American Go E-Journal » Europe

Seong-Jin Kim 8d won the EGCC 25th Anniversary Tournament, held October 21-22 at the European Go Cultural Centre (EGCC) in Amstelveen, the Netherlands. The tournament was the centerpiece of the Center’s 25th anniversary celebrations, which included a series of events held October 20-22, from a European Go Teachers’ Day to simuls and an evening reception.

The festivities began on Friday morning, October 20, with a full day of seminars, discussion, presentations and brainstorming by eighteen go teachers from seven different countries. Rob van Zeijst and Kalli Balduin organized the session, which featured topics like the professionalization of Western go education, the mindset of the teacher and his students, the do’s and don’ts of go teaching, obstacles for go teachers and how to overcome them, and the everlasting question “how to best promote our sport?”

A reception Friday night was highlighted by distinguished guests, including Hiroshi Yamashiro, vice-president of the Nihon Ki-in, Setsuko Kawahara, minister of the Embassy of Japan in the Netherlands, Maaike van Veeningen, alderman of the city of Amstelveen, Kenji Saito, chairman of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce (JCC) in the Netherlands, Martin Stiassny, president of the European Go Federation and Han Ellenbroek, president of the Dutch Go Association.

The EGCC Anniversary Go Tournament ran Saturday and Sunday, October 21-22, and was preceded by the work of three fanatics who cleaned all the EGCC’s go equipment, a long overdue task. Michał Łukasiewicz, Justyna Klęczar and Kim Ouweleen took several days to clean the Center’s 54 kaya and katsura go boards, as well as thousands of slate and shell go stones (left) and their bowls. On Saturday evening, after an Indonesian style dinner, participants had their choice of several fun side events, including simuls with Artem Kachanovskyi 1p, Cătălin Țăranu 5p, Seong-jin Kim 8d (top right) and Stanisław Frejlak 6d.
– adapted from a report by Kim Ouweleen. Click here for complete tournament results. photos by Judith van Dam (EuroGoTV); report edited by Chris Garlock

A Grand Slam tournament is the top level tournament in the European Go Federation’s Grand Prix, and the only level for which special pre-qualification conditions exist. The first such of 2017 took place in Berlin, starting on the 28th of April, and running for 4 days, the event saw 12 of the strongest European players battle it out for a 10,000 euro prize. The winner of the event was Artem Kachanovskyi (1p) who comes from Ukraine, he beat the Russian player Alexander Dinerchtein (3p) in the final by a margin of 5.5 points. Amusingly, before the event Alexander stated that Artem was the only opponent he felt he would be unable to defeat. Slovakia’s Pavol Lisy (1p) won the play-off for third place, defeating Ilya Shikshin (1p). You can see the full results here.

At the same time, a team tournament was running – the China Cup Berlin. This event was won by deceptively titled “Losers without Borders” (Dominik Boviz (6d), Thomas Debarre (6d), Nikola Mitic (6d)), a team made up of players who were knocked out of the Grand Slam on day 1. They finished ahead of second place “Team Berlin” (Johannes Obenaus(6d), Kim Seongjin(8d), Xu Yin(6d), Zhang Yi(5d)), and third place “The Dudes” (Cristian Pop(7d), Catalin Taranu(5p), Cornel Burzo(6d)). Full reports of both events are available here and here. There will be a second Grand Slam event in Warsaw this year.

The 2017 Irish Confucius Cup took place in Dublin on the weekend of March 4-5. It was the most diverse tournament ever in Ireland, with players coming from 15 different countries. It was also the strongest ever tournament held in Ireland, with 2 European professionals competing, and the top group bar set at 6d. 3 Chinese professionals were also in attendance to give commentaries: Guo Juan 5p (who was also sponsoring the event), Yu Ping 2p, and Chen Rui 5p. Taking first place in the 5-round event was Kim Seong-Jin 7d, who edged out second placed Pavol Lisy 1p by half a point in their round 3 encounter. On 3 wins and taking third place was Mateusz Surma 1p, edging out on tiebreak Csaba Mero 6d. Lower down the field, other players also had outstanding performances, for example Sona Smolarikova 3k picked up 5 wins out of . Players on 4 wins included Julien Renaud 2d, Alec Delogu 2d, Marianna Szychowiak 10k, and Colin Lafferty 13k. The tournament was directed and organised by Rory Wales, with a great deal of assistance and co-operation from the University College Dublin Confucius Institute. The final standings are published here and full details of the tournament and sponsors can be seen here.
– Ian Davis

Go is getting some interesting exposure in Vienna, Austria, reports Christian Palmers. At left is a go sculpture installed last December, while at right is a touchscreen go-table, designed and programmed by Daniel Bösze from Vienna.  Vienna’s go players — or “gospielers” — play at the Go7 go center.   

Early bird rates for this year’s European Go Congress  apply until February 15. “This year it does not clash with the US Congress, so you can actually enjoy both!” says Michael Marz, President of the German Go Federation. The EGC will be held in Oberhof, Germany July 22-August 6; check out a brief video here. Marz also reports that the makers of ‘Go — The Surrounding Game’  will show their movie in the EGC Cinema as a European premiere.