The British Go Championship

The John Barrs goban is a traditional Japanese Go board. It is a good quality tenmasa board.

Every year the BGA organises a series of events to determine who will be the British Go Champion. These events are conducted according to the official rules, which are summarised below. There is also Guidance for the conduct of the Title Match . As well as the title “British Go Champion”, for which the trophy is The John Barrs Go Ban (pictured right), prize money and qualifying points for the World Amateur Go Championship are up for grabs.

Current (2009) Champion:

Matthew Macfadyen

This Year: 2010

Title Match 19/09/10 - 31/10/10

Vanessa Wong, currently studying in Shrewsbury, won her playoff game against Richard hunter in the Challengers' and so qualified to play for this year's Title Match against current champion Matthew Macfadyen, who also qualified in the Challengers' with a flawless 7/7 win. The games will again be commented by Li Yue 6d online KGS teacher based in Barcelona.

Spectators are welcome to observe these games, but as space is limited, please contact the championships organiser ahead of time. The start time for all games is 10:00 and each player has a time limit of 3 hours with generous Canadian overtime of 10 moves in 10 minutes. There is a 1 hour break for lunch at 13:00 and games should finish by 18:00.

The schedule for the year is quite crisp as Vanessa has an intensive schooling regime:

Sunday September 19
hosted by Concord School in Shrewsbury
Sunday September 26
hosted by Geoff Kaniuk In Cambridge.
Sunday October 3
hosted by Kirsty Healey and Matthew Macfadyen in Leamington.
Provisionally Sunday October 10 or October 24
hosted by Nick Wedd in Oxford or Geoff Kaniuk in Cambridge.
Sunday October 31
hosted by Geoff Kaniuk in Cambridge.

Challengers' League, London 28/05/10-31/05/10

Both Matthew Macfadyen and Vanessa Wong earned their places at the Challengers’ League held over a long weekend at the Nippon Club in central London. Matthew convincingly won all 7 of his games, beating Vanessa in the last round. However Vanessa had earlier lost to Nick Krempel in round 3, so, when Richard Hunter only lost to Matthew and Vanessa, there had to be a play-off between Vanessa and Richard, which Vanessa won.

Nick Krempel, Tim Hunt and Andrew Simons ended with three wins, Matthew Scott with 2 and Kiyohiko Tanaka, who was also acting as host, ended on 0. Thanks go to him for hosting and to Nick Wedd for acting as referee.

The Title Match will be scheduled on various weekends over the coming months, often alongside a tournament.

Candidates' Tournament, Cambridge 01/05/10-03/05/10

Held at Selwyn College, Cambridge, 34 players took part in the first stage of the 2010 British Championship. The venue was the Diamond at Selwyn College and 26 of the players joined in a meal at the Bella Italia restaurant.

Vanessa Wong (5 dan) won the tournament at her first attempt, winning all 6 of her games. This was Vanessa’s first UK adult title, having previously won the Under-12 Championship. Andrew Simons (2 dan Cambridge) and Matthew Scott (1 dan Newcastle) both won five games proving the next generation is starting to snap at Matthew Macfadyen’s heels. Matthew, as champion, did not have to play, but was on hand for intensive analysis of games. Richard Hunter (4 dan Bath), Tim Hunt (3 dan Milton Keynes) and Nick Krempel (3 dan London) took the next three places in the Challenger’s League. The final place went to Kiyohiko Tanaka (3 dan London) who just squeezed out Alex Selby (4 dan Cambridge) on second tie-break.

The list of players qualified for the 2010 British Go Championship was based on their performance in tournaments played during 2009 and until end of March 2010. The qualifying achievement for the Candidates' Tournament 2010 was to have an EGF rating of 1900 or higher immediately after the end of at least one tournament in 2009 or early 2010 in which the candidate played in all rounds.

Next Year: 2011

The list of players qualified for the 2011 British Go Championship is based on their performance in tournaments played from April 2010 and until end of March 2011. The qualifying achievement for the Candidates' Tournament 2011 is to have an EGF rating of 1900 or higher immediately after the end of at least one tournament in 2009 or early 2010 in which the candidate played in all rounds.

