In many way, this year's congress set a new precedent for Western Go events and reflect the rising popularity of the game in the last few years. Subscribers to our website were at 1476 when we closed registration; however, many of them didn't end up making it to the congress. The official number of guests, volunteers, teachers, and organisers is 1176. Some registered players probably missed...
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Another European Go Congress is over and we are simultaneously happy, relieved, but also somewhat sad to see it come to an end. To mark the last day of the congress though, we were treated to another beautiful ceremony at the Palazzo dei Congressi auditorium. Our head organiser Maurizio was notably less nervous than the previous times as he welcomed all the winners of the last sixteen days who...
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In an exceedingly exciting finish, Yoon Nam-gi 7d from South Korea won the Open European Championship in the very last round! He ended up being the only player with 1 loss in the top group of our main event. He merely lost against Kim Dae-hyuk 7d, also from South Korea, who thus placed in second. Liao Xingwen 6p, professional player from China, placed third in the end. He was long considered the...
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Cho Hye-yeon 9p kindly met with me one day after one of her lectures and sat down for a long and fascinating interview. She shared with me her thoughts on the future of international Go and her progression to becoming one of the strongest female players worldwide. But she also shed some light on the dark sides of competitive Go, how she overcame severe personal challenges, as well as the...
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In case you had not noticed, we are a very big congress. :-) And even if you have arrived in the last couple of days, you might want to take a look at our gigantic group photo: [click for the full scale high quality version] In other news, one of our major events, the Weekend Tournament, has concluded last night with Liao Xingwen 6p taking the big prize with five out of five wins! Behind him...
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Pavol Lisy 2p from Slovakia has won the European Go Championship 2018 in his finale against title holder Ilya Shikshin 2p from Russia, by two and a half points. You can find this game (and all the other Euro Championship games) as SGF files on this page. Ilya (White) seemed somewhat at a disadvantage early on after a failed invasion of Pavol's (Black) corner. But he turned the aji of the stones...
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Please, please, please tomorrow (Friday, 3 August) don't forget to come to the Congress Center one hour earlier than usual. We will be taking the group photo at 9.00h in the morning in Pacinetti Hall! Please spread the news so the biggest European Congress in history can take the biggest group photo as well!
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Apart from consistently humid Summer weather and a few small hurdles besides, EGC Pisa 2018 is coming along smoothly. Time for a quick summary of the events so far... Our main event, the European Championship Finals has seen four players with three out of three wins: current champion Ilya Shikshin 2p (Russia), Matheusz Surma 1p (Poland), Pavol Lisy 2p (2p), Artem Kachanovskyi 2p (Ukraine). A...
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You can't be at all EGC events at once, of course. But our photographers and videographers can help! We have a new, separate page for you where we gather the most beautiful pictures and the most interesting videos and keep them up to date with more content every day. Check this website or click on 'Congress' -> 'Photo&Video Gallery'. During the Main Tournament rounds you can click on the...
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With hundreds of people on the ground floor, it can be quite slow to look for your opponent's name and your board number on the pairings list or the rankings on the wall list. Now you can also look them up online! This website has all the pairings and rankings for the big tournaments (Open, Weekend, Rapid). Simply scroll down to the tournament you want information for and click on these...
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EGC 2018 went off with a bang last night in the grand Pacinotti Hall in front of hundreds of visitors from all over the world. The main event of course was the first major result of the congress: Team Russia the Pandanet European Team Go Championship, defending their title from last year! After them came France as runner up, Ukraine took third place, followed by Poland in fourth. Results and...
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If you have never used a DGT clock, you may want to familiarize yourself with their countdown audio notification - below you’ll see a video detailing that. Even though this video is referring to a past event (please ignore the time settings explained in the video), the second part is still extremely useful and we strongly suggest viewing it.
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Lots of you are probably eager to plan your trips around Pisa or Tuscany at this point. Today we are here to help you choose from the many different offers our tourist agency Tuscany Suits You has designed for you to make your trip to Italy unforgettable. Please feel free to browse through the proposals they've layed out on their website. You'll find cruises, hiking and biking tours, dinner...
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Among other sports activities, we are going to host a football tournament with teams of five players each. Currently we are planning to hold the tournament on a single day (on Wednesday, 8 August) but depending on your feedback, we might add another day to the tournament. In order to gauge interest for the event, we have created this Facebook event page. If you are interested, please visit the...
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First of all, we would like for you to know that there will be free Wifi internet for all EGC visitors within the Congress Center. Unfortunately our bonus playing site Bastione Sangallo, does not offer Wifi, and cellphone reception there is very bad as well due to its thick medieval walls. To alleviate this, we do have some good news for anyone looking to buy a SIM card for their smartphone or...
