Some news

Some news from the IGF and the EGF
Last weekend we had in Korea the Annual General Meeting of the International Go
Federation (IGF). Here are some points also interesting for Go in Europe.
International Go Federation (IGF)
Since one week we have a new president, Mr. Hong Seokhyun from Korea, Chairman
of the Korean Baduk Association. This was a planned change in the rotation between
the three countries. Now Korea has the lead of the IGF for the next two years,
following Japan. An additional important change in the board of the IGF: New
director Mr. Wada Norio, the president of the Nihon Kiin.
While the main IGF-office moves from Tokyo to Seoul we also get a new General
Secretary, Ms. Hajin Lee. Her e-mail: [email protected]. But we don’t loose
Yuki ! Yuki Shigeno will still work partly for IGF in the (second) IGF office in Tokyo.
Hajin and Yuki will be our special guests in the General Meeting of the EGF in Sibiu.
They can explain how they share the IGF-work between the two offices.
World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC)
The WAGC 2015 has been assigned to the Go Association of Thailand. It is planned
to arrange the event end of May 2015 or beginning of June 2015 in Bangkok.
This is an essential change in the history of the IGF. For the first time the WAGC will
not happen in Japan, Korea or China. This implies that from now on each IGF
member can apply for the WAGC, of course also European Go organisations. So now
IGF steps forward on the way to become more “international”, similar to other mind
sports.
The WAGC 2016 is scheduled for China, but the city is still under discussion.
World Mind Sports Games (WMSG)
For some years we all hoped on the 3rd WMSG in Rio de Janeiro, but this will for sure
not happen. Because of different reasons (in Brazil but also with IMSA) it is not
possible to arrange the games in Brazil. But there are still some hopes on the next
WMSG. The city of Baku (Azerbaijan) showed its interest to IMSA.
International Mind Sports Association (IMSA)
Since spring 2014 IMSA has a new president, representing chess. Mr. Damiani
(representing bridge) stepped back.
On the last IMSA-meeting Xiangqi was officially accepted as the 5th member of IMSA
(besides chess, bridge, Go and draughts). The international Poker-organisation
applied again for an IMSA membership, but it was refused for the second time in a
row.
Because of the cancellation of the cooperation between IMSA and a company called
MSP (Mind Sport Partner) the IGF does not get the yearly announced / expected
25.000 US Dollars, planned for developing-projects of the IGF.
SportAccord World Mind Games (SAWMG)
For 2014 the final papers were signed two weeks ago between SportAccord and the
city of Beijing ! So the event will happen again in December in Beijing, with 3
different competitions (team men, individual women, pair) and 6 players
representing Europe. The prize-money will be the same like last year, and till now
also the European players are the same like last year. 4 out of 6 are already
qualified, Ilya Shikshin, Svetlana Shikshina, Dina Burdakova and Natalia Kovaleva.
The last 2 seats will be given to the best not qualified players of the European
Championship in Sibiu.
We will again get an online competition, sponsored by Pandanet. In bridge and chess
last year we had a 5-digit number of participants in these online-competitions, while
Go had to be content with a bit more than 1000 players. So please pay attention on
this event and motivate your members to participate this year.
In Korea I had a meeting with Pandanet about this Go-online-competition and maybe
I could convince Pandanet with my proposal for dedicated prizes, reserved for
players from Europe.
What about 2015 ff ? SportAccord is very interested in these World Mind Games.
They want to go on. The city of Beijing, originally planned to end the engagement in
2014, showed now new interest for 2015. It depends a bit on Beijing’s application
for the Olympic Winter Games 2022, which has of course priority at the moment.
But “we heard” from SportAccord that the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, is “ready”
to step in for 2015. So it is very likely that the SportAccord World Mind Games will
not end this year.
International University Go Tournament (for students only)
Just now this tournament is running in Hongkong for the first time. About 10 seats
were reserved for Europe in this completely new tournament under the lead of the
Ing-Foundation. As far as I know at least 4 players from Europe are participating.
Similar to the WAGC the organizers don’t pay the travelling expenses, but all local
costs. This tournament is not only reserved for strong players, every student can
participate.
In Korea I talked to Mr. Minghaw Ying, the son of the late Mr. Ing Chang-ki. He
explained that this tournament would happen every year in the first half of July,
2015 in Taiwan (city is not decided yet). After 2016 he plans to organize this
tournament in other countries than Japan, Korea and China. With this tournament
we get an exciting new event, please spread the message in your countries.
