British Go Journals - The Archive

These pages reproduce a selection of the articles from 'ancient'* British Go Journals. The articles reproduced are the 'go-ish' ones - games, tutorials and problems - whilst news, tournament results, humour and so on are usually omitted.

You can purchase complete printed backnumbers of British Go Journals.

* Over 10 years old. Games from journals since Autumn 1999 are also available in sgf format (only).

The BGJ E-archives are presented here as a service to the worldwide go community. Feel free to read, study and print a copy of the pages for your own use. Making many copies of these pages or the information on them - in particular for any commercial activity - is prohibited.

The pages are being created by volunteers in a sporadic fashion and it may take several years before a reasonably complete archive is achieved. Each journal listed below also shows the month that the web pages for that issue were last updated.

  • Within each article, headings and diagram names are shown as links. On most browsers, clicking the link will position that point at the top of the browser window.
  • The articles are diagram intensive and will not be very readable if using a text-only browser.
  • Where an article is of a game, the game record is available both in Ishi (*.GO) and in Smart Game (*.SGF) formats. The game files are linked from both the article and the contents page of the relevant issue. You can download these files for later, or, if your browser is suitably configured, for immediate viewing.
  • These pages are produced without frames. If you wish to view game diagrams whilst scrolling the text, try tiling two browser windows side by side, both with the same URL.
  • When printing the pages, note that these web pages have no concept of the printed page. Some browsers need to have the window resized to conveniently fit across the paper width. Most browsers will cut diagrams in half as they start a new page - you will need to use scissors and glue!
  • [Start] Each page ends with this upward pointing triangle which takes you back to the top.

BGJ Index

There is also a list of available BGJs sorted in order of web updates.


A glossary of Go terms used in the articles is available. When you click on them, usually a separate window will open with the definition in it. The new window may be hidden underneath your main browser window.
Try boshi as an example.

Diagram technical info - Mixed whole and half point GIFs: GifGuide.txt provides a list of the many tiny GIFs which are used on most of the pages. Bd19x19.txt provides the raw html for an empty 19*19 board. A 'quick and dirty' QBasic program to generate the board html code (ENTERGO.BAS) is available from http://www.stocton.org/tools.htm#entergo without charge or guarantee.


Configuring browsers to view *.go files:

  • Netscape v2.02: Ensure that a viewer is associated with the filetype *.go and that double clicking on a *.go file in File Manager or Windows Explorer will correctly launch the viewer with the *.go file.
  • MS Internet Explorer v3.0a: Select View; Options; Programs; File Types; Add - then set
    • Description = Ishi Format GO files
    • MIME Type = application/x-go
    • Suffixes = .go
    • Encoding = Text
    • Application = c:\wingroup\utils\yago.exe %s Or whatever application you use
    • Service Name = No entry required

Configuring browsers to read *.sgf files is similar.


This is the index of a series of back issues of the British Go Journal.





Last updated Thu Aug 28 2008. If you have any comments, please email the webmaster.