European Congress 1981

British Go Journal No. 54. October 1981. Page 3.

Matthew Macfadyen

Those of you who have never heard of Apeldoorn might like to know that it's a little dot just above the 'l' in 'Netherlands'. Those of you who didn't think they cared should take note that things have been happening there this year. Apeldoorn is, quite definitely, where it's at. Rob, van Zeijst, the new European Go Champion, is the star of the local club but now they've started cloning them. The brothers Westhoff, promoted to shodan just before the European Congress in Linz, finished equal first in the Shodan section and indeed, had it not been for the valiant efforts of our own Francis Roads, might well have won the main tournament.

The European Championship itself is restricted to European nationals who claim to be at least 4 dan. The other 100 or so players at the congress all compete in a separate tournament, which included two Chinese players this year, and so was a lot harder to win than the Championship. Predictably, no one managed to beat the Chinese (except each other) but Francis Roads did the next best thing by winning all his other games and so becoming the best placed European.

Apart from Francis' excellent result, the only really creditable British performances were by Eddie Shaw, who won the 2 kyu prize, and Steve Black (the new Birmingham club secretary) who won a 13 X 13 handicap tournament played during some of the evenings.

In the Championship, the British contingent did not do so well. Jon Diamond emerged from hibernation to play a very uncharacteristic tournament. Usually he finishes strongly after a shaky start, but this time he won four out of his first five games (including a good win over the French wonder kid Frederic Donzet who did extremely well to finish third in his first appearance in the Championship) but lost all of his last four. As to my own result - my go is often characterised by a desire to achieve the impossible. This year I did it again by losing to Sudhoff as well as to 5 other players and I finished equal penultimate with Mark Hall (currently masquerading as an Italian 4 dan). It seems to have become a tradition that last year's winner does badly.