Last Year: 2009

Title Match 25/07/09 - 26/09/09

Matthew Macfadyen 6d qualified in the Challengers' playoff to defend his title against Hui Wang 5d. This was the second time that Hui has qualified to appear in the Title Match series. Games were again commented live by Li Yue 6d, well known for her online teaching on KGS.

Matthew won the series 3-0.

Spectators were welcome to observe these games, but as space was limited, they had to contact the championships organiser ahead of time. The start time for all games was 10am and each player had a time limit of 3 hours with generous Canadian overtime of 10 moves in 10 minutes. There was a 1 hour break for lunch at 1pm and games generally finished by 6pm.

The schedule for the year was:

Saturday July 25
hosted by Kirsty and Matthew In Warwick
Won by Matthew Macfadyen by resignation.
Game One Comments commentary by Yue Li.
Game One Relay raw record including moderated comments.
Saturday September 12
Hosted by Andre Cockburn In Derby.
Won by Matthew Macfadyen by resignation.
Game Two Comments commentary by Yue Li.
Game Two Relay raw record including moderated comments.
Saturday September 26
hosted by Geoff Kaniuk in Cambridge, Won by Matthew Macfadyen by 3.5
Game Three Comments commentary by Yue Li with some corrections by Matthew.
Game Three Relay raw record including moderated comments.
Note: The game was relayed as seen by the recorder: Matthew is along the left edge playing White, Hui Wang is along the right edge playing Black.
Saturday October 31
hosted by the Milton Keynes tournament - Open University. Not needed.
Provisionally Saturday December 5
hosted by Geoff Kaniuk in Cambridge. Not needed.

Challengers' League, London 26/06/09-29/06/09

With Des Cann and Alex Rix unable to compete, and Andrew Kay graduating, reserves Nick Krempel and Harry Fearnley joined the remaining qualifiers to participate in the 7 round all-play-all League held at the Nippon Club. Kiyohiko Tanaka became the reserve.

It was a weekend of surprises as Macfadyen lost to Wang, and then later to T Mark. Wang lost to Crosby and Cocke lost only to Hui and Macfadyen. By the end of round 7, Wang was in the lead on 6 wins and three players: Macfadyen, Cocke, and Hall were on 5. According to the tie-break rules which use the Candidates' ordering, Cocke was higher ranked than T Mark, so was selected for a playoff with Macfadyen. The final results with wins in [] and including the playoff were as follows:

Hui Wang 5d [6]
Matthew Macfadyen 6d [6]
Matthew Cocke 5d [5]
T Mark Hall 4d [5]
Matthew Crosby 2d [3]
Stuart Barthropp 2d [2]
Nick Krempel 3d [1]
Harry Fearnley 2d [1]

The playoff was won by Matthew Macfadyen and so he and Hui Wang will again compete for the British Championship Title over 5 games in various locations round the country.

Candidates' Tournament, Cambridge 02/05/09-04/05/09

22 players ranging in strength from 1 kyu to 5 dan gathered again on the May Day Bank holiday in Selwyn College, Cambridge for the 2009 Candidates' tournament. Matthew Cocke was the only player to gain 6 wins and last year's Challenger Hui Wang lost only to Matthew Cocke. There was a large group of players on 4 wins including 2 dan Stuart Barthropp and Matt Crosby. By the SoS tie break rules those who qualified for the Challengers' league are Matthew Macfadyen (automatic place), Matthew Cocke, Hui Wang, T Mark Hall, Desmond Cann, Stuart Barthropp, Alex Rix, and Matt Crosby. Nick Krempel gains a place as first reserve, second reserve being Andrew Kay on 3 wins.

Alex Kent deserves special mention as being the only 1 kyu to enter the tournament, coming all the way from Durham to play, and winning an impressive 3/6, beating a 1 dan, a 2 dan and a 3 dan.

Photos by Kiyohiko Tanaka: day 1 day 2 day 3

The list of players qualified for the 2009 British Go Championship was based on their performance in tournaments played during 2008. The qualifying achievement for the Candidates' Tournament 2009 was to have an EGF rating of 1900 or higher immediately after the end of at least one tournament in 2008 in which the candidate played in all rounds.

