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Reader's review of the 2016 Yearbook of European Go
By Tony Claasen | Reviews | 04.10.2017 18:41 | Views: 5110

Being part of the News Team of the EGF has its advantages. One of those perks is receiving a free copy of the 2016 EGF yearbook. I had the privilege to be one the first readers to experience the yearbook, which was written by my EGF News Team colleague Kim Ouweleen. I recently interviewed Kim about the project and his ups and downs during the writing process: you can find that interview here. In this article, I focus on the yearbook from my own perspective, and review it as the reader.

First impression - Heron and Crow 

I received my copy of the 2016 European Go Yearbook sometime in August, not long after it had been officially released to the public. The first thing that caught my eye was the elegant cover. In the centre of the book, which measures 19,5 x 22 cm, there is a near perfect square which represents the shape of a go board, a black heron and a golden crow approach each other. The black heron stands in the golden square and the golden crow floats above it, in the upper right. They appear to be in balance, perhaps a metaphor for yin and yang? Or is the crow, seemingly flying downwards, ready to strike and are we looking at a symbol of fighting spirit? In that case the heron, with its large wings spread out, would prepare to receive the blow of the attacker. In its intriguing simplicity, the image calls to mind all sorts of questions.

Heron
2016 EGF Yearbook and Invisible on my bookshelf
Crow
After investigating further, I found out more about the symbolism of these two birds. During the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), the black crow and the white heron became symbolic representations of black and white go stones. A visual trick that can still be found in go cultural today, such as markings on go bowls to indicate the colours. Notably, on the cover of the yearbook these colours have been inverted; the white heron is black and the black crow is white (gold).
To give some background information on the time period that this symbolism came to be: until around 700 AD, the standard board size for go was 17x17. Relatively soon after this was drastically changed to 19x19 instead, weiqi found its way to Japan, where it became known as igo (or uro, which is a poetical name meaning heron and crow).
Previously, already in 5th century AD, weiqi had travelled to Korea, where it was introduced on a 17x17 grid. This influenced the Koreans considerably, who kept playing baduk on 17x17 until the beginning of the 20th century.
Mountain monks sit playing weiqi.
Over the board is the bamboo's lucent shade.
No one sees them through the glittering leaves.
But now and then is heard the click of a stone.

Contents - Browsing through

When I first opened the yearbook and quickly browsed through, I saw many pictures and plenty of go games with diagrams and commentaries. For me this directly increased the visual value of the book.
Just by skimming through its contents, chapters about AlphaGo and the 60th anniversary of the European Go Congress confirmed that 2016 had been a historic year for go in many respects. 

In the beginning of the book, I found a nice chapter with lots of statistics about the development of go in Europe, accompanied by a list of professional players from and living in Europe. These were followed by two interviews with 2016's new EGF professional Artem Kachanovskyi from Ukraine and with Antti Törmänen from Finland, about his life as an insei and his promotion as a professional go player in Japan.
Interestingly, similtaneous with the release of the yearbook, Antti Törmänen published his book Invisible, a collection of all the games played by AlphaGo against top professionals. Antti's first noteable act as a professional player.

Lighthouse GO
Tower GO
The 2016 European Go Yearbook travelled to the island of Schiermonnikoog (NL) to be reviewed.
Personal Favourites - National Championships and Major European Tournaments

Personally, the two most interesting and valuable parts of the book for me are its two largest chapters, filled with a diverse range of information about go in Europe: National Championships and Major European Tournaments and Events.
In the chapter National Championships, each EGF country and its go champion get a chance to tell the reader about go in his or her country. I was enthused by the amount of information that was new to me. With its many pictures and game commentaries, this part of the book made for an exciting journey through European go life. Being able to finally put a face to some well known names was fun and I was surprised to see how some of them looked a lot different to what I had imagined. The only pity was the similar style of the pictures, which was obviously chosen to create a pattern, but only  showed male and female champions sitting at a go board or receiving a trophy. For a next yearbook, I would like to see a larger variety of pictures in this section, giving a more diverse impression of European go life.

The chapter that I enjoyed the most was Major European Tournaments and Events.
This chapter provided insights into professional go life in Europe and background information on the systems of important tournaments. For example, how the European Grand Prix is organised.
What I liked best in this chapter were the articles about various youth championships, which could be emphasised even more. Information about the initiative of the EGF Academy (founded in 2015) can be found here as well, just as a report on the 1st EGCC Go Camp (Saint Petersburg), a new initiative by the Japanese Go Association in cooperation with the European Go Cultural Centre.

book on the beach2
LOG BOOK


AlphaGo

Last, but definitely not least, we come to an introductory chapter about AlphaGo and the games it played against Lee Sedol and Fan Hui. It is followed by short interviews with many top European players about the future of Go.

