At the end of last week, many strong players from all across Europe came to Bratislava, Slovakia to attend two big competitions. The first one, the Grand Slam Qualification, was held on Thursday and Friday (the 14th to 15th March). The players who met the conditions (their rating higher than 2550 or at least one bonus point won in 2018) had the chance to fight for the last two places in the most handsomely funded tournament in Europe, the European Go Grand Slam. 

     Ten players, each one from a different country, participated in the five rounds qualification. As the number of participants and visitors was quite small, the atmosphere was rather familiar and friendly. However, a few games got quite intense, especially during the ending, because of the players cavalier approach to time management. After the fourth round, four players (Anton Chernykh, Tanguy Le Calvé, Nikola Mitic, Cornel Burzo) were tied in the lead and were thus paired to play with each other. Both of these games were broadcast on KGS, where you can find the SGF file under the EGF1 and EGF2 accounts and at the end of this article as well.

     In the end, Tanguy Le Calvé 6-dan from France and Nikola Mitić 7-dan from Serbia became the winners of this year’s Grand Slam Qualification.


     Together with six EGF professionals, and other strong players who qualified through different pathways (see here), they will therefore be able to participate in the Grand Slam, which will be held at the end of April and will offer an opportunity to win attractive prizes of over 23.000 euros in total.
You can see all results here.

Written by Soňa Lisá