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We have been hard at work adjusting a schedule for the professional teaching events. Thank you so much for your patience thus far! At the moment however, we have chosen not to announce the teachers for every single event just yet, because we are still in the middle of spreading the workload evenly among the teachers. We expect to reveal all the details to you on 27 or 28 July at the latest...
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As of today, we have 1317 subscribers to the web site. This is an all-time high, and we are excited about it, thanks to all of you! We are now only ten days from the date of the congress, so we can try and do our last reasonable estimate to give you an idea of where we are going. We will publish the final figures after the end of EGC 2018, but you'll get the flavor with these, so here are the...
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Only eleven days remain until the start of the congress! But while you are excitedly packing your bags for the trip to Italy, we don't want you to forget anything important. So we have expanded our About Italy page once again with some important info and tips on what to bring to EGC. Please check it out and share it with others who might not have read this post!
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There are not many universal downsides to hosting an event like ours in a popular vacation spot like Pisa, but there is one we have to address today: theft. Pisa is a small town and a safe place to be with a low rate of violent crime. Especially during the Summer vacation season, however, pickpockets are commonplace. Crowded places and tourist sights, outdoor gatherings, and public transportation...
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As a little appetiser for what's to come, today we have a preview for Guo Juan's public lectures over the course of EGC: here The pictures will surely speak for themselves! ;-) Everybody will be able to attend these lectures. In addition, Guo Juan 5p will also be doing special lectures exclusive to our EGC friends.
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The EGC 2018 website now has a full Russian translation! Thank you to the newest addition to our team, Kim Shakhov, for his hard work making it happen.
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Since some of you were asking about merchandise sales at EGC, we can reassure you: our sponsor Schaak en Go will be present in Pisa offering Go boards and stones, as well as Go books and other related items for you to buy. Just make sure there is enough space in your suitcase for all the souvenirs! ;-)
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We're pleased to finally announce our remaining professional players acting as teachers during their stay in Pisa: Hu Yaoyu 8p and Lu Jian 5p come as official representatives of the Chinese Weiqi Association. The Korean Baduk Association will send Cho Hye-yeon 9p and Cho Yeon-woo 1p as their 'ambassadors'. And finally Yanagisawa Satoshi 5p and Catalin Taranu 5p will be the officials for the...
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We are only five weeks away from the beginning of our congress. As we get closer and closer, updates to this news section will come faster and more furiously. Subscribing to our newsletter is your best way for keeping up with things, such as: News roundups with a summary of the most important news so you never miss anything Breaking news with significant tournament results and announcements ...
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If you can't make it to the Pisa this year, don't worry! EuroGoTV will be present during EGC to broadcast the top games of the Open European Championship live from Pisa to you! Alongside the video broadcast, there will also be a live relay of the top boards on the KGS Go Server. You can catch the EuroGoTV video feeds on their own website from 29 July to 11 August (except Wednesdays). The...
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Today we are proud to announce a very special feature of the Go congress. In addition to our main venue, the Municipal Congress Center, some of our congress events will also take place in the Florentine fortress Bastione Sangallo! The historic citadel was constructed in the 15th century as the Cittadella Nuova by Renaissance architect Giuliano da Sangallo, commissioned by the local...
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To close out our Scientific Conference on August 8 after all the lectures are finished, we will be holding a Computer Rengo demonstration game. Manja Marz, 4 dan amateur from Germany, will team up with Leela Zero (beyond pro level computer program) against another instance of Leela Zero teaming up with Hayashi Kozo, Japanese 6 dan professional. Both human players are known for their charming...
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We've reached a new congress fee price rate for June. From now until June 30 you can still get a discount of up to ~13%: instead of paying 230 EUR for two weeks, you pay 200 EUR. Make sure to register in time to benefit! We are currently at 1179 registered members, so you will be in good company.
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Today we have a special message from the congress director of the U.S. Go Congress 2018 in Williamsburg, Virginia. He would like to invite you to the United States East Coast for a week of Go during July 21 – July 28 (this does overlap with the first two days of EGC). Please also note that the Early Bird pre-registration discount for USGC will expire tomorrow, May 31. Diego Pierrottet:...
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We have just a quick update on the allocation of prize money for EGC participants for you. As per EGF decision these are the prizes awarded to the top 8 best players of the European Championship: 1st place 4.000 Euro2nd place 2.500 Euro3rd place 1.500 Euro4th place 1.000 Euro5th place – 8th place 500 Euro Good luck!
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