Last 3 months News


15-Aug: Marcus Bennett Marcus Bennett died recently after a short illness caused by cancer. Marcus was one of the main players of the Bournemouth Club for over 30 years. He was the club secretary from 1994 and ran the Bournemouth Tournament, being the main contact between 1990 and 1998. He was also on BGA Council from 1997 to 1999 and earned his shodan diploma (1d) in 1994. He is shown here receiving a prize at the 1990 Coventry Tournament. The new club contact is Kevin Drake who said their dear friend will be sadly missed.
02-Aug: Young Players Still Leading Brits in Pisa Despite some having troubles with flights nearly 30 players from the UK enjoyed the sun in Pisa for this year's European Go Congress. The event itself had a record turn-out with over 1400 players having pre-registered; the main tournament had around 850 players. Leading the way for the British players were teenagers Tom Bradbury (5k) and Edmund Smith (5k). In the main tournament, after a barnstorming start, Edmund ended up with 7/10, and Tom with 6/10. In the Weekend tournament Edmund got 4/5 while Tom got 3/4. The rest of the players had a mixture of results. While not playing Go the participants attended lectures and had game reviews, or explored Tuscany, including the cities of Florence, Siena and Lucca as well as...
01-Aug: Club Directory Audit Attention Go Club members: We are currently updating the Club Directory (see Find a Club on the menu at the top of each page). If you are our primary contact for your club then the recent mail message from us may be languishing in your spam folder. Please review your entry in the Directory and notify us of anything that is out of date by email to club-chair@britgo.org. If you are not the primary contact, please take time to review the entry anyway.
01-Aug: BGJ 184 Now Available in Members Area The Summer 2018 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.
23-Jul: Simons wins first British Championship game On Saturday July 21st the first game of the British Championship, between Andrew Simons and Sam Aitken, took place. After more than 6 hours of play, Andrew Simons won by 2.5 points after Sam failed to successfully invade a large corner of Andrew's. The title match is best-of-three. Matthew Macfadyen gave a commentary on KGS. Both the raw game record, and the version with Matthew's commentary, are available here. A commentary by Andrew Simons is available here.
18-Jul: AWCC Player Interviews During the 5th Annual World Collegiate Weichi Championship in Cambridge BGA reporter Andrew Simons had a chat with some of the players. Interview 1 AS: Hi. What's your name and where do you come from? YW: Hi. My name is Yuzhang Wu and I'm from China originally but studying at Manchester University in England. AS: What are you studying? YW: Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering. AS: Did you learn Go here or in China? YW: I learnt in China, but now Eric Zhang in Manchester is my teacher, maybe you know him? AS: Ah,...
16-Jul: UK Go Challenge Finals Tied After the AWCC had ended, the following day the BGA used one of the two playing rooms, the Hicks Room in Cambridge's University Centre, to organise the UK Go Challenge Finals. Thanks to the Ing foundation of Shanghai, the Go equipment used by the AWCC has been donated to the BGA and it was used by the 28 children attending the Finals. Battled over 7 rounds on 13x13 boards, the finals ended up in a three-way tie based on number of wins, as the top three players each won six games and lost to one of the other two. The places were determined by the knock-out system used, as there were three prize certificates, but prize money was shared. The top three were Charlotte Bexfield, Edmund Smith and Yue Wen. These won U18 Girls, U14...
16-Jul: AWCC Results The fifth Annual World Collegiate Weiqi Championship (AWCC) was held in Cambridge this year and organised by the International University Weichi Federation (IUWF). Naturally it was supported by the BGA and sets were provided by the Ing Foundation in Shanghai. Many of the organising team were students at British Universities including Daniel Hu, Junan Jiang, Weichin Dai and Joanne Leung. The tournament had 102 players (a view of one of the two playing rooms is shown here). It was held over two days and six rounds, apart from the A group that also had semi-finals and final (shown below) on...
11-Jul: World Collegiate Tournament Started The 5th International World Collegiate Weichi Championships (IWCC) started on Tuesday in Cambridge with an Opening Ceremony. About an hour of speeches was followed by a dinner. Participants were welcomed by a number of dignitaries, including BGA President Toby Manning. The first three rounds of the Championship take place on Wednesday, with the remaining 3 rounds on Thursday. UK hopes are resting on British Champion Daniel Hu, from Cambridge University and current British Champion, but he lost 2 of his first 3 games.. Alongside the Championship is the semifinals of the...
