Life In 19x19

I was a little surprised to see that the European Professional Qualifiers will run again this year. In the current financial climate I had imagined that they would be suspended, but no. It means another fun tournament for us to watch.

https://www.eurogofed.org/proqualificat ... _2021.html taking place in Leksand, starting October 28.

The winner of the 6th Pro Qualification and the 8th European Professional is Stanisław Frejlak!

In the final he defeated Lukáš Podpěra 7d with a score of 2-1: after losing the first game, Stanisław won the second one by half a point and the third one by resignation.

Game records, tournament chart, and more information are available on the EGF website: https://eurogofed.org/proqualification/index_2021.html

In the sample edition of the European Go Journal that is available for download free of charge, February 2021, there is a big interview with Stanisław. You can download the magazine here: https://eurogojournal.com/editions/february-2021

After Stanisław's victory in the Pro Qualification it's interesting to go once again through his interview that was made half a year ago.

I have started to study the finals game 2 moves 263 - 271. There are many more variations than expected. Still I do not know whether B had a guaranteed possibility to create a dame ko fight or whether W could prevent it necessarily before move 271.

The attached SGF is just a draft for those who want to study on their own. It may contain mistakes and has gaps but already goes far beyond the OGS forum file.

I don't know Stanisław well, but I've had some interaction with him. He's a good guy, and I'm happy to hear about his success in the pro qualification tournament. Congrats to him!

At the same time, missing out on making pro by a half point has to stink.

Unfortunately I didn't get to look at any of the games yet, I've only seen the results. I was a bit surprised to see Rob Van Zjeist go out in the first round. The eventual winner was probably most people's favourite. Lukas seems destined to finish second too often.

Javaness2 wrote:I was a bit surprised to see Rob Van Zjeist go out in the first round.

Rob's last European Title dates back almost 30 years already (1993).
I think most of the other participants of this Pro Qualifier Tournament weren't even born then.
I think Rob would the first to aknowledge that in his late 50s, he's not as strong anymore as he was back then.