MARIGO RECLAIMS ITALIAN TITLE: Francesco Marigo 4d from Milano regained his Italian title, when he defeated opponent Carlo Metta 1k in his hometown Pisa twice and took the 2009 title (the first game was held last year) 3-0 on Friday, March 5. Marigo held the title from 2001-2006. Viktor Bogdanov 5d of Petrozavodsk (Russia) won the Firenze (Florence) Open, held last weekend in Colleoli, a village in the green hills of Toscany.
– Peter Dijkema, from reports by Nicoletta Corradi at www.figg.org
MARZ BEST AT BST-MEISTERSCHAFT: Manja Marz 4d of Marburg won the combined Meister(in) title of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thüringen states. Last weekend in Leipzig (Saxony) Marz stayed ahead of locals Jens Henker 4d and David Schmidt 1d . Manja is married to Micha Marz 3d, President of DGoB. Click here for results.
– Peter Dijkema, after dgob.de
GONZE GOES FOR BELGIAN TITLE: With current Belgian Champion Lucas Neirlinck 4d not defending his title, François Gonze 3d grabbed his chance. In the first weekend of the round-robin with 10 last weekend in Brussels, Gonze won all four rounds, with three close behind at 3-1: Jan Ramon 4d, Thomas Connor 3d and Pieter Beyens 2d. The second and final playoff is set for March 21-22.
– Peter Dijkema, after a report by Frank Segers at EuroGoTV.com
SURMA AND NG EURO YOUTH-CHAMPS: Mateusz Surma 4d (Poland) won the under-16 European Championship and Anson
Ng 1k (UK) took the under-12 title in Sibiu, Romania, March 4-7. Surma and Ng will represent Europe at the next Goe World Youth Championships. Mihai Valentin Serban 4d (RO) won the under-18 and Christian Pop 7d the side event over the weekend. Saijo Masataka 9P was the top special guest at the jubilee 15th Youth-EC. Next was his student Catalin Taranu 5P, now President of the Romanian Go Association and the third guest was Csaba Merö 6d (Hungary), winner of the first Youth-EC back in 1996 in Baile Felix, Romania. The three categories attracted a record number of children, 75 in the under-12, 48 in under-16 and 13 in under-18, while 40 grown-ups took part in the Open tourney. EuroGOTV broadcast video and games on KGS.
– Peter Dijkema
HWANG SNAPS UP BIG CHEESE IN HARBURG MOUSETRAP: Hwang In-seong 7d from Berlin took home the top prize in the March 6-7 “Mausefalle” (‘Mousetrap’, is German for ‘snapback’) in Hamburg-Harburg. A large field of 112 players turned out from 37 German clubs. Hwang joins current Deutscher Meister Christoph Gerlach and Benjamin Teuber as two-time winners. Only Cho Seok-bin 7d has won the Mousetrap three times. Local veteran Stefan Kaitschick 5d finished second, losing only to Hwang. Local hopeful Timo Kreuzer 1k was undefeated, as was Olaf Engel 5k from Flensburg. The former received a thick luxury go-ban as special prize for best youth, while Olga Silber 1k earned her a set of luxury stones as best woman with 4-1. Top winners got money prizes, others got books. Click here for full results.
– Peter Dijkema, after dgob.de
SILT SWEEPS IRISH CONGRESS: Ondrej Silt 6d from Czech Republic overcame the opposition of Wang Wei 7d, winner of last year’s Irish Congress in his hometown Cork. Silt won the Irish Open 5-0 in the Teachers Club at the heart of old Dublin last weekend. Wang was second, while Willem Mallon 4d and Willem-Koen Pomstra 5d (both of Holland) shared third place. Also Kim Ouweleen 2d (NL) and Quentin Mills 4d (UK) won 3 each. Click here for the full results. At the rapid handicap tourney, the Friday before, Edwin Brady 2k (UK) had best sos. Also Justyna Klaczar 3k (PL), Pomstra, Bernd Sambale 1k (D), James Hutchinson 1k (UK) and Ouweleen won 4-1. Click here for the full results.
– Peter Dijkema, after www.irish-go.org
MARIGO CAMPIONE ITALIANO: Francesco Marigo 4d from Milano regained his (2001-2006) Italian title for 2009, when he defeated his opponent Carlo Metta 1k in his hometown Pisa twice and took the title 3-0 on Friday, March 5. The first game had been last year. Viktor Bogdanov 5d of Petrozavodsk (Russia) won the Firenze (Florence) Open, held last weekend in Colleoli, a village in the green hills of Toscany.
