The last rounds of the season 2012/2013 Pandanet Go European Team Championship will be played in the coming three Tuesdays. League A will play the final round on the eve of May Day (sorry about that) and the results will decide the fourth qualifier for the PGETC top four finals. Hungary, Serbia, France and Romania surely play their matches with a great determination. It’s not easier among the bottom three, only one of the countries Sweden, Israel or Germany will sail to the next year’s League A, while another one plays a play-off and the third one drops down to League B.

League B will play on Tuesday 7th May and the top three - Finland, Austria and the Netherlands - know what’s required. At the other end, Italy, Switzerland and UK have some unresolved business as well.
And which country or countries will be promoted from the League C - Slovakia, Slovenia or Turkey? Tuesday 14th May will answer that question for the top country.

Join us at IGS Pandanet, most games will be played on 20:00 CEST and for exceptions, see each league schedule. Today on Monday 29th April, 20:00 CEST boards 4 of Germany-France and Hungary-Czechia will be played.

The first four rounds are now complete and the teams are resting over the Christmas and New Year time. The autumn season was full of hard fought games and the new GoPanda 2 client also got its real-tournament tests along the way.

League A is still very close - the top three teams have 6 points but anything can happen in the 2013 half of the season. It is remarkable though that the current top three are the same as in the last season finals - Russia, Czechia and Ukraine.

League B is so far controlled by Austria and Finland, no points given away yet. Belgium, Netherlands and Norway are still in the competition though.

League C is lead by Slovakia, Turkey following with one point less. The middle range of the league is very even and during the last five rounds the race is wide open.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you on Tuesday 8th January!

The new season - 3rd Pandanet Go European Team Championship 2012/2013 - is starting! We have 30 teams in three leagues again and full 9 rounds to be played in the Pandanet-IGS.

The first round of the League A will open the tournament on Tuesday 18th September, the matches starting 19:00 and 20:00 CET/CEST. See the first round pairings available in the Pandanet Team Championship site and join the audience.

However, there’ll be a jump start on Saturday 15th September, as Alexandre Dinerchtein, Russia and Amir Fragmin, Israel will play their game 14:00 CET/CEST (15:00 in Israel and 16:00 in Russia). The game will be breakfast vs. Wade, respectively.

Check the latest version of GoPanda client or try the brand new GoPanda 2.0 (for mobile users, search for PandaTetsuki) - login and join the Room 36 EuropeanTeamChamp game observers!

Here is the complete and concise schedule of the 3rd Pandanet Go European Team Championship 2012-2013, the team captains have received their own calendar editions. The games will be played on Tuesdays around 18:00,19:00 or 20:00 CET/CEST depending on the countries in each match. If there are special requirements, games can be scheduled up to a week before the scheduled match day.

The tournament is run under Rule Set for the Pandanet Go European Team Championship and the games are rated as EGF C class games, except for those players who opted out. The season is ready to start and good luck to all 30 teams!

League A

League A/B Relegation games 28/5/2013
Finals 27-28/7/2013 Olsztyn, Poland

League B

League B/C Relegation games 28/5/2013

League C

To: European Team Championship Teams,

The 3rd Pandanet Go European Team Championship will start soon, the first rounds to be played in September 2012. The previous two years have been very successful and the finals hard-fought and exciting. The format will be the same: League games played on the Pandanet IGS and the finals in the EGC 2013 in Olsztyn, Poland. We heartily invite all the teams to join the 3rd season 2012-2013.

The first step is to confirm your country participation in the league by Friday 31st August 2012.

League A: Russia, Czechia, Ukraine, France, Romania, Germany, Sweden, Hungary, Serbia, Israel

League B: Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Belgium, UK, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Italy

League C: Slovakia, Slovenia, Ireland, Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Spain, Croatia

Send the confirmation email as a reply to the email sent 22nd August to your country contact.

Your team lineup with the players’ name, rank and Pandanet account name is required by Sunday 9th September 2012.

The pairings for the season will be sent out 10th September and the first round (probably League A) will commence on Tuesday 18th September.

Wishing for a prompt reply,

Vesa Laatikainen, Project Leader
3rd Pandanet Go European Team Championship

The finals of the European Team Championship 2011/2012 edition were an exciting contest all the way to the last finished game. After initial draws on the first round, Ukraine beat France in the second round. The third round in the Sunday evening was going to be decisive: Ukraine, Russia and Czechia all striving for the top place.

Czechia won France 3-1, which wasn’t enough when Russia beat Ukraine with the similar score 3-1. The tiebreakers - match points, board points, mutual score - being all equal, the decisive fourth tiebreaker - league A position - brought the win to Russia and the second place for Czechia. Also, the decisive game between Ukrainian Artem Kachanovskyj and Russian Ilya Shikshin was the final game to finish and only the win by Ilya guaranteed the top place.

All results in the Finals page. The games will be uploaded when collected together.

The 2nd Pandanet Go European Championship will culminate in the final matches of the best four teams in 2011/2012 League A. The games will take place in the European Go Congress 2012 in Bad Godesberg, Bonn, Germany, on the first Saturday 21st July and the Sunday evening 22nd July. Teams from Russia, Ukraine, Czechia and France will resolve the championship in three rounds.

The tournament site is the Parksaal of the Bad Godesberg Municipal Hall. The opening ceremony will be held 10.15 am and the schedule for the rounds is listed below. Two games for each round will be broadcast by EuroGoTV in Pandanet-IGS. There will be also professional commentary for each game at the tournament premises. The commentators are Ms. Li Ting 1 dan (Kansai Ki-in) and Yoon Young-sun 8 dan (Hankuk Kiwon).

