As for the finale the two remaining players in the K.O.-tournament are Noguchi Motoki [6d] and Zhang Yangqi [6d]. The game between them is being currently transmitted on KGS. I couldn’t find any information on prizes and awards. Enclosed are the links to other tournament related things.

• Results
• Photos
• Sponsors

UPDATE

Here are the results after the final round. The winner of the K.O. Tournament is Zhang Yangqi [6d] ! Motoki Noguchi (former champion) lost the game by 3.5 points. Fan Hui [2p] reviewed and commented the game, you can view his opinions and variations here.

This weekend the yearly European Youth Go Championship takes place in Bosnia.  I found this especially interesting as I already had the opportunity to play some strong youngsters from Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and all of them showed great promise. So I’m really curious to find out how they’ll do. Of course some members of the KGS-elite are also participating (Artem, Debarre, etc.)

Unfortunately the official website doesn’t give away too much information about the event, I couldn’t even find a link the results or the participants-listing. Currently the fourth round is being played, I’ll make sure to upload the SGF’s from days 1 & 2 as soon as the round has finished. For everyone who still isn’t watching, there is a video-feed from EuroGoTV.

• Final results (under 18 section)
• Final results (under 12 section)
• Side Event (Final results)

UPDATE: The Gamerecords of the first 4 rounds are now downloadable (from all games that have been covered on KGS).

UPDATE 2: Results after Round 4 are now online and viewable.

It’s kind of disappointing that Croatia (yes, I am a Croatian citizen ^^)  is doing so bad in the main-event as well as in the u12- and the side-event. I sure hope they’ll do better tomorrow! Currently Artem is leading with 4 straight victories.

Day 3

So finally the second day of the EYGC 09 has commenced. The first board-game has already been finished and Artem has strenghtened his position by winning his 5th game too. At this point it’s pretty safe to assume that he’ll earn the title of European Youth Go Champion 09. As for the Side-event, Croatia is still losing… which is kind of frustrating -_-. Expect the SGF’s of all games that were covered on KGS on day 3 as soon as round 6 is over.

I’ve also updated the results to include the listings of the u12 and side-event as well.

UPDATE: The Tournament is over and contrary to my expections Artem hasn’t won, Jabarin Ali (Israel) took the first place in his stead. You can find the complete list here. In he side-event Croatia didn’t make it to the top 5 (Mladen Smud 2d got closest with his 7th place), which is (as already mentioned) pretty disappointing. I couldn’t find any pictures of the tournament on the official page, but I’ll make sure to post a link as soon as I find any. Enclosed you find the SGF’s of rounds 5 & 6 (as always provided by EuroGoTV and filled with lots of KGS-kibbitz).

It’s the twentieth time this invitation tournament for European top players is being held. 24 of the strongest European players will be invited. They will be competing for more than 8,000 Euro’s in prize money. Amongst others the professionals Catalin Taranu, Alexandre Dinerchtein, Fan Hui, Guo Juan and Diana Koszegi will participate. The tournament will last 6 rounds.

The Ing Memorial tournament (formerly Ing Cup) takes place in memory of the late Ing Chang-Ki, who died in 1997. His ‘Ing Chang-Ki Educational Foundation’ actively organizes go projects all over the world to stimulate the promotion of go amongst childern. Ing Chang-Ki developed interesting rules for go that fill in gaps in the ‘traditional’ rules and are very suitable for teaching go to children. The Ing Foundation has supported the European Go Federation with a sum of 100,000 US dollars on a yearly basis.

The Ing Memorial is one of the projects that are funded with this money.

~EuroGoTV

Anyway, EuroGoTV covered the whole event. My personal favorite Pal Balogh only got 10th (losing to Catalin Taranu, FJ Dickhut and Ondrej Silt). However Fan Hui 2p managed to go undefeated and therefore won the tournament.

I’ll see if I can get my hands on all gamerecords of the tournament and then upload them . Until then, enjoy EurogoTV‘s Interviews with some of the top European players!

Fan Hui (touranment winner)

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Vladimir Danek

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

More Interviews here >>

I’ve managed to download all games that were covered on KGS, a total of 20 games. You can download them in the enclosed RAR-File. I haven’t named the SGF’s according to their respective players, but you can view who played them (as well as who won) with the SGF-shell-extension-tool. I haven’t deleted the KGS-comments, so the files are riddiculously large -_- [PW (if needed, it didn't seem to work here) is swissgoblog]

Honinbo Shusaku

Shusaku Go Club (Click to go to the clubs homeapge)

It’s unlikely for a Go-player to not know who Shusaku was (especially since Hikaru no Go). So for everyone that lived in a dark cave, behind the moon with his eyes closed and his ears shut, here’s the deal:

Honinbo Shusaku (本因坊秀策 Hon’inbō Shūsaku, 1829-62) is considered by many to be the greatest player of the golden era of Go in the mid-19th century. He was nicknamed Invincible Shusaku because of his perfect score of 19 successive wins in the annual castle games

~ Incincible, the games of Shusaku

Now the Romanian Shusaku Go Club is organizing a tournament honoring his heroics. The tournament will take place in Targu Mures City [RO] during 2 days (28. & 29. march). The long list of registered players includes well-known names such as Catalin Taranu [5p], Pop Cristian [7d], Cho Seok-Bin [7d], Cornel Burzo [7d], Pal Balogh [6d] and many more. Below you find some additional details on the event.

• Date: 28th & 29th march 2009
• Place: Targu Mures City [RO]
• Transport & Accomodation: >> click <<
• Registered Players || Register
• Fee: none as long as you register before february 28th. Afterwards there’s a registration fee of 10 €
• Prizes: 1st – Original Kaya Goban (+ 800 €), 2nd – Go Set (+ 400 €), 3rd – Go Set (+ 200 €) >> click <<
• Ruleset: MacMahon, 6 rounds / 60 min + 10 moves/ 5 min or byo yomi 3/30  sec per move. Komi 6.5

UPDATE: There was a little misunderstanding with the prizes. As Balazs Arpad corrected (thanks at this point), the prizes are the items with an additional prize-money (the information has now been corrected in the list).