– Peter Dijkema, from reports by Nicoletta Corradi at www.figg.org
MARZ BEST AT BST-MEISTERSCHAFT: Manja Marz 4d of Marburg won the combined Meister(in) title of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thüringen states. Last weekend in Leipzig (Saxony) she stayed ahead of locals Jens Henker 4d and David Schmidt 1d . Manja is married to Micha Marz 3d, President of DGoB. Click here for the results.
– Peter Dijkema, after dgob.de
GONZE GOES FOR BELGIAN TITLE: With current Belgian Champion Lucas Neirlinck 4d not defending his title, François Gonze 3d grabbed his chance. In the first weekend of the round-robin with 10, last weekend in Brussels, he won all 4. Three follow him at 3-1: Jan Ramon 4d, Thomas Connor 3d and Pieter Beyens 2d. Second and final part is up for March 21-22. Gonze still has to play all three at his heels.
– Peter Dijkema, after a report by Frank Segers at EuroGoTV.com
CHEN DOMINATES DRESDEN: Chen Lei 6d easily swept the 23rd Dresden tournament 5-0 on February 27-28 in Germany. Runner-up Marc Landgraf 3d lost to Chen and Thomas Hübner 3d took third. Click here for results.
– Peter Dijkema, after dgob.de
SIMEUNOVIC SWEEPS SAMAC: Zoran Simeunovic 5d swept the fifth annual tournament in Samac, Bosnia the last weekend in February. Dragan Barisic 5d, also of Bosnia, was second and Robert Jovicic 3k from Zagreb (Croatia) came in third. The other three players from Zagreb — Mato Tausan 9k, Fran Pejonic 11k and Filip Pejonic 13k also won 4-1. As Rado Babic 12k of Austria reported, the tourney featured 25 players from 8 clubs in 4 different countries. Click here for results.
– Peter Dijkema
BLOMBACK BANKS VAESTERAS: Scandinavian Champion Fredrik Blomback 5d (Stockholm) flowered at the Open Champs in Vaesteras, Sweden the last weekend of February, sweeping the event 5-0. Martin Li 5d of Falun and Charlie Akerblom 4d of Norrköping lost only to Blomback and also made the podium. Jakob Bing 2k, Robert Aahs 4k and Robin Nilsson 11k won 4-1 as well. In Vaesteras 28 took part. Click here for results.
– Peter Dijkema
MGE-1 HUNGARIAN TEAM CHAMP: The MGE-1 team, captained by György Czismadia 4d, narrowly won the Hungarian Team Title, staying half a point clear of Origo under Zoltán Fódi 1d in the final round. While Origo crushed PaGoda-2 8-1, they defeated PaGoda Agro by only 6-3; half a point more (jigo is possible with 6 komi) would have tied them with MGE-1. Winners were awarded cash prizes and champagne. The student team of PaGoda-1 — Alexandra Urban 1d, Júlia Seres 1k and Péter Markó 2d — won bronze. Click here for the detailed results.
– Peter Dijkema and Péter Korossy (Hungary)
HUNGARIAN SCHOOLKID PRELIMS: The preliminaries of the Hungarian Championship for schoolkids kicked off February 19 in Hejokeresztúr in the East of Hungary, where 45 kids played, mostly on 9×9 and 13×13. “There were lots of age groups, lots of medals, lots of happy kids,” reports Péter Korossy. The next day, 18 played round-robin in three age-groups in Pápa in the West and the following week in Szigetszenmiklós in central Hungary, 14 took part on February 26 and 24 a day later in Budapest, at the the “Rabbity Six” tourney (see last week’s news). For results, click here – for photo links, click here “The finals are up for May in Budapest, where most of Hungarian go-life is concentrated,” adds Korossy.
– Peter Dijkema and Péter Korossy (Hungary)
PARIS DECAMPS FOR SUBURBS: For many years the Paris Pandanet – played during Easter – has been held at the ancient City Hall in Paris’ 13th District. With City Hall now under renovation, the 2010 Paris tourney has been moved to the suburb of Antony and will be held April 3-5. The Paris Pandanet is the final event of the Pandanet season and with a top prize of 1000 euros, many strong players are expected to participate. To sign up, click here
– Peter Dijkema
EURO GO DATABASE TO REACH HALF A MILLION: The European Go Database lists over 26,000 players in almost 5,500 tourneys with almost half a million games as well as more than 400 game records and over 300 player pictures. Over 300 also appear in the new American Go Association Game Database. Click here for current standings.
– Peter Dijkema
MILLING, BOEHEM & HADDAD TOP AUSTIN WILDFLOWER CLASSIC: Chris Milling 4k, William Boehem 9k and Geoffrey Haddad 20k shared top honors at the March 6 Wildflower Classic in Austin, TX. The three emerged undefeated 4-0 to top the 24-player field, reports TD Andy Olsen. Photo by Steven Morris.