2008

Bei Ge decided to skip the 2008 Championships as his partner was pregnant. Again the top two from the Challengers' League would play the title match. They were Hui Wang 5d who has been in the UK studying for a PhD, and has only been playing Go here seriously since completing his studies, and Matthew Macfadyen has an unbroken run as Champion from 1997 till 2005. Hui won the first game, but Matthew won the match 3-1.

2007

The top two players from the Challengers' League were defending champion Bei Ge and Alex Selby from Cambridge. The title match took place between July and October. Game 5 was not needed as Bei Ge won the series 3-1.

2006

Following a rule change, the top two players from the Challengers' League played the best-of-5 Title match. These were Bei Ge and Matthew Macfadyen. Bei Ge won the match 3 games to 2. He will be the BGA representative at the World Amateur Go Championship in Tokyo in May 2007.

2005

Matthew Macfadyen retained his Title by defeating the Challenger, Des Cann, 3-0 in the best-of-5 games match.

History

A detailed history of the British Go Championship and detailed results of the matches and qualifying tournaments since 1997 is available.

The Rules

The Rules of the British Go Championships are the definitive reference.

These rules were amended for the 2006 Championship, to change the way of qualifying for each of the stages, and also the length and timing of some of the stages. In 2008 AGA Rules were adopted.

Until 2006 the Champion did not need to play the Challenger's League and also some of the best players did not play the Candidates'. Since 2000 qualifying was based on the number of wins at certain levels in British tournaments, rather than achieved rating after events as in the new system.

For reference, the old versions of the rules and pages detailing changes have been preserved:

For those of you who do not have time to read all of the rules and just want to know how to win, here is a brief summary:

To start with, if you want to be British Go Champion, you have to be "British". We take that to mean that either you are eligible to hold a British passport, or that you have lived in this country for five years. Then, since the BGA goes to the effort of running the Championship and we would like something in return, all competitors have to be paid-up members of the BGA.

Once you have dealt with these requirements you will have to play some Go. In fact you need to plan ahead a little bit because to win next year's Championship you must qualify this (calendar) year. You can qualify from any of the many tournaments that take place around Europe each year (provided that they are rated on the European rating system). All you need is to play the entire event (that is not to drop out early or just ghost the odd round) and end the event with 1900 or higher. Please note that deliberately entering an event at too high a grade just to get a 1900 rating will not be tolerated.

The British Championship proper comprises three tournaments. First you must win through the Candidates' Tournament. The event is announced in Upcoming Tournaments and you will receive a letter of invitation. It is held on the first May bank holiday weekend. All the players who qualified in the year to 31st March play in a six round Swiss-style tournament. The top seven (or possibly sometimes six) players gain a place in stage two. If you want to be on the safe side, I advise you to win five of your games, but if you can only manage four then you may qualify, if you are lucky with the tie break.

Stage two is the Challengers' League. This is an eight-player all-play-all tournament that normally takes place from the Friday to the Monday of the second May Bank Holiday or a later weekend if there is a clash with the WAGC. You and the other six qualifiers are joined by the previous champion. The organiser would be quite pleased if you could beat all seven of your adversaries outright. Then you are the clear winner of the league and progress to the Title Match as the first challenger. If you come second you will also play the Title Match as the second challenger. If there is a tie for first or second place in the league, those involved may have to have a play-off game (on the Monday afternoon) to decide the second challenger.

So now you are in the title match. This is the last hurdle but the biggest. A best of five series of games against the other winner from the League. Each player has three hours on the clock for each game. These are some of the longest time limits in any European competition.

Good luck! You only have to win about 16 games of Go from start to finish of the process. What is so difficult about that?

Of course there is more to the Championship than winning. After all, only one person can win each year, but lots of other players take part, play some serious Go, enjoy themselves, and aim to achieve what they themselves consider success.

Promoting Go in the UK and beyond

Title Match 19/09/10 - 31/10/10

Title Match 25/07/09 - 26/09/09