Reports

07.08

The festival of Go in Tuchola came to an end. More than 600 participants were pretty busy during the last two weeks. According to information from this website there were 697 people registered. In the main tournament after eight rounds played altogether 558 people. Around 347 people took part in the weekend tournament and 310 participated in the rapid tournament. There have been around 150 participants from Poland, more than 130 from Germany, 60 from Netherlands and around 55 from Japan. We were hosting participants from more than 30 countries.

Below we present results of several side tournaments. Files are zipped Excel spreadsheets.

We hope everyone was happy with his holidays in Poland. Next year we meet in Prague, a beautiful tourist attraction in Czech Republic. See you there!

05.08

Tozawa Akinobu 9p commented on a game from the first board between Diana Koszegi and Alexandre Dinerchtein. The game and comments were transmitted onto KGS, tournament room EGC2004. Several other games are also downloadable:Ilia Chikchine vs. Lee Hong Bok, Andrey Kulkov vs. Alexandre Dinerchtein and Svetlana Shikshina vs. Diana Koszegi.

04.08

Another Wednesday is another free day for many, but not for all. Many chose to participate in Pair Go tournament (you may see the first board in Camera View section), kibitz a Computer Go tournament (with only two participants though) or play in football competition. The second tournament featured a heated battle between The Spirit of Go by Piotr Andryszek and TSGO by Ivo Tonkes. The game was exciting and full of turning points. You can download it in sgf format. TSGO won but its author was full of praise for Piotr, who prepared his program in three months.

03.08 Some more tournament results

On Monday and Tuesday we saw a lightning tournament. Players were divided into groups of 10 and played games against each other. Time was set to 10 minutes without byo yomi, a so-called sudden death time system. Winners played a knockout tournament, and finally in fifth finals Ilia Chikchine met Youn Kwang Sun to determine the winner. Youn Kwang Sun was the best winning two out of three games. You can get the full results in Excel file.

01.08 Prize giving ceremony

About one hundred T-shirts were awarded during the prize giving ceremony. The largest group were the players with four wins in the first week of the main tournament: 29 Poles, 9 Germans, 5 Russians. South Koreans, France, Holland and Romania each had 4, Slovakia 3 winners. Slovenia, Czech Republic and Spain each 2. Also one Dane, one Fin, one Hungarian, one Belgian and one Ukrainian player won their Congress T-shirt. The sixteen players with 5 wins also won money prizes. We already mentioned three winners in the top group in our last issue. The others are Pavel Sklenak (Cz, 3k), Kevin Schilling (D, 20k) and from Poland: Arkadiusz Kindziuk (2k), Marcin Byczkowski (4), Dariusz Mackowiak (5), Piotr Wisthal (6), Barbara Lubos (7), Bartolomiej Nycz (10), Roman Kaminski (13), Mariusz Ziulek (14), Dominik Blek (15) and Bartosz Krajewski (30).

In the weekend tournament 347 players took part. The top five received a cup and all players with 5 or 6 wins received money prizes and T-shirts of course. The strongest club in this tournament is Chocianow, three players from that city won five games.

The top three of the side events were honoured. We published names of winners in the children and of the ladies tournaments and the team events. Jan Hora won the 13x13 tournament, Robert Jasiek took second place and Vit Brunner third.

Peter Dijkema

Special thank you for the main sponsor: BISE

BISE (Bank Inicjatyw Spoleczno-Ekonomicznych) has supported Polish Go Association for a long time and in many ways. It has received substantial financial dotations due to which several editions of Summer Go School have been conducted. Recently a major help has been granted so that participation of nearly 40 young and active go players and game populazers became possible. We are very grateful for BISE's aid and hope for a continuation of cooperation.

If you wish to find out more about BISE, you may visit their website or contact them through e-mail.

31.07 The average number of points by country after round 5 (main tournament)

31.07 Tournaments results

After the first week of playing Lee Hong Bok is the sole leader in the super-group. He defeated Catalin Taranu by a couple of points. He is followed on his heels by Catalin, Alexander Dinerchtein, Cristian Pop, Youn Kwang Sun and Miyakawa Wataru, who all have four wins in the top-group. In the next MacMahon group Kai Naoyuki and Tanaka Nobuhira are still undefeated, so they are also only one MM-point behind leader Lee Hong Bok. Who can stop Lee in the second week? He already defeated two of the other main favourites. Not Kai or Tanaka because they leave the tournament after the first week and take their perfect score home.

We asked Dinerchtein. He explained: “Lee Hong Bok is really strong. He was my first teacher in Korea, when I came there in (tm)97. I took handicap against him. Sometimes he even beat me on 4 stones. But he is not one of the top amateurs in Koreas, who are 7 dan. Lee Ki Bong is of about the same strength. You can compare them to Yoo Jong Su, who played for almost a decade in Europe, till about ten years ago. Here Lee did not win the title yet. Maybe he play Youn kwang Sun next, who only lost to me. Youn is also very strong.”

