GROENEN & BROUWER TIE IN DUTCH CHAMPS: Geert Groenen 6d and Peter Brouwer 5d tied for the Dutch title after the final rounds of the Championship, which were played last weekend at the European Go Center near Amsterdam. The winner will be decided in a best-of-three play-off in the Spring. Last year Groenen lost the play-off, while Brouwer took bronze on his first try for the title. EuroGoTV plans to publish a collection of the Dutch Championship games with commentary by Guo Juan 5P. Four other players shared third place while four more kept their seats in the finals for next year. “I am both proud and happy,” said event co-organizer Herman Hiddema, “I kept my place for next year in my first appearance in the finals.” The Women’s and Youth Championships were also held last weekend and for the fourth year in a row Anne van Leeuwen 1k swept 5-0, besting a 12-player field. This year top-youth Alexander Eerbeek 3d had qualified for the main final, where he won three of his eight games; all his losses were to top-rated players. Yuki de Groot won the kid’s title. The side event was won by Rudi Verhagen 5d, who usually is in the main tournament and was the first reserve player this year. Click here for results in the main and the women’s.
– Peter Dijkema
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GROENEN DENIES POMSTRA BID FOR 5TH WIN AT HEERLEN OPEN: Geert Groenen denied Willem-Koen Pomstra’s bid for a fifth win at the Heerlen Open January 9-10 in Holland. Groenen topped the 20th Open, the traditional opener of the new year, winning the deciding match with Willem-Koen Pomstra, who had won the last four. By tradition, the tournament is held in an old bar, which serves a wide variety of beers in the old center of town. 32 participants from 6 countries attended.
POCSAI-PALOGH CORNER MARKET ON HUNGARIAN TITLE GOLD: Dynamic duo Rita Pocsai 4d and Pál Balogh 6d have added the Hungarian Pair Go title to their collection of titles, winning in Budapest on January 30. Pocsai is the Hungarian Women’s Champion and Balogh is the Hungarian Men’s Champion. The pair seem set to bid for a place on the podium in the next Euro-Championships to challenge the rule of Russians. The Youth and Kid’s titles were at stake at the same event and “Despite very bad snow, still nine showed up” Peter Korossy told the E-Journal. Domonkos Albrecht kept his Hungarian Youth title and Róbert Czismadia – who took 4th at last year’s European Championships (EC) — retained his Children’s title. Both will play in the next EC in Romania in March. Click here for results in the Youth and Children’s tourneys In the Hungarian league, held a day earlier in Budapest, both leaders won in the penultimate 6th round. Teams of three play handicap mini-matches of three games each. Origo easily won 8-1, but MGE1 had a hard match, with double-digit Agro which was third: 5-4. Even on match-points, Origo now leads MGE1 by a win and a jigo, but they face tough Agro, while MGE1 meet Sanrensei. The last round will be played in the next fortnight; click here for complete league results full league table.
– Peter Dijkema, based on reports by Peter Korossy
KACHANOVSKIJ WINS FIRST KGS INSEI LEAGUE: Artem Kachanovskiy (Artem92), a young – barely 17 — player from the Ukraine, won the A-division of the first Insei competition on KGS (KILL), run by Alex Dinerchtein, which ended January 31. Kachanovskiy defeated early leader ‘j13’ (Finland) 4-0 and was best as well against both teachers: 3-5. His over-all 10-5 (67%) beat j13’s 19-11 (63%), while ‘danigabi’ (Argentina) was 3rd with 9-7 (56%). From France ‘ha’ had entered with the weakest KGS ranking, but he was the first to defeat both trainers and finished fourth. As expected, the teachers did best: Dinerchtein 21-2 and Ilya Shiksin 22-5, despite playing simuls with four or five players at a time. Losses to teachers will no longer count for the winning percentage in the new League, which begins this month. The KILL B-league was won by ‘snowbars’ (Russia) 14-6, despite his 1-3 to ‘feature’ (Germany) 11-5, while “Monestri’ (US) was third with 6-3. Other US-players ‘burrito’ and ‘clossius’ incurred many losses to the teachers, who had perfect scores. ‘lemurov’ (RU) swept the C-league 10-0, ahead of ‘silentfear’ from France and ‘Sinprejic’ (US). US ‘BANKER’ was on even with his concurrence 12-12 but lost 5 to the trainers. ‘Grimalkin’ won only a few games. Despite a loss to US ‘will122166’ 11-10, ‘benwahwah’ won the D league 8-5, and ‘Protronics’ (Norway) won E league, with only a loss less then ímagine’ from Turkey, who scored 13-11, while ‘skyboytkd9’ was 3rd with 4-4. For next month, Dinerchtein also announced the new KIEL, the Entrance League to select for E-division. KIEL costs less, but comes with less lessons. A bonus round after the league caused a sensation when the most active players from each league were invited to a simul against Cho Mikyung 1P. Only ‘j13’ won. Watch the game here.
– Peter Dijkema
KACHANOVSKIY, SIMARA, PROKOPOVA TO STUDENT OZA: Artem Kachanowskiy 6d (Ukraine), Jan Simara 5d and Anna Prokopova 1k (both Czech) qualified for the World Student Oza in Japan, later this year. The qualifiers were held for the first time on KGS.
GRABOWSKI STEPS DOWN AS POLISH RATINGS MASTER: After more than 30 years running the Polish rating list, aka ‘Grabolka’, Krzysztof Grabowski resigned on January 1, although he has retained his place at the EGF rating commission. In addition to three decades of running Polish ratings, Grabowski says he proudest of a Kansai Kiin 3-dan diploma signed by their top three 9-dan professionals, Hashimoto Utaru, Shoji and Sekiyama Toshio in 1990. “Perhaps my greatest joy were the Pair Go tourneys during several Polish summer camps.” Grabowski was named the third honorary member of the Polish Go Association, after Tozawa Akinobu 9p and Janusz Kraszek 6d.
– Peter Dijkema
An important indication of superiority among go professionals is their winning percentage, especially among the most active players. Here is a rundown for 2009. Gu Li 9P of China was the player with the most wins in international events, winning eighteen and losing seven for a winning rate of 72%. Second in number of wins was fellow Chinese Qiu Jun 9P with 17-8 for a 68% rate. Third was Heo Yeongho 6P of Korea whose 16-4 record gave him an amazing 80% win rate. Not surprisingly, the top twenty international event winners are all either Chinese (9) or Korean (12): nine Chinese and twelve Koreans (a six-way tie for 16th makes the total twenty-one).
In 2008, Gu Li was third behind Lee Sedol 9P and Lee Changho 9P of Korea, but Gu’s winning percentage was higher: 82% vs. 75% and 74%.
Kong Jie 9P is the top winner for 2009 in China: 47-20 for a 70% rate.