PAL BALOGH LEADS PANDANET RANKINGS: Pal Balogh leads the current Pandanet rankings at January 1 with 55 points from five tournaments. In the top ten, players from Central Europe dominate: Ondrej Silt with 41 points (5, CZ), Christian Pop 37 (3, RO), Mero Csaba 36 (4, HU), Nikola Mitic 33 (4, RS) and Jan Simara 30 (4, CZ). Young Vanessa Wong (UK) shares 7th with veteran Vladimir Danek (CZ) 17 and Herman Hiddema (NL) shared 9th with Zou Jin (DE) 15. The Pandanet season runs until Easter, closing with the Paris Open, which leaves just four events to go. Click here for the full table.
TERWEY TAKES ESSEN: Matthis Terwey 4D (l in photo at right) of Münster won in Essen on SOS in the opener of the year January 9-10 in Germany, ahead of Lukas Krämer 4D (Bonn), who defeated him in the last round. Despite the snow, a field of 79 turned out. Only Ingmar Schwarz 3k of Dortmund went undefeated 5-0. Click here for results.
FLORESCU WINS JUBILEE JAC IN BUCHAREST: Ion Florescu 6d edged out Cornel Burzo 6d and Cristian Pop 7d in the December 11-12 Japanese Ambassador Cup, held in Bucharest’s National Theatre. All three are from Romania and were former insei in Japan. The special event was organized to celebrate the jubilee anniversary of relations with Japan. Although this year the event was open to foreign guests, just a handful participated, including three Hungarians –Csaba Mero 6d finished fourth with 4-2 and Pal Balogh 6d fifth with 3-3 — two Greek, one Dutch, French and Swiss in the field of 135. A detailed report with videos is available in the news archive (dated Fri 11 Dec) on EuroGoTv.com. Click here for results. photo: winner Ion Florescu (r) with Pal Balogh; photo by Judith van Dam.
FAN SWEEPS LILLE PANDANET: Fan Hui 8d comfortably swept the Pandanet in Lille December 12-13. Female players dominated the rest of the podium, with Li Ting 6d from Vienna (Austria) losing only to him and French Champion Zhang Yanqi to them both. French Youth Champ Thomas Debarre 5d lost to the top three to finish fourth. From the best seven, only young (14y) Vanessa Wong (4d, 6th) didn’t meet Fan. Local hero Lucien Laks 2d had the honor to face Fan for his last game. Despite excellent high-speed rail connections to both Belgium and London, only a few foreigners were among the 75 participants: a handful of Belgians and 2 Brits (Vanessa and her family-member Julius 2d). In Lille many did well with 4-1, but only Sylvain Benesteau 11k (Paris) and local Xavier Seguin 18k remained undefeated in all five rounds. Click here for results.
– reports by Peter Dijkema, EJ European Correspondent, from reports on EuroGoTV.com
CORRECTION: The MoGo games were held in Cadiz, southern Spain, not Barcelona, as reported last week. Thanks to Gregorio Morales, Spanish Go Association (AEGO) member and former President, for the catch.
