Promoting Go in the UK and beyond

Issue 26       January 1999

Tournament News

7th World Women's Amateur 06/11/98-08/11/98

Helen Harvey (1k) was Britain's rep and came 12th with 3/6. Winner of the Sotetsu Cup was Japan's Chifumi Yamashita, second North Korea, third South Korea, fourth China and fifth Singapore.

Three Peaks (N.Yorks) 07/11/98 & 08/11/98

Organisers Toby Manning and Sue Pitchford had a record entry of 44. The prizes were presented by Colin Elsdon of the Marton Arms. He said that the fund to buy cutting equipment for the fire service had achieved its objective, but the Marton Arms continues to raise funds, now for the Ingleton Ambulance Station. All proceeds from this tournament went to this.

Many of the prizes were bottles of Riggwelter, which is a strong North Yorkshire beer. It's also a sheep that has fallen on its side. Apparently this is a serious matter for a sheep, as they can't get up again without help. The trophy is miniature go ban donated by Graham Telfer.

Winner (5/5)	Francis Roads
Runner-up (4/5)	Toby Manning
Other 5/5	Alison Ewens (10 kyu, OU)
Other 4/5: Tom Joldersma (4 kyu, Lytham St Annes)
	Paul Kersay (6 kyu, York)
	Gary Beman (13 kyu, Leamington)
Souvenir spoon (not wooden) for 0/5	Paul Cannock

Kirsty Healey was awarded a prize because she won 3 of the first four rounds. In the fifth round her result proved too difficult to determine, since her neighbour had been using her prisoners to play on the next board and nobody thought of counting it Chinese style.

British Small Board @ Cambridge 15/11/98

The 1998 British Small Board Championship had 20 entrants. The winner was Mike Charles (2d St Albans), who won a rapid play-off game against Alan Thornton (also 2d St Albans) after both players had finished on 5/6. There were five other prizewinners, all on 4/6: David Ward (3d Cambridge), Alex Selby (3d Cambridge), Hermann Tittel (16k Cambridge), Aaron Dixson (22k Brakenhale) and Shawn Hearn (24k Brakenhale).

The competition was held as part of the Cambridge Junior Chess and Go Club 2nd Annual Congress, which also included junior and adult chess sections. The event as a whole attracted 114 competitors.

There was a 9x9 Go competition as a side event between rounds. This was very popular - 40 children and 2 adults entered, many of them chess players who had not played Go before. The top placings were determined by number of wins. These were Hereward Mills (Bedford) 10 wins; Alexander Foster (Cambridge) 7 wins; Kristopher Gray (Ely), Aaron Dixson (Brakenhale) and William Brooks (Cambridge) 6 wins; Hannah Edwards (Finborough) and Daniel Rowson (Cambridge) 5 wins.

Ing World Computer Championship 21/11/98 & 22/11/98

This was held in Hendon College, London, and was organised by Nick Wedd. 1. Many Faces of Go 2. Wulu 3. Go4++ As usual the wining program was beaten easily by the Taiwanese boys brought over for that purpose.

Swindon 22/11/98

Paul Barnard arrived back from Thailand just in time to run it and he went back to Thailand a week later. 79 players attended the new venue near the town centre.

Winner	Matthew Macfadyen
Other 3/3	Dan Gilder (2 dan, Manchester)
	Niculae Mandache (1 dan, Bristol)
	Roger Murby (20 kyu, Bristol)
	Phil White (30 kyu, Plymouth)
2.5 /3	David Woodnutt (1 dan, OU)
Dan Misca (1 dan, Reading)

World Amateur Pair Go 22/11/98 & 23/11/98

Des Cann and Sue Paterson played for Britain and lost in round one. They then won 2/4 in the special handicap. Norway, Finland and Russia all survived round one, but China did not. Winners this year against strong Japanese competition were the Korean pair of Sung-Kyun Park and Miss Se-sil Kim (aged 10). Runners up were Nagai/Takanashi and third were Taga/Goto. Canadian son and mother pair, Philip and Jean Waldron, won the special handicap section. Also playing in the special handicap was Tony Atkins playing with Mrs Seki (formerly of London) who also won 2/4.

West Surrey Teach-in 05/12/98

31 pupils and 6 teachers assembled at Burpham Village Hall for four hour-long sessions on various topics. Yajie Liu (2p) analysed some of the pupils' games. Des Cann studied some professional games, Tony Atkins studied some openings, Tom Blockley and Paul Margetts taught some life and death, Simon Goss analysed some middle game positions, plus many other aspects of the game.