In the lower sections of the main tournament the severe rules of MacMahon takes it toll. When you win, you are likely to get a stronger opponent next round, so not many people can keep on winning.

The team tournament is a lengthy affair. Over fifty teams first competed in finding fine names for their joint effort. Next they need to qualify for the finals on the first day of playing. Probably the players of “Pleasant Fighting” spent too much creative energy on the nice name, they made it into the final 10, but in the final they won only one game and a half, but not a single match and ended in the bottom of the table. Kidachrima likewise. The Bobki (Krzysztof Bozek, Radoslaw Jachym, Tomasz Grining and Marta Piekarczyk) were the best. They won all 3 matches and almost all of their games (11). Three teams won two matches: Athletes 2nd with 8 game-points, Weiqi Hools 3rd (7,5) and Gold 4th (7). Jan Lubos team, Seol-Paris, Matsanaga team and Elane each won one match.

People who successfully competed together two days as a team, came back in similar formations in the rengo tournament. The Athletes became the abbreviation AGA (Andrej Kulkov, Geraldine Paget, Artem Dugin).

In the Rengo tournament the pre-competition in name finding was less severe: 31 teams took part. Self assessment is a fruitful source of exotic names: Dying in gote, Self-atari, Team Deaf (Juju, Olive and Guillaume), Almost Dango, Always Tired, Beauties and the beast. The lucky beast was Stefan Budig, the beauties are Kirsten Hollmann and Ruxandra Ilie. Others referred to their style of playing: Hamete, Kosiarze " that is Polish for mowers.

LIS (Polish for fox) won five games and the title. The team is not Polish. The name seems an abbreviation: Lee (miss Junghee), Ilia Chikchine and Svetlana Shikshina. Almost dango (Habu Koichiro, Pawel Obrok and Agnieszka Lewandowska), Hungry pink bear (Timur Dugin, Jonas Kraujelis and Gytis Vasiliauskas), MPG (Minhee Kim, 2p with two Lithuanian 6 kyus: Paulius Almintas and Gytis Vidziunas) and zaanee (two strong Japanese and young Simonas Petrouskas form Lithuania) won four games. Neither Self-atari nor Dying in gote managed to get the last place. They even won three games. Last place was shared by Manolitos and X-files, who lost all their games. Mimamalileeki with strong man Lee Ki Bong won three, just like In flames, Hamete, Suzaku, the Beauties and several more.

The tournament for the title Strongest Lady of Tuchola 2004 attracted 22 ladies from many different countries. Miss Takechi Harumi (2d, Japan) was the highest ranking amongst them, so it was perhaps no surprise that she won all her games and thus the tournament. But also Dovile Kraujalyte (11k, Lit) won all four games. Myriam Wack 8k finished on 3rd place, Viktorija Busilaite (11k, Lit) 4th, Alexandra Urban (5k) 5th and Isabel Barros (7k, Spain) 6th. They won 3 games each.

Peter Dijkema

28.07

Wednesday was (still is) a free day of Tuchola 2004 Go congress. Free " in meaning that it is day for various activities rather than for serious go playing.

All present here people may choose from: playing go, kayaking rallies, excursions to the forest or nearby lovely cities, games of football, volleyball, patonque (brought here by French team), ping pong, table tennis, badminton and many other.

Some of us, who are still not satisfied with this offer may go to the WI FI access point (free for all players), or internet cafe - provided by organisers - and do what they always like the best - be the part of global village. Disco is already passed shadow. Those of us who were enjoying it last night are awaking about late afternoon, only to realise that it is another day full of challenges. Another day to have a fun, to have a glass of beer (or ice cream) another excellent day of opportunity to play a game with one of 16 present professional players. All of them are friendly and helpful. If you (reading those words) are not in Tuchola, please pack - and come. There is still 10 days to go. We just started.

Leszek Soldan

28.07

Wednesday is a free day, which means that main tournament is not played then. But it is very busy for most participants. Some of them will surely rest after today's disco. Other chose to participate in kayaking rally on Brda river or in a bike trip. Those, who are still hungry to play go may participate in rengo or ladies tournaments or take part in numerous events with professional players. Every day Catalin Taranu 5p provides commentary for kyu players and does it in an extremely joyful way. Other pros play simultaneous games, comment on games or participate in other workshops.

Below links to several photos are provided.

• Opening ceremony 1
• Opening ceremony 2
• Live go
• Svetlana vs Diana
• Opening ceremony

Photos are courtesy of Piotr Wisthal

Page prepared by Marcin Kaminski