3rd European Team Championship Leagues Starting

[Vesa]

http://www.pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps

The new season - 3rd Pandanet Go European Team Championship 2012/2013 - is starting! We have 30 teams in three leagues again and full 9 rounds to be played in the Pandanet-IGS.

The first round of the League A will open the tournament on Tuesday 18th September, the matches starting 19:00 and 20:00 CET/CEST. See the first round pairings available in the Pandanet European Team Championship site.

However, there'll be a jump start on Saturday 15th September, as Alexandre Dinerchtein, Russia and Amir Fragmin, Israel will play their game 14:00 CET/CEST (15:00 in Israel and 16:00 in Russia). The game will be breakfast vs. Wade, respectively.

Check the latest version of GoPanda client or try the brand new GoPanda 2.0 (for mobile users, search for PandaTetsuki). Login and join the Room 36 EuropeanTeamChamp game observers!

[topazg]

It seems there are a number of empty entries for leagues B and C (such as the UK) - is this correct?

[Dokuganryu]

I guess that teams were still not submited , and in many cases teams weren't decided yet. Can't wait for the whole thing to start, those games are much more enjoyable to watch than typical kgs games available for kibitz.

[HermanHiddema]

It seems there are a number of empty entries for leagues B and C (such as the UK) - is this correct?

Ours (the Netherlands) is one of the entries that is empty, but I have entered a complete team, and I know several of the members have registered on the pandanet site, so it seems there is an action required by the organisers to match registrations to teams before they show up.

[Uberdude]

I (as UK captain) have submitted our team. That the team section of the website is empty is perhaps a teething problem of rolling over to the new season. Or maybe players are expected to register online again?

P.S Vanessa Wong is on the team this year

[Vesa]

Hi folks,

Thanks for your enthusiasm. The league managers are filling in the team information, not everything is ready yet but should be ok when the first round of each league starts.

Cheers,
Vesa

[kaiou]

Last year there were a lot of problems with league C, no teams and results published, teams disbanded and unreachable, because the league manager was away and unresponsive all the time.

This time he is dealing with league B, I hope it will not be the same ^^

[Vesa]

Last year there were a lot of problems with league C, no teams and results published, teams disbanded and unreachable, because the league manager was away and unresponsive all the time.

Hi, that is a little unfair, as the arrangements for the League C 2011/2012 were extremely challenging. Some teams decided to drop out and we were hopelessly late with the recruiting of new teams. There had to be a new schedule not in sync with the other leagues, etc.

This year all leagues are more "regular" and business as usual.

Soon it's time for Board 2 of France - Sweden, ikami vs. KaninSWE, 15:00 CET/CEST today on Monday.

Cheers,
Vesa

[Phelan]

I partially agree with Vesa, the conditions were complicated to manage. I still think it could have been handled better though.

This year everything seems in place.

[Vesa]

The first four rounds of Pandanet Go European Team Championship are now complete and the teams are resting over the Christmas and New Year time. The autumn season was full of hard fought games and the new GoPanda 2 client also got its real-tournament tests along the way.

League A is still very close – the top three teams have 6 points but anything can happen in the 2013 half of the season. It is remarkable though that the current top three are the same as in the last season finals – Russia, Czechia and Ukraine.

League B is so far controlled by Austria and Finland, no points given away yet. Belgium, Netherlands and Norway are still in the competition though.

League C is lead by Slovakia, Turkey following with one point less. The middle range of the league is very even and during the last five rounds the race is wide open.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you on Tuesday 8th January!

[HermanHiddema]

Some more on league B, as that's the one I'm following (as a member of the Dutch team):

Austria is leading, but they have only played the bottom four teams in the league so far. Finland on the other hand have already played against Netherlands and Norway, and are IMO in the best position right now. Netherlands and Belgium are both at 6 points (3 wins, 1 loss), with Belgium leading on board points. I think the Netherlands are in a slightly better position, however, as they have defeated Belgium in the direct confrontation and have already faced the strong Finnish team. Round 6 will be the key round, with Netherlands facing Austria and Belgium facing Finland.

My prediction: Finland will win the league, Netherlands will get second place and reach the play-offs.

[Uberdude]

...and the UK suck.

[HermanHiddema]

Well, round 6 just happened. Netherlands beat Austria, and Finland beat Belgium.

That puts Finland at 12 points, Netherlands and Austria at 10 points, Belgium at 7.

Belgium's chances are very slim now.

Netherlands are behind Austria by one board point, but Austria still have to play Finland and Belgium, while Netherlands have already played all the other top contenders, so I will stick to my earlier prediction.

[SoDesuNe]

I do not know how Mekanik's game ended but karetego and schayan had both winning positions in the middlegame in my opinion (all from the austrian team). Karetgo's opponent was actually ripe for resign because he killed one of his groups to get a bigger center (which was not that big) but later he found a very nice endgame Tesuji and apparently karatego missed a variation letting half his top get killed.

But, well, you never know till it's over ^^

Sandmann's game was quite the opposite. Winning a won game all over, even sacrificing a lot of stones - if I understood that correctly : D

[HermanHiddema]

Mekanik lost by 4.5, looked like a close game from beginning to end, with vaneeden having the better endgame.

Janssensei completely screwed up his first joseki against Sandmann, after that it was a messy game because he had to overplay all the time and hope for a mistake. When janssensei's client crashed, resulting in a misclick, he resigned because it was a lost game anyway.

The other two games were indeed better for the Austrian players in the middle game.

As a spectator, it was quite exciting