The last round of the 2nd Pandanet Go European Team Tournament A League is perhaps not the most exciting anymore, with Russia as a clear league winner and the three remaining places for the final in Bonn already resolved. Ukraine, France and the Czech Republic are comfortable at 10 points while Hungary (currently 8 points), even if winning, can’t reach the board points total of any of those three. Still, exciting games are guaranteed, and the Netherlands and Poland fight hard for the league place.

Last round pairing, League A, Tuesday 8 May 2012

Russia vs. Netherlands 19:00 CEST
Romania vs. France 20:00
Poland vs. Ukraine 20:00
Germany vs. Hungary 20:00
Sweden vs. Czechia 20:00

Pairings and game records here

At last every game of the second round has been played, let’s see what happened!

Israel 3 – 1 Finland
The victory on board 1 by Antti Törmänen (now insei in Japan) wasn’t enough: Israel was able to subvert the game and clench an unexpected victory thanks to a 1 point mistake during the final ko battle on board 4, played yesterday. As far as I can see, Black should have played T1 at move 249, which gives him a further threat in T5, just enough to win the ko and the game by 0.5 points.
Antti has published a pro-mediated comment of the first board on his blog (post 1, post 2).

Austria 1 – 3 Serbia
A close game decided by sunday’s match between Viktor Lin and Dusan Mitic. The Mitic brothers are still undefeated, and Serbia has now closed the gap with Finland.

Slovenia 1 – 3 Denmark
Denmark prevailed, and moves to the fifth place. As of today they are the only team who won all games on board 3, helped by their balanced lineup. Slovenia put up a good fight, winning on board 4 and losing board 1 only by 7.5 points.

Belgium 3 – 1 Slovakia
Belgium was able to win even without one of its two top players. The most interesting match was probably board 1, in which Lucas Neirynck prevailed after killing one of his opponent’s groups.

United Kingdom 2 – 2 Switzerland
Victories by John Walch in a game characterized by an unusual opening and Sébastien Ott in a game of many invasions allowed Switzerland to get one point and gave the UK their third draw in five games.

Here you can find the pairings, games, and complete results.

What’s next? – Round 6
The next round will hopefully be played between the 15th and the 21st of February.

There won’t be any direct confrontations in the battle for promotion between Finland, Israel and Serbia, as they’ll be playing the UK, Switzerland, and Belgium. Serbia has probably the easiest pairing, and will hope that the UK and Belgium won’t leave their games empty handed.

The last two matches are between Denmark and Slovakia and neighbours Slovenia and Austria.

At last every game of the second round has been played, the players having defeated even the IGS server mantineance. Let’s see what happened!

Slovakia 0-4 Finland
No player from Slovakia showed, so Finland won all four games by forfeit. The penalty for not showing up brings Slovakia down to the last place. Hopefully they will be able to recover!

Serbia 4 – 0 Slovenia
As expected, the favourites won all four games by resignation. The Mitic brothers are still undefeated, but the hardest games have yet to be played! Once more, one of the most interesting games was played by Nikola Mitic.

Belgium 3 – 1 Austria
Vitor Lin’s return (and victory) on sunday gave hope to Austria, but it wasn’t enough. Once more, the Belgians did their best and ended up winning all the other 3 games by resignation. This victory consolidates their fourth position in the standings.

United Kingdom 1 – 3 Israel
There were a few technical problems, so two games started late, but this was probably the most interesting and hard fought match of the day. Ali Jabarin had to do his best to win against Bei Ge, and on board 4, nothwistanding an extremely big furikawari, Ofer Zivony prevailed against David Ward only in the endgame.

Denmark 4-0 Switzerland
First victory for the Danish team; not many chances for the Swiss players to win on any of the boards.

Here you can find the pairings, games, and complete results.

What’s next? – Round 5
The next round will be played between the 18th and the 24th of January. There will be a few interesting matches to look forward to.

First of all, Israel will play against Finland to try claim the first place on the standings. Then Serbia – Austria, Denmark will play against Slovenia: winning there will give them a chance to gain momentum and leave the bottom half of the standings. Slovakia will probably need to score points against Belgium to recover from their los by default. Finally, Switzerland will try to give Team United Kingdom a run for their money.