe Sport and Restaurant De lange trappen, both in Leuven. This tournament aims at selecting 5 Belgian go players who will join the already qualified 5 finalists of last year's edition. Participation is free but you need to be a member of the Belgian Go Federation. Best luck to all!
More details

Due to the very low number of participants registered in October, we decided to give the Student and Youth Championships another try. We reschedule them in three weeks time. The tournaments will be played on KGS from Monday 18 November on. Please follow this link for registration : http://www.gofed.be/en/tournament/youth .

To participate in this tournament, you need to be a 2013 member of the Belgian Go Association, to hold Belgian nationality, to
be under 30 and, if you are more than 19 years old, to be a full time student.

(remark: best player aged less than 20 will be the "2013 Belgian young champion").

The 2012 Belgian Pair (rengo) Championship HAS BEEN CANCELED because of lack of participants.

(as there were less than 4 teams (4 * 2 players) registrered on 06/12 !

HERE IS THE INFORMATION ABOUT THAT TOURNAMENT:
http://www.gofed.be/en/tournament/rengo

Dominik Versyk (1-d) is Belgian Blitz champion "for one more year".
With 6/7, he ended ahead of Yue Wang, 5/7, and 3 players with 4/7.
A new face, Roel Van Nyen, ended 3rd and defeated Dominik and Yue (with reduced handicap).

Here are the complete results:

1. Dominik Versyck, 1-d, 6/7
2. Yue Wang, 2-d, 5/7
3. Roel Van Nyen, 11-k, 4/7 (sodos: 13)
4. Demian Walvish, 4-k, 4/7 (sodos: 10)
5. Ci-Yiu Wong, 2-k 4/7 (sodos: 9)
6. Joost Van Nieuwenhuizen, 3-k, 3/7
7. Jean-Denis Hennebert, 5-k, 2/7
8. Erwin Cloostermans, 15-k, 0/7

Due to the low number of players registrered (only one!) to the Youth and Student Belgian Championship, it has been cancelled. The Student champion title has been attributed to Thomas Connor, the only registrered player.