03-Jul: Shodans left cussing as Alison Wins Welsh Open The 26th Welsh Open proved to be a hot one - both in the air temperature approaching 30C and the fierce competition for overall winner. The regular organisers & tournament directors Helen and Martin Harvey apologised the previous year for ineffective sun-dancing leading to rain. This year the TDs sought forgiveness - for over-zealous sun-dancing, however. The resultant queuing at the bar at least kept the hotel-owner happy, and meant we could avoid the queues if players wanted hot drinks or - in many cases - cold water. Held in its constant, scenic coastal town of Barmouth since 1993, the event again passed off smoothly and enjoyably. A slight increase meant that 33 played in at least...
28-Jun: Boris Mitrovic Retains Scottish Open Title Twenty-four players contested the Scottish Open 2018 over two days at the Offices of Skyscanner in the centre of Edinburgh. Thanks to Skyscanner, as well as hosting the event, the participants were fuelled throughout the contest with drinks and copious pizza. Also on the Saturday evening the movie "The Surrounding Game" was shown. Local player Boris Mitrovic (2d) retained the title by winning all his games. On four wins out of six were Neil McLean (1k), Toby Manning (1d), Alistair Wall (1d), Rob Payne (6k) and Roger Daniel (7k). James Richards (2k Edinburgh) won the 9×9 small board contest. Results
25-Jun: Matthew Cocke Stops Durham Winning Run The 2018 Durham Go Tournament was held at the Oriental Museum for the second year running. Numbers continue to increase, and the 35 entrants ranged from 20k to 4d, reported organiser Andrew Ambrose-Thurman. As usual, the Durham tournament has a number of opportunities for socialising - including our annual all-you-can-eat Go BBQ. Luckily the weather was sunny and warm (far better than it has been in previous years!), and there were 25-30 people playing Go on picnic blankets (as shown in the picture) and garden tables, including some who hadn't been able to attend the...
06-Jun: UK Battles Italy for Promotion Having finished second in the B-League our team would have to play a best-of-five play-off against the second bottom A-League team for promotion. At first it was thought it was going to be against Serbia, but Italy had their lost points reinstated as the allegations of using computer assistance were over turned. Unfortunately short notice at exam period meant some of our top players were unavailable, but the five players we did field definitely stood a chance of winning their way to the A-League, the opponent's grades being 5d, 4d, 4d, 3d and 3d. The first two boards were played on 29th May, which were both lost, and so we had to win all three games a week later on 5th June. Chris Bryant wrote: I lost my game...
05-Jun: Joanne and Bruno Win Top Prizes at Pair Go The 38th British Pair Go Championships was held as the last few years at the Red Lion in Hatfield, who always make us welcome and sell a good lunch. 16 pairs played, split as usual into two sections, and it was again pleasing to see so many young players in the handicap group. To select the top Championship group it looked like the three pairs at 3.5 kyu would have to be split, but in the end the pair of Andrew Simons and Yansai Noeysoongnoen sadly had to withdraw because of illness. The battle for first place was then expected to be between three former champion pairs and a pair of strong Chinese from London. However Alison and Simon Bexfield beat Kirsty Healey and Matthew Macfadyen, and then beat Xiao Yu Gong and Ho Yeung Woo...
04-Jun: Not the London Open Held Alongside Challengers' League Over the first three days of the Challengers' League the London Go Centre also hosted the first Not the London Open Tournament. 22 players took part, but not all every day. Winner was Weijin Chen (5d London) with six out of six (emulating his clean sweep at the last LOGC). Second was Finland's Jesse Savo (4d) with five wins and Zihe Zhao (4d Oxford) came third. Czech player Jan Adamek (10k) won five games, Alexandre Kirchherr (6k) won four and Sebastian Pountney (7k) won four out of five. Results On the Saturday evening the organisers showed the documentary movie "The Surrounding Game", which follows the quest for the first American Go professional. Appropriately also at the event...
29-May: Sam Aitken Comes Through The Challengers' League took place over the bank holiday weekend (plus Tuesday) at the London Go Centre. Sam Aitken won all of his games to lead the field, as at Candidates', but it was much closer in the race for second position. Going into the final round there were permutations which could have led to tie breaks and any of Andrew Simons, Alex Rix and Boris Mitrovic ending up with second place. In the end, Alex lost his game to Sam Bithell and Andrew beat Boris meaning that he took second place with no need for a play-off. Alex was third with four wins, Boris, Charles Hibbert...
27-May: Challengers' League Underway The eight-player Challengers' League has got underway at the London Go Centre. The players, selected at the Candidates' Tournament earlier in the month, are playing an all-play-all to find the two challengers to play the British title match later in the year. After the first day it was Sam Aitken and Charles Hibbert who were on two wins. On one win were Alex Rix, Andrew Simons (who lost to Charles), Boris Mitrovic and Sam Bithell. Alistair Wall and Tim Hunt were yet to score. The epic game of round 2 was Boris Mitrovic against Sam Bithell which lasted for an hour and a quarter of overtime and saw Sam (1k) beating Boris (2d). The League continues until Tuesday. Alongside the League, the London Go Centre was organising its Not...
