Eurogo News - Compendium of Games

Hitachi European Go Congress, Canterbury, 1992

Game records are available in both SmartGo format (.sgf) and Ishi format (.go), and also comment files are available. Each set is downloadable as a zipped file. Games are named by the first three letters of each players name.

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ROUND BY ROUND

SIDE EVENTS

There were numerous side events at Canterbury - not all of them go either. Games from many of them have already been published. Computer go was in Eurogo News 5 and BGJ 90; rengo was in Eurogo News 4; pair go in Eurogo News 6; 9x9 Eurogo News 6; 13x13 in Eurogo News 5. The pro-pro game between Inoue and Yuan was in Eurogo News 3 and BGJ 88, and a game between Lazarev and the visiting Miss Sato was in Euorgo News 6. The games in the shogi were not recorded, but the liar dice final was (though will not be published here). It is not known whether a record exists for the final of the International Mornington Crescent Competition. The game that appears below comes from one of the many events put on by the professionals for the players.

• Bongaerts v Shirae

ROUND ONE 26th July 1992

After Saturday's excitement of opening ceremonies, Sunday saw the players settling down to play in the tournament. With the McMahon bar at 4 dan the top players were well spread. The Chinese from London, Zhang Shutai, was matched against Thomas Heshe (see Eurogo News 2). Russian Alexei Lazarev, the reigning European Champion, was matched against Des Cann (see below). All the eight 6 dans won their games.

• Cann v Lazarev
• Butler v van den Houten
• Schmid v van Diepen
• Hall v Miyanagi

ROUND TWO 27th July 1992

Monday saw some Japanese dan players from a tour party joining in for two rounds; this gave some of the top players easier games than expected. The strong Japanese Kai Naoki, who dominated the tournament at Namur, played the strong Russian Viktor Bogdanov and won (see below). Lazarev played and beat another strong Japanese, 59 year-old Matsutomo Takashi. All the other 6 dans won their games.

• Grant v Hoffman
• van den houten v Charles
• Kai v Bogdanov
• Roads v van Eeden
• Nebelung v Ellul
• Claasen v Rittner
• Kroppach v Timmins

ROUND THREE 28th July 1992

The next day a clash of the titans occured when Lazarev met the British and four times European Champion, Matthew Macfadyen; the Russian won (see below). Kai also lost his game and also lost in round 4 before leaving a week early. Surprisingly Zhang lost to Dutch 5 dan Gilles van Eeeden and the young 16-year old Japanese, Miyakawa Wataru, lost to a Dutch 4 dan Geert Groenen.

• Macfadyen v Lazarev
• Heshe v Mills

ROUND FOUR 30th July 1992

After the day off with trip to Leeds Castle, most of the top players regained any form they may have lost. Frank Janssen of the Netherlands lost his first game against Lazarev (see Eurogo News 3). Bogdanov lost to Matsutomo and Macfadyen lost to a second Dutch 5 dan, Michiel Eijkhout.

• Gaspari v Cann

ROUND FIVE 31st July 1992

With only four players unbeaten above the bar, Lazarev had to play van Eeeden and Groenen against Ion Florescu the Romanian 5 dan. Lazarev and Groenen won, causing Groenen to shave his hair off as the result of a bet. No one would have expected a 4 dan to survive the week unbeaten. Janssen lost to Zhang (see Eurogo News 4), but all the other 6 dans won.

• Thompson v Punina

WEEKEND TOURNAMENT 1st and 2nd August 1992

Over the middle weekend of the European is held the weekend tournament. Some of the players from the main event take a rest, others come just for the weekend and many more are complete go adicts and play in both. At Canterbury 234 players entered the weekend, which compares with the total of 276 different people in the main (though the maximum on anyone day was about the same). A weekend crew took over the organisation allowing the main team some time off - time to play some go (see below).