The book ends with a Big Bang, hightlighting the end of 2016, when "Magiser" and later "Master" (aka "The Master of Go" AlphaGo) played 60 games against the world's top professional go players on Tygem Go Server and Fox Go Server, winning all. The complete list of Master's games is included in this last chapter, alongside a selection of 14 game records.

Conclusion

To conclude: If you are looking for a complete overview of European go and would like to have a collection of games by top European players and experience the different ways in which they review their own games and those of each other, I can highly recommend this book.

EGF Yearbook 2016 Schiermonnikoog

Reader's review of the 2016 Yearbook of European Go

This article was written by Antonius Claasen

Born 31th of January 1962, in 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands
started playing go 1979
Promotion to 1 Dan in 1981, after the Go Congress in Linz.
Promotion to 4 Dan in 1985 After the Go Congress in Terschelling.
Eurpean Champion 13X13 in 1984
European Team Champion in 1985, together with Frank Janssen and Joost Cremers.
I have 5 children and live at the moment in Hamburg Germany.

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Calendar

DateCoCityEvent
22.03.2023
26.03.2023
TR Ankara European Youth Go Championships
25.03.2023
26.03.2023
ES Madrid I Malasaña Tournament
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PL Wrocław II Wiosenny Turniej Go we Wroclawiu 2023
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DE Leipzig 2. Spring Fuseki
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NO Oslo Nordic Go Championships
08.04.2023
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HU Budapest Hungarian Easter Open International Tournament
08.04.2023
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FR Paris 50th Paris International TournamentB
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16.04.2023
SI Bled 32nd Slovenian Open
15.04.2023
15.04.2023
ES Seville XXIV Seville Go Tournamet
29.04.2023
29.04.2023
IE Dublin April Rip-Off
29.04.2023
30.04.2023
AT Innsbruck Tyrolian Masters
29.04.2023
01.05.2023
CZ Prague 51st Prague Tournament - Korean Ambassador´s CupB
06.05.2023
06.05.2023
CY Nicosia Spring Go Tournament
06.05.2023
07.05.2023
ES Madrid XXIV Madrid Open Tournament
06.05.2023
07.05.2023
DE Berlin 11. Chinacup Berlin
13.05.2023
14.05.2023
FR Strasbourg Women Championship
19.05.2023
21.05.2023
NL Leiden 3rd Dutch OpenC
20.05.2023
20.05.2023
ES Santa Cruz de Tenerife I Cómics y Mazmorras Cup
20.05.2023
21.05.2023
HR Stubicke Toplice 30th Croatian OpenC
27.05.2023
28.05.2023
HU Budapest Hungarian Grand Prix
27.05.2023
29.05.2023
GB London 4th Not The London Open
17.06.2023
18.06.2023
PL Wiselka Porfirion Cup Tournanent 2023
01.07.2023
02.07.2023
RO Bucharest Dream Primer Cup
15.07.2023
16.07.2023
CZ Pardubice Pardubice - Radek Nechanicky MemorialC
22.07.2023
05.08.2023
DE Leipzig 65th European Go Congress
23.07.2023
30.07.2023
DE Leipzig European ChampionshipA
06.08.2023
13.08.2023
ES Sepúlveda Spanish Go Camp
16.08.2023
18.08.2023
SE Leksand Pair Go Championship
16.08.2023
20.08.2023
SE Leksand Swedish Summer Camp
19.08.2023
20.08.2023
SE Leksand Leksand OpenC
19.08.2023
26.08.2023
HR Zaostrog 5th Summer SEYGO Festival
24.08.2023
25.08.2023
HR Zaostrog Zaostrog Open
09.09.2023
10.09.2023
PL Wrocław V Wrocław Open 2023
15.09.2023
16.09.2023
RO Timisoara - Temeschwar European Student Go Championship
16.09.2023
17.09.2023
RO Timisoara - Temeschwar Walter Schmidt Memorial
23.09.2023
24.09.2023
ES Madrid I Cervantes Tournament
23.09.2023
24.09.2023
IE Dublin Confucius Cup DublinC
07.10.2023
08.10.2023
AT Vienna Vienna International
14.10.2023
15.10.2023
PL Warsaw 3rd "China Town" Weiqi Cup
28.10.2023
29.10.2023
DE Mannheim 25. Mannheim AjiC
18.11.2023
19.11.2023
RS Niš Niš Open 2023C
28.12.2023
31.12.2023
GB London 49th London Open Go Congress
28.12.2023
31.12.2023
GB London Grand Prix Final 2023
18.05.2024
20.05.2024
DE Hamburg KidoCup/Affensprung

See also the full EGF Calendar and the EGF World Calendar.

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