22-May: UK beat Sweden to Head for Play-Offs In the ninth and last round of the season, the UK (second) beat Sweden three games to one. This left the British total at an impressive seven wins and two draws. Assuming Germany did not draw or lose to Turkey (they won four-nil), the team's next game will be a best-of-five play-off against Italy, the second-bottom team in the A League, to try for promotion on 29th May. This would have been Serbia, but the appeal against the claim of computer-assistance was in Italy's favour and their forfeits will be cancelled, moving Serbia down to bottom. Andrew Simons wrote: For a change I finished in under two hours, winning by resignation against Martin Li 4d. The opening was Alpha/Leela Zero inspired (I've recently been studying...
21-May: Alistair Wins Hot Manchester Summer North-West schoolchildren lacked a local Go event for their Summer term, and thus a new Manchester Summer tournament came into fruition. This was kindly enabled by a generous offer by managers of the use of the top floor (not for the first time) of the Bank of East Asia in Chinatown. We have a local connection with them, with local club player Peter Yim being a longstanding BEA customer. Big thanks go also to Peter, for facilitating use of the venue. On a hot...
19-May: All Go at Welwyn Bridge Centre On a warm Saturday, 20 players defied the clamour to watch the Royal Wedding and FA Cup Final by playing Go at the Bridge Centre in Welwyn Garden City's Gosling Stadium. Prizes were presented by Sheila Gabriel, deputy chair of the Bridge Club, as shown in the picture. The overall winner was Min Yang (3d) from Oxford, who included Lucretiu Calota (4d) in his list of conquered. Also winning three games were Edmund Smith (5k) (Kiev-inspired?) from Cambridge, Aorja Harris (12k) from Letchworth, and Theodor Calota (16k) from St Albans. Results
15-May: Gong Cheng Wins Bracknell Gong Cheng (3d London City) won the Bracknell Tournament, beating Min Yang (3d Oxford) in the final (as seen in the photo). Others of the 29 players taking part in the event, held as usual at Woosehill community Centre in Wokingham, who won all three games were Neil Cleverly (10k Bournemouth) and Lueming Yang (16k Oxford). The Team prize was won by the youngsters of "I like lunch" and Paul Barnard was the winner of the puzzle competition. Organiser Ian Marsh claimed to be the winner in the 13x13 side event as nobody played in it. Results...
09-May: Bar Low Held at London Go Centre Across the May Day bank holiday weekend, the London Go Centre was host to the first round of the competition to see who gets to be British Go Champion, but more importantly on the Sunday we held the 21st Bar Low tournament, reports Gerry Gavigan. For new readers, the tournament is an opportunity for kyu players to enjoy a competition they stand a chance of winning and to start an EGF rating. For the Bar Low, successfully meeting its objectives can be judged by the number of newcomers and the number of double digit kyu (DDK) players who enter. This year we had 29...
07-May: Chinese Taipei Wins WAGC Chan Yi-Tien of Chinese Taipei was unbeaten to win the 39th World Amateur Go Championships held at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo. Kim Sangcheon of Korea was second with seven wins. The next group all had six wins: Wang of China, Frejlak of Poland, Murakami of Japan, Kuronen of Finland, Dusan Mitic of Serbia and Islas of Mexico. The UK's representative, British Champion Daniel Hu, ended on four wins and in 26th place of 61. In the last four rounds he beat Frank Hestvik from Norway, lost to Juri Kuronen, beat Willem Pomstra of the Netherlands and lost to Wichrich Karuehawanit of Thailand. Ireland's Michael Thai ended with three wins in 48th. In the final rounds he beat Azerbaijan, lost to Portugal and Brazil, but beat Chile...
09-Apr: British Go Congress Held in Bristol The 51st British Go Congress was held in Bristol and the very modern Future Inns Hotel, just across from the Cabot Circus shopping centre in the middle of the city. It started on the Friday with a teaching session and then the British Open Lightning. This was won by Alex Kent (3d); he beat the previous winner, Xunrui Zhao (3d) from London, into second place. However in the British Open, played as usual on the Saturday and Sunday, it was Xunrui Zhao who was the winner, scoring victories in all six games. In second place was Jon Diamond (3d) and third was Sandy Taylor (2d) from the...
30-Mar: European Youth Go Congress, Kiev, Part 2 Day 1 (of 3) of Kiev Tournament (continued from part 1) The remaining three squad members and their three mothers arrived safely on Wednesday afternoon, on the eve of the main tournament. We all went to a pizza restaurant, for some squad players to get to know newcomers. On Thursday 29th, the tournament kicked off with an elaborate opening ceremony. This featured firstly a long and colourful Chinese dragon, then a superb circus troupe of youngsters. There were gymnasts, trapeze artists and girls climbing up silk ropes,...

