Results

International Amateur Pair Go Championship: Korea wins, Belgium participated

The Korean pair (Kim Sooyoun 6d and Park JongWook 7d) won the 27th International Pair Go Championship, ahead of the Taïwanese couple and the Chinese duo.

Best European pair was Hungary (Rita Pocsai 4d and Pal Balogh 6d), who ended 7th.

This year, Belgium was invited.
Our representatives were Marie Jemine 1k and Vincent Lochen 5k. They managed to win against Argentina before being paired against (too) strong opponents.

Complete results here: http://www.pairgo.or.jp/amateur/27th/players/results_e.htm

AlphaGo - Lee Setol: Commentary of the 5 games

Read here very interesting commentary by Fan Hui of the 5 games of the match between Lee Setol and AlphaGo...

https://deepmind.com/research/alphago/alphago-games-english/

Preliminaries Belgian Championship 2017: the favourites made their way to for the final rounds

The participating "big shots" (Bram Vandenbon, 2-dan; Nelis Vets, 2-dan and Kwinten Missiaen, 3-dan) made their way to the final rounds as expected.

Outsiders Joost Vannieuwenhuyse (2-k) and Steven Foulon (4-k) took their chance and also qualified theirselves.

These 5 competitors will join the 5 already qualified players: Lucas Neirynck, François Gonze, Gabriel Mercier, Kevin Prist and Jan Ramon in the final rounds in Mars.

Unlucky Joris Oren (1-k)ended as 6th and is thus 1st reserve.

There were 10 competitors.

PS: surprisingly, Thomas Connor (Belgian champion in 2015) did not participate...

Complete results here: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tournament_Card.php?&key=T161126F

Human revenge over computer: Cho Chi Kun won his match against Zen (2-1).

Cho Chi Kun managed to win his match against the computer "Zen" by 2-1.

More info here:
http://rfg.jeudego.org/item/287-match-entre-cho-chikun-9p-et-le-logiciel...

(not yet updated with the 3rd game, which is commented here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments/5eg1iw/cho_chikun_vs_deep_zen_go...

Meanwhile, I read "Zen" has climbed to nr 1 on KGS.

4th round of the European Team Championship: Belgium - Switzerland 2-2

On 22th of November, Belgium (Gerald +, Lucas -, Nelis +, Gabriel -) obtained its 1st point by making a draw against Switzerland.

Note the reinforcement by Gerald Westhoff (ex-European top Dutch player, now living in Ghent) and the defeat of Lucas by a tiny 2,5 pts...

Detail of the round here:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/345

Present standings here:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

We are in the red zone (with a risk of demotion to the C league), but there are still many rounds to come...

3rd round European Team Championship: Belgium - Italy 1-3

On 1st of November, Belgian team (Lucas -, Jan +, Kwinten -, Nelis -) lost...for the 3rd time consecutively :-(.
This time against Italy.

Detail of the round here:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/344

2nd round Europa Team Championship: Belgium - Austria 1-3

On 11/10, Belgian team (Lucas lost against Viktor Lin, Kwinten -, Nelis - , Gabriel +) lost against Austria 1-3 :-)

Complete results here:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/343

Present standings:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

1st round European Team Championship 2016-17: Belgium - United Kingdom 1-3

Despite reinforcement of the Belgian team by Gerald Westhoff (NL, 6d), an European star of the 90's now living in Belgium, our team lost to UK by 1-3.

Played for Belgium: Gerald (lost), Lucas (won), Nelis (lost) and Gabriel (lost, by 1,5 pt).

Complete results here:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/rounds/342

Present standings:
http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

Best publicly available software is now 6-d strengh

Since 3 years, a match (of 5 games) has been organized between the strongest commercially available software and a top European amateur player.

Up till now the human (Franz-Josef Dickhut, D, 6d) had triumphed against the machine/s ("Crazy Stones" in 2014; "Zen" in 2015), both times by 3-1).

But this year, "Zen" beats Lukas Krämer (D, 6d, German champion in 2013, 2014 and 2015) also by 3-1.

This is a new milestone in Computer-go because "Zen" (unlike "Alpha Go") is a publicly available go programs running on regular hardware...

More info here: https://go.codecentric.de/

Young (16) Chinese amateur star Rundong Yang wins 2016 KPMC (Korean Prime Minister Cup)

Young Chinese Rundong Yang wins 2016 KPMC (Korean Prime Minister Cup)
(the Korean version of the World Amateur Go Championship, also called "the little WAGC").
He was the only undefeated player (6/6).

Four other players ended with one defeat: Yu-Cheng Lai (7d, TW), Kim Heesoo (7d, insei, KR), and the representatives of Canada and Thaïland (in this order).
Best player with 4 wins is the Japanese player, just ahead of best European, Jan Hora (CZ, 6d).

"Our guy" was this year Gabriel Mercier.
He did great: with 4 victories, he ends 20th out of a field of 54 participants.

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

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