RAMON RULES BELGIUM: With ruling champion Lukas Neirlinck absent from the Belgian championship, François Gonze looked to be the heir apparent, comfortably leading the round-robin field 7-0. But a hungry Jan Ramon defeated Gonze in Round 8 and claimed the crown last Sunday.
– Peter Dijkema, after gofed.be
HWANG, SKIPPING AND DROPPING, WINS BERLIN ANYWAY: Despite skipping the Sunday morning round and a last-round loss to young Lukas Podpera 3d, defending champion Hwang In-seong 7d won the 11th Go to Innovation tourney in Berlin March 19-21. Zou Jin 6d of Leipzig was second with 1682 (4-4) and Lluis Oh 6d of Barcelona third 1633 (5-3), local Bernd Schütze 5d finished fourth with 1567 (5-3). Young strong emerging Czech stars included Petr Kouba 7k and Ondrej Jurasek 9k, who both won 7-1, while Martin Divis 14k had 6-2. Click here for the full results of 61 participants.
– Peter Dijkema, after dgob.de
THREE TOP CHARLEMAGNE BUT ONLY ONE GETS UKIYO-E: Willem-Koen Pomstra (r), Rudi Verhagen (both 5d) and Michiel Eijkhout 6d took the top of the table in the 37th Charlemagne (‘Keizer Karel’) tournament in Nijmegen last weekend. Last year, Eijkhout had won the challenge cup for good. The new challenge trophy is an ukiyo-e from Hakusai “The Fisherman and the Sea”. Pomstra won it for one year by a single sosos point. The first to win it three times in a row — or five times in total — can keep the trophy. Zeno van Ditzhuyzen 1k made clear he should be at least shodan with wins over both a 2-dan and Bernd Radmacher 5d. Also with 4 wins: Koen Rosendaal 2k, Yvonne Roelofs 4k and 7k’s Jeroen Landolt and Rob Friederichs. No-one of 46 won all five rounds. Click here for full results.
– Peter Dijkema and Paulus van Galen illustration tip: the ukiyo-e – see my report at EuroGoTV
WEEKEND WINNERS: In Cyprus capital Nicosia, Cyprus Champ Dimitris Regginos 1d stayed two points clear of the rest of the 10-player field over the 6-round Friendship tourney last Saturday. In Moscow on the same day, the under-18 team tourney fielded six teams of four, with the team from 50Kr victorious. In Braila 17 took part in a preliminary for the Romanian Cup on Sunday, with top-ranked favorite Adrian Becheanu 10k scoring a clear 5-0 clean sweep.
– Peter Dijkema, based on tables at EuropeanGoDatabase.eu
MARCH MADNESS UPSETS ABOUND IN KGS LEAGUE: KGS Insei A-League leader Danigabi dropped back to fourth place after losing unexpectedly to Arlequ1 from France. Fredda added another win and now leads the A-League 9-1. In division B fedor didn’t play last week and still leads 4-0, while Elvina Karlsberg is next with 10-1. More drama has erupted in C-division, where Texmurphy is in the lead after Canadian DRhazar lost one (2-1). US grumbles leads division D 2-0, ahead of Russians Lodurr (7-1) and DarkArhont (4-1), and imagine (5-2) from Turkey. Tarutius (Russia) 5-0 is on top of E with smalltree (US) 1-0.
– Peter Dijkema, after insei-league.com
ZHU CLEANT ERLANGER: Zhu Wei 3d engineered a 5-0 sweep in Erlangen at the 24th Erlanger (Germany), March 13-14, ahead of Marlon Welter of Göttingen and Thomas Kettenring from Munich (both 4-1 and also 3d). Zhu is member of Roter Stern Nürnberg (Red Star Neurenburg) team in Bundesliga top-division. Click here for full results of 49 participants.
– Peter Dijkema, after dgob.de
– Peter Dijkema, after dgob.de