Marcus Bennett died recently after a short illness caused by cancer. Marcus was one of the main players of the Bournemouth Club for over 30 years. He was the club secretary from 1994 and ran the Bournemouth Tournament, being the main contact between 1990 and 1998. He was also on BGA Council from 1997 to 1999 and earned his shodan diploma (1d) in 1994. He is shown here receiving a prize at the 1990 Coventry Tournament.

The new club contact is Kevin Drake who said their dear friend will be sadly missed.

02-Aug: Young Players Still Leading Brits in Pisa

Despite some having troubles with flights nearly 30 players from the UK enjoyed the sun in Pisa for this year's European Go Congress. The event itself had a record turn-out with over 1400 players having pre-registered; the main tournament had around 850 players.

Leading the way for the British players were teenagers Tom Bradbury (5k) and Edmund Smith (5k). In the main tournament, after a barnstorming start, Edmund ended up with 7/10, and Tom with 6/10. In the Weekend tournament Edmund got 4/5 while Tom got 3/4. The rest of the players had a mixture of results.

While not playing Go the participants attended lectures and had game reviews, or explored Tuscany, including the cities of Florence, Siena and Lucca as well as...

01-Aug: Club Directory Audit

Attention Go Club members: We are currently updating the Club Directory (see Find a Club on the menu at the top of each page). If you are our primary contact for your club then the recent mail message from us may be languishing in your spam folder. Please review your entry in the Directory and notify us of anything that is out of date by email to club-chair@britgo.org. If you are not the primary contact, please take time to review the entry anyway.