Round 1 - Sat 21 July 2012 10:30 CEST
Russia - France 2-2
Ukraine - Czechia 2-2

Round 2 - Sat 21 July 2012 14:30 CEST
Czechia - Russia 2-2
France - Ukraine 0-4

Round 3 - Sun 22 July 2012 18:30 CEST
Russia - Ukraine
Czechia - France

For the live broadcast, see the EuroGoTV accounts on Pandanet-IGS and for the results and recorded games the Finals page.

The players for each team are following (four players each round, one reserve player):

Russia
Ilya Shikshin
Alexandre Dinerchtein
Dmitrij Surin
Oleg Mezhov
Alexey Lazarev

Ukraine
Artem Kachanovskyj
Dmytro Bogatskyy
Andrij Kravec
Bohdan Zhurakovskyy
Dmytro Jacenko

Czechia
Ondrej Silt
Jan Simara
Jan Hora
Jan Prokop
Lukas Podpera

France
Thomas Debarre
Remi Campagnie
Benjamin Papazoglou
Frederic Donzet
Antoine Fenech

The last round of the 2nd Pandanet Go European Team Tournament A League is perhaps not the most exciting anymore, with Russia as a clear league winner and the three remaining places for the final in Bonn already resolved. Ukraine, France and the Czech Republic are comfortable at 10 points while Hungary (currently 8 points), even if winning, can’t reach the board points total of any of those three. Still, exciting games are guaranteed, and the Netherlands and Poland fight hard for the league place.

Last round pairing, League A, Tuesday 8 May 2012

Russia vs. Netherlands 19:00 CEST
Romania vs. France 20:00
Poland vs. Ukraine 20:00
Germany vs. Hungary 20:00
Sweden vs. Czechia 20:00

Pairings and game records here

At last every game of the second round has been played, let’s see what happened!

Israel 3 - 1 Finland
The victory on board 1 by Antti Törmänen (now insei in Japan) wasn’t enough: Israel was able to subvert the game and clench an unexpected victory thanks to a 1 point mistake during the final ko battle on board 4, played yesterday. As far as I can see, Black should have played T1 at move 249, which gives him a further threat in T5, just enough to win the ko and the game by 0.5 points.
Antti has published a pro-mediated comment of the first board on his blog (post 1, post 2).

Austria 1 - 3 Serbia
A close game decided by sunday's match between Viktor Lin and Dusan Mitic. The Mitic brothers are still undefeated, and Serbia has now closed the gap with Finland.

Slovenia 1 - 3 Denmark
Denmark prevailed, and moves to the fifth place. As of today they are the only team who won all games on board 3, helped by their balanced lineup. Slovenia put up a good fight, winning on board 4 and losing board 1 only by 7.5 points.

Belgium 3 - 1 Slovakia
Belgium was able to win even without one of its two top players. The most interesting match was probably board 1, in which Lucas Neirynck prevailed after killing one of his opponent’s groups.

United Kingdom 2 - 2 Switzerland
Victories by John Walch in a game characterized by an unusual opening and Sébastien Ott in a game of many invasions allowed Switzerland to get one point and gave the UK their third draw in five games.

Here you can find the pairings, games, and complete results.

What’s next? - Round 6
The next round will hopefully be played between the 15th and the 21st of February.

There won’t be any direct confrontations in the battle for promotion between Finland, Israel and Serbia, as they’ll be playing the UK, Switzerland, and Belgium. Serbia has probably the easiest pairing, and will hope that the UK and Belgium won’t leave their games empty handed.

The last two matches are between Denmark and Slovakia and neighbours Slovenia and Austria.

At last every game of the second round has been played, the players having defeated even the IGS server mantineance. Let’s see what happened!

Slovakia 0-4 Finland
No player from Slovakia showed, so Finland won all four games by forfeit. The penalty for not showing up brings Slovakia down to the last place. Hopefully they will be able to recover!

Serbia 4 - 0 Slovenia
As expected, the favourites won all four games by resignation. The Mitic brothers are still undefeated, but the hardest games have yet to be played! Once more, one of the most interesting games was played by Nikola Mitic.

Belgium 3 - 1 Austria
Vitor Lin’s return (and victory) on sunday gave hope to Austria, but it wasn’t enough. Once more, the Belgians did their best and ended up winning all the other 3 games by resignation. This victory consolidates their fourth position in the standings.

United Kingdom 1 - 3 Israel
There were a few technical problems, so two games started late, but this was probably the most interesting and hard fought match of the day. Ali Jabarin had to do his best to win against Bei Ge, and on board 4, nothwistanding an extremely big furikawari, Ofer Zivony prevailed against David Ward only in the endgame.

Denmark 4-0 Switzerland
First victory for the Danish team; not many chances for the Swiss players to win on any of the boards.

Here you can find the pairings, games, and complete results.

What’s next? - Round 5
The next round will be played between the 18th and the 24th of January. There will be a few interesting matches to look forward to.

First of all, Israel will play against Finland to try claim the first place on the standings. Then Serbia - Austria, Denmark will play against Slovenia: winning there will give them a chance to gain momentum and leave the bottom half of the standings. Slovakia will probably need to score points against Belgium to recover from their los by default. Finally, Switzerland will try to give Team United Kingdom a run for their money.