West Surrey Handicap 06/12/98

58 players took part this year and it is always interesting to see if the pupils and teachers from the day before do well. Certainly some of the teachers were amongst the winners and Tony Atkins (2d Reading) was the tournament winner. Also winning 4/4 were France Ellul (3k High Wycombe), Graham Horsley (12k West Surrey) and Elizabeth Wayte (32k Brakenhale). Three clubs dominated those on 3/4: Epsom Downs' Rolland Halliwell (16k), Philip Tedder (7k), David Pemberton (3k) and Paul Margetts (1 dan); Worcester's Tom Blockley (4k) and Ed Blockley (2k); Bournemouth's Neil Cleverley (5k), Kevin Drake (1k) and Marcus Bennett (1d losing finalist). Also on 3/4 were Geoff Kaniuk (1k CLGC), Dave Cohen (5k Hursley), Roger Daniel (4k Hampstead), Shawn Hearn (23k Braken- hale), Nigel Peters (30k u/a) and Lucie Elliott (30k Brakenhale). In the event's continuous 13x13 the highest number of wins were scored by Steve Ashing, the best percentage by Theo Elliott and for persistence Aaron Dixson. Winners in the code breaking quiz were Alex Bruckner and 3.19.3.4 (Tony Atkins).

Brakenhale School Party 09/12/98

28 kids battled on 13x13 boards, solved problems, ate and enjoyed this year's raffle. Tournament winners were Claire May (now 30k), Theo Elliott (now 24k) and Lucie Elliott (now 28k). Quiz winners were Elizabeth Wayte and her 8 year old sister Laura.

25th London Open 31/12/98-03/01/99

This was again sponsored by HITACHI and attended by 150 players at the usual venue the Highbury Round House community centre. This year two lady professionals were present: Liu Yajie from China and Nam Chihyoung from Korea. The top group of players was quite strong this year. After six rounds the European GP points were awarded to Lee Hyuk (15), Guo Juan (12), F. von Arnim (10), V. Chow (8), J. Finke and M. Cocke (5.5), E. Nijhuis (4), S. Zhang (3), M. Macfadyen (2), and J. Rickard (1).

Lee, Guo, Zhang and von Arnim made the cut. Guo beat her earlier vanquisher Lee in an exciting final so top five places went to: 1 Guo, 2 Lee, 3 Felix von Arnim, 4 Emil Nijhuis, 5 Vincent Chow.

Players on 7/8 were Theo Elliott (24k UK) and P-E. Martin (3k S). On 6/8: Shawn Hearn (23k UK), Walter Wandel (4k NL), G. Kreutz (4k D), D. Mechtenberg (3k D), David Woodnutt (1d UK). All players on 5/8 got a certificate.

The Lightning Tournament was won by South Africa's Vincent Chow (5d), second was last winner Emil Nijhuis (5d NL). Continuous 9x9 winners were Kai Gogl, Jonathan Chetwynd, Tim Hunt and Shawn Hearn (Under 13).

News

European Results

Belgrade was won by Ion Florescu (Romania), with second Viktor Bogdanov (Russia) and 3rd Csaba Mero (Hungary).

Brussels was by Geert Groenen (Netherlands), second equal were Vladimir Danek and Franz-Joseph Dickhut (Germany), fourth was Guo Juan (Netherlands). Britain's T.Mark Hall (4d) was 12th.

Gothenburg was won by Dickhut ahead of Emil Nijhuis (Netherlands) and Ulf Olsson (Sweden).

Kiev was won by Dmitry Jatsenko ahead of Dmitry Bogatskiy and third his father Arkadiy Bogatskiy (all Ukraine).

Fujitsu Cup in Amsterdam was won by Guo Juan who beat Catalin Taranu (3p) in the final. Losing semi-finalists were Gerlach (5d) and Pietsch (2p).

Kisei Match

Game one of this will be held on 13/01/99 and 14/01/99 at the Maison de la Culture du Japon, Quai Branly, Paris. The players are Cho and Kobayashi and many other professional players will attend.

Promotions

Niculae Mandache has been promoted to 2 dan. The following are all now 1 dan: Kirsty Healey, Paul Clarke, Christian Scarff, Simon Bexfield, Henry Segerman.

Pro Teaching Tour

Yajie Liu from China is undertaking a three month visit to Britain to teach go and learn better English. She has visited Oxford, Cambridge, Surrey and plans more trips in January.

Go Tuition

[ This service is no longer available. ]

National Trainer Matthew Macfadyen is running private seminar days and a scheme to teach by email. He hopes to be teaching a Summer School Course at Marlborough School again in 1999.

New York Times

For those of you that don't log into IGS or read rgg regularly, there was an article in the New York Times (24 Dec) about go and playing on the internet.

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