At the top of the tournament there were only five 6 dans. Perhaps the one hour time limits put the others off. The crunch game came in round 4 when Zhang had to play Miyakawa (see Eurogo News 4). Zhang won this and won his fifth too to win the tournament by a clear point. Miyakawa got four as did 5 dan David Schoffel of Germany; Miyakawa was placed second as having the better cumulative round scores.

• Fassbender v Atkins

ROUND SIX 3rd August 1992

After the weekend off (by not playing in the Weekend Tournament), Lazarev was fully recharged and beat Groenen (see below). Zhang lost to Miyakawa (see below) damaging his chances, and Bogdanov lost to Eijkhout. Macfadyen was not having a good tournament and lost his third game.

• Groenen v Lazarev
• Bro-Jorgensen v Taranu
• Geerlings v Beaton
• Zhang v Miyakawa

ROUND SEVEN 4th August 1992

The second Tuesday saw Lazarev loose his first game when he met Miyakawa (see below). Groenen lost to his fellow countryman van Eeden. All the other 6 dans won.

• Boogerd v Beaton
• Siivola v Bro-Jorgensen
• Popma v Calota
• Lazarev v Miyakawa
• Rasmussen v van Diepen

ROUND EIGHT 6th August 1992

After the second rest Wednesday it was Zhang's turn to beat Lazarev (see Eurogo News 6). Groenen won his 6th game beating Eijkhout (see Eurogo News 6), but van Eeeden lost to Miyakawa. All the other 6 dans won, including Macfadyen with an easy win against Denis Feldman of France (see below), and Bogdanov who beat Dick Riedeman of the Netherlands (see below). This put Bogdanov and Macfadyen back in the reach of the top ten places.

• Calota v Laatikainen
• Bro-Jorgensen v Nicolet
• Zhong-Xiao Ye v Valasek
• Pulverer v Webber
• Feldman v Macfadyen
• Bogdanov v Riedeman
• Berben v Jones
• Dinh v Dzaebel

ROUND NINE 7th August 1992

The top clash was between Matsutomo and Miyakawa (see below), which was relayed to an adjacent lecture theatre by CCTV for pro commentary sessions. Age triumphed over youth with Matsutomo taking the honours. Zhang won a seventh game against Groenen, and Lazarev and Janssen picked up their seventh against Gherman and van Eeden. Eijkhout, Germany's Egbert Rittner, Robert Rehm of Netherlands, Florescu and Macfadyen all picked up sixth wins with a chance of a placing if they won a seventh.

• Dzaebel v Koester
• Matsutomo v Miyakawa
• Macfarren v Fricker
• Margetts v Buntsma

ROUND TEN 8th August 1992

The last round must always be one of the hardest. Everyone is tired and looking forward to the closing ceremony. At the top Lazarev went down to Rittner, as Lazarev lost a large group (see below) and was hence unable to get eight wins. Zhang beat Matsutomo, by winning a hard semeai fight by one move, and stopped the Japanese getting the 9th win expected of him. Van Eeden beat Florescu and Groenen beat Macfadyen (see BGJ 88) to give them seven wins. Bogdanov beat Francis Roads (see below) and Eijkhout beat Gherman to get seven also. In a slow game that was the very last to finish, Frank Janssen blew a good position to loose by 4.5 points to Miyakawa, throwing away a good chance of being joint seceond in the tournament (see below).

This left the top three tied. Zhang had lower cumulative scores so was third. Matsutomo and Miyakawa had the same scores and so, since Matsutomo had beaten Miyakawa in their crucial round 9 match, the European Open title was awarded to the Japanese businessman from Nishinomiya City, Matsutomo. Lazarev was the best of the group on seven and took the European Champion title and earned the place in the Fujitsu Tournament in Japan. In a later play-off Groenen beat van Eeden 2-1 for the honour of representing Europe in the Korean Tongyang Securities Cup. Guo Juan, the Chinese lady living in the Netherlands, won the Fujitsu Grand Prix despite not being present in Canterbury.

• Rudd v Pena
• Roads v Bogdanov
• Rittner v Lazarev
• Janssen v Miyakawa

Canterbury Booklet

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