A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities
Last 3 months News
20-Apr: BGJ 187 Now Available in Members AreaThe Spring 2019 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read. |
18-Apr: UK Beaten by SwedenOur team played was outplayed by a strong team from Sweden, losing all four games. This leaves the team still in seventh place in the B-League, but only on tie-break. The final match of the season will be on Tuesday 5th May, against Turkey. Alex Kent wrote: I lost by resignation against Fredrik Blomback. The opening did not go well: I went wrong in a "windmill" joseki in the upper-left. I ended up needing to live small while my opponent got a wall. Definitely one I need to investigate! Early in the middle game I started playing more aggressively to try and catch up, but this backfired dramatically and I barely survived. Later on things got a little exciting and I tried a few tricks but to no avail. Jon... |
08-Apr: British Go Congress Held in Manchester
Each year the British Go Congress is held in a different place, with the BGA's Annual General Meeting on the Saturday evening. The 2019 edition was held in the MacDonald Hotel on Manchester's London Road, not far from Piccadilly Station. The weekend started with a teaching session on Friday afternoon with Toby Manning. That evening the British Open Lightning was held; it was won by London's Peikai Xue (2d), shown below left with the trophy. On the Saturday and Sunday 80 players, many of whom were below 10k, enjoyed the usual six round British Open tournament. It was for the... |
01-Apr: Irish Open Runs SmoothlyAfter the troubles caused by the snow at last year’s Irish Go Congress, this year it was played under clear skies and ran extremely well. The Confucius Institute was not supporting the event and so the venue reverted to the tradition one, The Teachers’ Club on Parnell Square. Over the weekend 42 players, including visitors from seven countries, took part in the Go. This started with the 18-player Irish Rapid on the evening of Friday 22nd March. As usual the rounds speeded up from twenty to twelve minutes and the number and size of handicap gaps reduced as the strong players started to dominate. Tunyang Xie (4d) from Cambridge won all five games to take the title. London’s Xunrui Zhao (3d) and Trondheim’s Juan-Manuel Losada (1d)... |
25-Mar: First Harpenden Won by Chao Zhang
When the Welwyn Garden City Tournament found that the sports centre housing their Bridge Club venue was closing, the organiser, John Collins, had to move the event to the Sunday and to the new venue of the Harpenden Arms, in the High Street of the nearby town. This is also the venue of the new Harpenden Go Club, so it was in fact a good way to promote that too. It was a bright sunny spring morning, good for travelling by road, but unfortunately a power failure on the railway meant no Thameslink trains at all from London that morning.... |
20-Mar: Norway Beaten Four-NilOur team played very well and got their first win of the season, against Norway. This moved the team up to seventh place and out of the relegation zone. The next match will be on Tuesday 16th April, against Sweden. Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Severin Hanevik after more than three hours of play and 331 moves including passes. I played an AI-style early 3-3 and then was happy he gave me the thick old joseki in bottom left even though he got sente. He surprised me when he resisted my attachment and took the outside ponnuki, and again when he didn't connect up to the corner; LeelaZero says he should have done so immediately and I should have prevented that instead of my solid tiger mouth. Nevertheless I had a... |
12-Mar: Improved Entry at Trigantius
This year's Trigantius saw a much improved entry of 69 including seven new players. The venue was again the University Social Club in Mill Lane and the bright spring weather helped attract the large attendance. Play took place in the main bar area (as seen in the picture) and overflowed into a back room for the bottom six boards. Unfortunately this large number made it take longer for Geoff Kaniuk and his team to set the rooms up and to register the players, so the event was half an hour late starting. Games were successfully played using Fischer timing of 45 minutes,... |
20-Feb: UK Draws with the SwissOur team fought hard and managed a draw against Switzerland. The next match will be on Tuesday 19th March, against Norway. Andrew Simons wrote: I played my game against John Walch on the evening of Saturday 16th. I won on time, but was fairly confident of winning anyway. The game started with a diagonal opening and me 3-3 invading (as I did against Sam in the second championship game); he took the gote wall so I took its extension and then peeped at it. He resisted, connecting on dame, so we had a fight and I was happy to build centre strength, and then, as he haned at q11, I got to make the dame cut in sente. His group was hard to attack directly though, so we played some more opening stuff. I made a makeshift defence... |