The EGF executive-board already decided to support the European Student
Champion 2013, Marko Peter from Hungary, by covering part of his travellingexpenses to Hongkong. Additional we fixed that the European Student Champion
2014 (championship in Toulouse in September) will be nominated for this
tournament in 2015, while the EGF will pay the flight-ticket. We are very happy
about this new tournament of the Ing Foundation. Now we can offer our European
Student Champion an attractive prize.
Pair-Go for Students
Starting at this year’s 25th Anniversary Championship in Tokyo as an additional sideevent for 8 pairs from far-east countries, the Pair-Go Association will organize every
year a special competition for student-pairs. From 2015 on also pairs from Europe
and US and … will be invited. The conditions will be the same like already known,
50% of the flight-ticket will be paid the organizer.
So here we get another additional new event for students. Probably I will get more
information about this competition in October 2014 in Tokyo. At the moment I don’t
know how many pairs from Europe will be invited and for which month this
competition is planned. But as we don’t have a European Pair-Go competition for
students we have to develop a plan in the EGF how to “find” our student-pairs for
2015 ff.
2015 Summer Universiade in Gwangju, Korea
Well, sorry, till now no Go-competition announced for this event. But you should
know that the IGF executive-board has decided two years ago to work on the case
that Go should become an accepted student-sport. Then we could hold our
competitions also in a Universiade, and it would have a great impact on Go-activities
in universities worldwide.
This task was dedicated to Korea and I hope that we now can use the excellent
connections (IGF-presidency, University with Go in Korea) to step forward on the
planned way in the coming two years.
Go as Olympic sport
This is also a task (re) started by the IGF. Martin Finke from the Netherlands
coordinates the process, which will last many years. Many documents must be
collected and/or produced and I assume that each country in Europe will have to
send some figures sooner or later to Martin Finke, especially on the national Godevelopment. SportAccord promised to help the IGF in this difficult task. Please be
aware that “Go as Olympic sport” is an important flag for any sponsor, “Olympic
sports” always find easier sponsors, rooms, attention etc. Our “Olympic Games” are
and will be the World Mind Sport Games. This is the official statement of the IOC.
Prime Minister’s Cup September 2014, Korea
The deadline for registration is the 18th July, so very soon. I talked in Korea to Mr.
Minsing Suh who coordinates the registration. He explained to me that he has about
6 registrations from Europe till now. I know that it is difficult this year to send two
players to Korea, in both cases (WAGC and KPMC) money of the national Goorganisation is needed for travelling. But only 6 European countries ?
After it’s decided and announced that the WAGC 2015 will not happen in Korea I
have the hope that the conditions of the first 8 KPMC-events (full paid flights) will
come back in 2015. The problem in 2014 is the limited governmentg-money for
international Baduk-events in 2014.
Samsung Cup August 2014
For this competition in Seoul Europe got 4 seats. Like last year our 4 players will
compete with 4 amateurs from US/Canada. After three knockout-rounds there’s one
winner, qualified for the last 32 players of the Samsung-Cup. Last year a player from
US won this 3 rounds tournament. This year the following players will represent
Europe: Merlijn Kuin, 6d (NL), Jan Hora, 6d (CZ), Rob van Zeijst, 7d (NL) and Anton
Zatonskikh, 6d (RU).
Again we had the problem in the EGF to find players for a competition during our
European Congress, very difficult. Additional problem: The organizer limit the support
to 1000 US-Dollar per player, which is for sure not enough for a flight-ticket from
Europe and 5 nights accommodation in Seoul. Therefore the EGF executive-board
decided to help the players with 200 Euro per person.
Bailing Cup 2015
Here’s a message of Mr. Liu Siming, president of China Qi-Yuan, from one week ago:
Each Professional is welcomed to participate in the Bailing Cup 2015,
especially the Professionals from Europe and US !
So here we have the first official statement whether our Professionals (all !), living in
Europe, can start in a Pro-tournament in China. In March 2014 about 300 Pros
played the Bailing-Cup, which is also supported by the IGF.
Small Summary
With this set of new tournaments and new developments in the Go-World I hope you
see the chances for the next years for your players and your countries. It is amazing
to see what’s coming up or has just started (for example the World Team
Championship in December 2013 in Guangzhou). But it’s also easy to see that
organizers of international Go-events normally are only covering all local costs but no
travelling expenses. This is normal in the sport’s community.
But for us Europeans it is a problem. The EGF should be able to support (at least)
top-representatives (amateurs and professionals). Consequently increasing the
income of the EGF has a very high priority.
Martin Stiassny
11th July 2014

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