Website of The International Go Federation

Johannes Obenaus and Manja Marz

The European Pair Go Championship was held on 16–18 August in Leksand, Sweden, and brought together 14 pairs from various countries. After six rounds, two pairs topped the tournament table with one defeat only: Manja Marz 4d and Johannes Obenaus 6d from Germany were ahead according to the tie-breaker (SOS, sum of opponents’ scores), while Ariane Ougier 4d and Benjamin Dréan-Guénaïzia 7d from France finished second. They were followed by a group of six pairs with three wins and three losses.

The weekend following the Pair Championship, on 19–20 August, the 16th Leksand Open tournament took place at the same venue. Lukas Podpera 7d remained undefeated after five rounds and thus was crowned the champion. Woo Hoyeung 5d came second and third place went to Denis Dobranis 5d.

Report by Artem

Top three (from the left): Andrii Kravets 1p, Ali Jabarin 2p, and Ashe Vazquez 7d

The 2023 European Championship took place at the European Go Congress in Leipzig on 23–30 July; it brought together 32 strongest European players to battle in a double-elimination system until eight players were selected for a knockout.

Despite losing in the second round to Jonas Welticke 6d, Andrii Kravets 1p won all the remaining games and thus was crowned champion. In the final he beat Ali Jabarin 2p by 1.5 points; you can see that game at the end of this article. Ashe Vazquez 7d defeated Fredrik Blomback 7d in the match for third place.

Andrii Kravets is the first European Champion from Ukraine. Just before the tournament started, he also won the Pandanet European Team Championship as a member of the Ukrainian national team.

For more information, read the article on the EGC website.

Report by Artem

The 6th European Professional Championship took place online on 21–25 June and brought together eight professional players split into two groups. Two players passed from each group to the next stage – a knockout, where the championship was decided.

Mateusz Surma 2p remained undefeated both in the group and knockout stages and thus was victorious. His opponent in the final and the runner-up was Antti Törmänen 1p, the only participant certified professional not by the EGF but in Japan. In the match for third place, Ali Jabarin 2p beat Stanislaw Frejlak 1p.

Below you can see a record of the final game played between Antti and Mateusz.

Report by Artem

The Pandanet European Team Championship is an annual competition for national teams with an online part and a face-to-face final. The online stage of the 13th season started in October last year and brought together 36 teams split into four leagues from A to D playing out a round-robin, approximately one game per month.

The last round of League A took place on 16 May. The top four teams qualified for the face-to-face final: Ukraine, France, Czechia, and, for the first time in the history of this event, Israel. The final will take place at the European Go Congress in Leipzig this summer, two days before the start of the main event.

Below you can see a record of the game between Tal Michaeli 4d (Israel) and Ondrej Kruml 6d (Czechia), which was played in the last round of League A and allowed the team of Israel to take 4th place.

Report by Artem

Along with the Paris Tournament, the Prague Tournament is one of the oldest annual go competitions in Europe. Its 51st edition took place on 29 April–1 May. Yang Yaoling 7d repeated the success he achieved in Paris earlier in April and won the Prague Tournament with a flawless score as well – 6:0.

The runner-up was Kim Dohyup 7d and the third place went to Jan Prokop 6d. For more information, visit the website of the Prague Tournament.

Below you can see a record of the game the winner of the tournament played against Pavol Lisy 2p on the fifth round.

Report by Artem