19-Feb: UK Youth Team completes their 2018/19 seasonTeam Captain Alison Bexfield, and all her squad of 12 players in the UK Youth Go team, can look back on this 2018/19 season with satisfaction, as we finished comfortably mid table, out of the 12 teams. Whilst we lost narrowly (2-3) to Czechia, in the final fixture last weekend, it was an exciting match, and each margin was between one and a dozen points. If one is superstitious, one might argue that we were "off colour" in the final match - playing 3 boards with the "wrong colour". That's because the match saw White winning on all 5 boards! It was always destined to be a fine margin either way with players,... |
15-Feb: UK Youth team to play CzechiaAlison Bexfield, Team Captain, has selected players for the UK Youth Go team playing - mostly on Saturday - versus Czechia. The two teams' captains have done really well, and managed to line up players with exactly the same paper grade as each opponent, save for a 2-grade advantage to the UK on board 1. The board line-ups for the match are: Board 1: Daniel Yang (Chunyang18) 1d (b) U20 -versus- Anežka Bukovská (Anezka) 2k (w) U20 Board 2: Edmund Smith (dnumde) 3k (w) U16 -versus- Robin Popov (... |
06-Feb: Fischer Time Trialled at Cheshire TournamentThe 21st Cheshire Tournament became the first event in the UK to use Fischer Time on new BGA electronic clocks. The 42 players successfully used the new system that gives extra time for each move played. The basic time was set at 40 minutes and ten seconds were added each move, remaining a B class tournament; only one game was lost on time (selecting the optional warning beep helped most avoid this) and fast players often had more time left at the end than they started with. Most of the prize winners were from the two minibusfuls from Cheadle Hulme School. Ali Moin won a 13x13 prize for the most games played (winning 3 out of 9) and Sam Barnett for the best percentage/most wins (with 6 out of 6). These two were also among the... |
28-Jan: Youngsters play Go despite snow ...Good news if a tad late ...
Well, mea culpa entirely for this late snippet, but no doubt Santa was still delighted with the photo. Taken in December, it shows his helpers enjoying their lunch break at Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) in South Manchester. It seems that not even snow can stop the fun, for those with suitable head-wear. The school Go Club has been running for over 5 years now, with great support from CHS, their teachers past and present, minibuses, drivers, the BGA and DeepMind.... |
25-Jan: New Go Club in Port TalbotDaniel Jones (spoon_man666 at hotmail.com) wrote: The inaugural meeting of a new Go club for the Nath Port Talbot area took place on Sunday 20th January at the Beefeater Bagle Brook, Pentyla-Baglan Rd, Port Talbot, SA12 8ES. There were four players and another popped in because he was busy and could not stay to play but wanted to meet everyone there. We have also had a couple of people join our Facebook group, which has reached eight members. The next meeting is provisionally on Sunday 24th February. |
23-Jan: Joanne Wins Debut in League Against AustriaOur team lost again by three games to one, this time against Austria. The only win was by Joanne Leung, making her debut in the League on board 4. The next match will be on Tuesday 19th February, against Switzerland. Andrew Simons wrote: I lost on time against Viktor Lin, from a good position that had just turned bad in an overtime panic. We had a nice opening fight when he allowed my powerful cut at p3: we both had weakish groups running out to the centre, but I got to cover the head at m11 and he didn't make much territory on his half of the board in the process. A fight on the lower side ended with an exchange, capturing a load of cutting stones for good profit to settle my groups. I think c4 was a mistake though (e3... |
21-Jan: Fun and Games at Maidenhead
There was much fun and games at the Maidenhead-Hitachi Tournament. As usual it was held at the Whitebrook Park headquarters of Hitachi Europe, though news was shared that due to potential company relocation it might be the last. In between rounds, as well as playing 13x13 games, most of the ten youngsters taking part played different games with Alison, the non-playing organiser. In addition, as well as wine and mystery envelope prizes, the prize table contained a large selection of board games as shown right. The winner of the tournament was the former Chinese professional, Chao... |
