The first edition of the Amsterdam International Go Tournament took place in 1971. Now, 47 years later, it is still going strong. Traditionally, the Amsterdam Tournament is held around Ascension Day in May and takes place in the European Go Cultural Centre (EGCC) in Amstelveen. It is the biggest tournament in the Netherlands.

This year, it was organised by Kim Ouweleen and Harry van der Krogt of the European Go Centre, in cooperation with Herman Hiddema from the Dutch Go Association. During four days, from Thursday 10th until Sunday 13th May 2018, a total of 94 players gathered in Amstelveen to enjoy the sunny weather and seven intense go matches with their trademark thinking times of 90 minutes on the clock, per person.
A large top group, including some of the strongest players in Europe (22 players of 4 dan and stronger), made for a tough competition. All eyes were on the young Frenchman Tanguy Le Calvé 6 dan, who had managed to win the year before when he overthrew Korean-born Chimin Oh 7 dan, also living in France. Would Tanguy be able to defend his Amsterdam title?

Tanguy's main competitors were Korean-born Youngsam Kim 8 dan, the Open European champion of 2016, who lives and teaches go in Germany, and Dohyup Kim 7 dan, who flew over from South Korea for the occasion. A week before the Amsterdam tournament, the Kims, who are friends and both former yeongusaeng, faced each other in the last round of the Strasbourg tournament. That match was decided by just half a point in Youngsam's favour, igniting a drive for revenge in Dohyup.

Unfortunately, Dohyup Kim could not avenge his loss in Strasbourg and resigned to Youngsam Kim in the fifth round of the Amsterdam tournament. Perhaps this defeat was partly caused two rounds before, when Dohyup was rattled by a surprising loss: Viktor Lin 6 dan (AT) amazed everyone with his upset over the South Korean, the outcome of a raw fight that ended in deception when a ladder was misjudged and proved fatal. 
Youngsam Kim 8 dan, who displayed an array of Artificial Intelligence inspired openings, remained undefeated and took the Amsterdam title of 2018. Together with Dohyup Kim 7 dan, two other players in the topgroup scored 5 wins out of 7 games: Tanguy Le Calvé 6 dan (FR), who only lost to the two Kims, and Rémi Campagnie 5 dan (FR), who lost to the number one and to his fellow countryman. Tanguy had Lady Luck on his side and edged out Dohyup Kim for second place on SODOS. Rémi Campagnie was the unlucky one of the three and finished fourth. Fifth place was for Viktor Lin 6 dan and sixth place was claimed by Lukáš Podpěra 7 dan (CZ).
There were special money prizes for the best three female players, which were taken by Meng Lu 4 dan (CN), Chu Volk-Lu 4 dan (DE) and Manja Marz 4 dan (DE) respectively.
The sponsors ensured that all players with 5 or more wins got a prize: they could pick out a go book from the stand of Schaak & Go winkel Het Paard and additionally received a voucher for Guo Juan's Internet Go School.
The full tournament results can be viewed here.

Rapid Tournament, Japanese food and big smiles

Each year, the Amsterdam tournament also offers several side activities.
On Wednesday May 9th, the evening before the tournament, the Amsterdam Go Club held a blitz competition (12 minutes sudden-death per person), which was won by Zhao Baolong 2p.
Together, Rob van Zeijst 7 dan and Zhao Baolong 2 dan professional were the official commentators of the main tournament and offered their expertise to review games of the participants. On Thursday afternoon, they also performed a public match analysis on the demonstration board for all to watch. During all seven rounds, Harry Weerheijm (EuroGoTV, board 1 on KGS) and Zhao Baolong (Yike, board 2 on KGS and Yike) live broadcast the top matches on the Internet.
On Friday and Saturday evening a separate Rapid Tournament was organised (30 minutes sudden-death per person), sponsored by DNM-ICT. First prize was claimed by Youngsam Kim 8 dan once again, second place was for Kim Dohyup 7 dan and third place went to Sinan Djepov 5 dan.
Saturday evening also offered some delicious Japanese food for all contestants: a choice of vegetarian sushi maki, beef curry with fried rice, fried shrimp (ebi furai) with cocktail sauce and fried noodles, and chicken yakitori with teriyaki sauce and fried rice. Everyone was delighted with the food (yours truly especially with the ebi furai), prepared by former Okura Hotel chef Ishikawa, and wishes of this being repeated the next year were muttered. Strengthened by the good food, about 15 people took their chance to face Rob and Baolong in a simultaneous.

Photo albums: AIGT Facebook page, EuroGoTV (there are several albums on the site) and Harry van der Krogt.