Foreign Tournament Report

Lucas Ye Dominates Irish Congress

Irish Go Congress
Dublin
Fri, 28 Feb - Sun, 1 Mar 2020

A player currently living in Ireland, Lucas Zhirui Ye (2d), dominated the Irish Go Congress held in Dublin at the Teachers' Club. He won both the Irish Rapid Play on the Friday evening and the Irish Open. In both he was unbeaten, adding the the five games he won to win the Cork Tournament in November, taking his run to 15 wins. The were 25 players in this year's Open. Results

A longer story with pictures is on the Irish Go website.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK Team Crushed By Strong Serbia

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 3 Mar 2020

In round 7 of the League, our team came up against the top placed team Serbia. Jon Diamond played a day early and lost, and despite playing well the other three lost too, losing the match four-zero. This result saw the team drop one place to fifth.

Bruno Poltronieri wrote: I lost to Dusan Mitic after a pretty bad misread. Overall I’m actually fairly happy with the game. I started a running fight quite early on the right side. At some point my opponent gave me a chance to trade territory at the bottom for a wall facing the top side, which I took. I think that was the wrong choice and I’m probably a bit behind here, but at least it simplified the game. I managed to cut off part of his group in the top left, but that allowed him to try something in my territory. That’s where I misread and lost big. According to Leela his attempt actually shouldn’t work, and I’d be ahead if I countered it correctly! Oh well.

Alex Kent wrote: I lost by 4.5 points to Nikola Mitic.

Last updated Wed Mar 04 2020.
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UK Beat Struggling Lithuania

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 4 Feb 2020

For the February match, the BGA team was up against a struggling Lithuania. Promoted from the C-League for this season, their team has been struggling and, with only one draw and no wins, they are sitting bottom of the B-League. As a consequence they were reluctant to turn out to play and only one board was contested in our match, with Sandy Taylor, Des Cann and Jamie Taylor having no opponents. This win moved our team up to fourth place.

Alex Kent wrote about his game against Vladas Zaleskas: I won the sole game that was played this evening. I played a more solid opening this time and got a good position where I didn't have too much to worry about. I made some slack moves on the left side and allowed my opponent's nominally weak group some breathing room (it had a potential connection to the upper-left corner), but I still got to use it as a springboard into the centre.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Daniel Hu Fourth in European Finals

European Grand Prix Finale
Leksand
Thu, 16 - Tue, 21 Jan 2020

Sixteen top European players qualified to the 3rd European Grand Prix Finale by earning qualifying points from the top European tournaments of 2019. They met up at Leksand in Sweden in January to battle over six rounds, starting with four-player groups, followed by a knock-out stage.

Daniel Hu's great result at the London Open meant he could take part and he had an excellent tournament. He topped Group D, beating two pros, Pavol Lisy and Tanguy Le Calvé, but losing to Stanislaw Frejlak of Poland. He then beat France's Benjamin Dréan-Guénaïzia to reach the semi-finals. This he lost to the Ukrainian pro Artem Kachanovskyi, then he lost again to Stanislaw Frejlak in the play-off to end fourth.

Last updated Tue Feb 04 2020.
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Team Loses to Switzerland

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 14 Jan 2020

In the fifth match of the season, our team lost against Switzerland, dropping to sixth position in the B-League.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my marathon game against Fabien Lips by resignation. It started with a fight from a modern double approach joseki, which got even more complicated when I thought my centre group was strong enough to make an attacking invasion to split his left side and corner. I made a little barely alive group in the gap which unsettled his and we jumped out with several one point jumps, which when he made a territorial move on the top I aimed to wedge and kill his group. He did spot that, but I got a big local profit in exchange. He surprised me by defending on the top, so I tried to surround and kill his group again; he made some not-living exchanges on the side which I answered wrongly, because it meant I couldn't kill his L group later, and he wriggled out of my bad aji net. But I attacked his other weak group and managed to sort of kill it.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Match Against Finland Drawn

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 17 Dec 2019

In the fourth match of the season, our team (the same players as the previous match) managed a draw against Finland, after a late substitution of a weaker player by them.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Javier-Aleksi Savolainen by 7.5 points. He played even more slowly than me in the opening, so it was a nice sensible game: after some AI-style josekis he shoulder-hit my not-in-the-middle extension and rather than jumping out he cut off my wall below. As it had made some standard kikashi earlier, I managed to get it out in ok shape; we ran for a bit (I think he shouldn't have let me get j12), he capped my group, but then I went for a small local life/connection, which was locally a bit sad but ok given I'd got a big tenuki out of it, and still wasn't dead. He then used his cap to invade my right side, I got some handy kikashi and connected on top and built a wall, but he took all the territory.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Win Against Netherlands Moves UK to 5th

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 19 Nov 2019

In the third match of the season, our team had a great win against a team from the Netherlands, winning three games to one. This meant the team was 5th in the B-League.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Filip Vander Stappen by resignation. I took a look at some of his KGS games and he seemed to play an old pre-AI territorial style, so I quickly played AI style opening similar to my title match against Sam last year but attached on the other (better) side in the lower left. When I tried to surround territory on the 5th line he came in and we had our first fight, but I felt confident with his weak side group to push against and my lower right pressing group in decent shape.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Turkey Defeated

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 29 Oct 2019

The second match in the new league season was against Turkey. The match produced some entertaining games of which the British team won three to take their first win of the season. This left the team in sixth place out of ten.

Bruno Poltronieri was the losing player, by resignation to Emre Polat (5d). He wrote: I lost by resignation. I was relatively happy with the opening, though Leela seems to prefer Black. I then managed to cut off part of my opponent's group and get a fairly large territory on the right side, at which point I’m definitely leading. I guess I was too confident after that because I played a very questionable tenuki which probably made the game even again, if not worse. I actually still thought I was winning at this point, but it seems I was wrong. I probably had one more chance to play a cut in the top right, but I missed it.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK Lose to Sweden

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 1 Oct 2019

For the tenth season of the Pandanet Go European Team Championship, the UK team remains in the B-League, the second of four leagues.

The first match was against a strong Swedish team. Jamie Taylor was our only win by resignation against Lova Wåhlin (1d). Bruno Poltronieri lost to Charlie Åkerblom (5d) by 18.5, Alex Kent lost to Martin Li (4d) by Resignation and Des Cann lost to Erik Ouchterlony (4d) on time.

Jamie wrote: I started a very dubious fight in the corner pretty quickly and my opponent misplayed and died. After that she tried to make a huge moyo to compensate, which looked scary for a bit, but she made a very weak group in the process which also died. After that she resigned.

Bruno wrote: Disappointing loss for me. I thought the opening went very well. I pushed around a group and my opponent got decent territory but lost all potential. After that when we switched to the empty upper left, I think it should be easy for me to make enough points.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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China Wins WAGC

World Amateur
Japan
Sun, 2 - Wed, 5 Jun 2019

Wang Chen of China won the 40th World Amateur Championship in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. Second, with just a loss to the winner, was Lee Jaesung of Korea. The group on six wins was: Hong Kong, USA, Pal Balogh of Hungary, Canada and Dmytro Bogatskyy of Ukraine. The other places went to the best on five: Japan, Singapore and Indonesia.

The UK Rep, Andrew Kay, was 27th out of 59 with four wins. With three wins on the first two days, day three didn't go so well with losses to Pal Balogh of Hungary and Timotej Suc of Slovenia. On the final day he lost to Jan Simara of Czechia, but beat Ioan Grigoriu of Romania.

Noel Mitchell for Ireland also won four in 36th place.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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