01-Aug: BGJ 184 Now Available in Members Area

The Summer 2018 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.

23-Jul: Simons wins first British Championship game

On Saturday July 21st the first game of the British Championship, between Andrew Simons and Sam Aitken, took place. After more than 6 hours of play, Andrew Simons won by 2.5 points after Sam failed to successfully invade a large corner of Andrew's.

The title match is best-of-three.

Matthew Macfadyen gave a commentary on KGS. Both the raw game record, and the version with Matthew's commentary, are available here.

A commentary by Andrew Simons is available here.

18-Jul: AWCC Player Interviews

During the 5th Annual World Collegiate Weichi Championship in Cambridge BGA reporter Andrew Simons had a chat with some of the players.

Interview 1

AS: Hi. What's your name and where do you come from?

YW: Hi. My name is Yuzhang Wu and I'm from China originally but studying at Manchester University in England.

AS: What are you studying?

YW: Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering.

AS: Did you learn Go here or in China?

YW: I learnt in China, but now Eric Zhang in Manchester is my teacher, maybe you know him?

AS: Ah,...

16-Jul: UK Go Challenge Finals Tied

After the AWCC had ended, the following day the BGA used one of the two playing rooms, the Hicks Room in Cambridge's University Centre, to organise the UK Go Challenge Finals. Thanks to the Ing foundation of Shanghai, the Go equipment used by the AWCC has been donated to the BGA and it was used by the 28 children attending the Finals.

Battled over 7 rounds on 13x13 boards, the finals ended up in a three-way tie based on number of wins, as the top three players each won six games and lost to one of the other two. The places were determined by the knock-out system used, as there were three prize certificates, but prize money was shared. The top three were Charlotte Bexfield, Edmund Smith and Yue Wen. These won U18 Girls, U14...

16-Jul: AWCC Results

The fifth Annual World Collegiate Weiqi Championship (AWCC) was held in Cambridge this year and organised by the International University Weichi Federation (IUWF). Naturally it was supported by the BGA and sets were provided by the Ing Foundation in Shanghai. Many of the organising team were students at British Universities including Daniel Hu, Junan Jiang, Weichin Dai and Joanne Leung.

The tournament had 102 players (a view of one of the two playing rooms is shown here). It was held over two days and six rounds, apart from the A group that also had semi-finals and final (shown below) on...

11-Jul: World Collegiate Tournament Started

The 5th International World Collegiate Weichi Championships (IWCC) started on Tuesday in Cambridge with an Opening Ceremony. About an hour of speeches was followed by a dinner. Participants were welcomed by a number of dignitaries, including BGA President Toby Manning.

The first three rounds of the Championship take place on Wednesday, with the remaining 3 rounds on Thursday. UK hopes are resting on British Champion Daniel Hu, from Cambridge University and current British Champion, but he lost 2 of his first 3 games..

Alongside the Championship is the semifinals of the...

03-Jul: Shodans left cussing as Alison Wins Welsh Open

The 26th Welsh Open proved to be a hot one - both in the air temperature approaching 30C and the fierce competition for overall winner. The regular organisers & tournament directors Helen and Martin Harvey apologised the previous year for ineffective sun-dancing leading to rain. This year the TDs sought forgiveness - for over-zealous sun-dancing, however. The resultant queuing at the bar at least kept the hotel-owner happy, and meant we could avoid the queues if players wanted hot drinks or - in many cases - cold water.

Held in its constant, scenic coastal town of Barmouth since 1993, the event again passed off smoothly and enjoyably. A slight increase meant that 33 played in at least...

28-Jun: Boris Mitrovic Retains Scottish Open Title

Twenty-four players contested the Scottish Open 2018 over two days at the Offices of Skyscanner in the centre of Edinburgh. Thanks to Skyscanner, as well as hosting the event, the participants were fuelled throughout the contest with drinks and copious pizza. Also on the Saturday evening the movie "The Surrounding Game" was shown.

Local player Boris Mitrovic (2d) retained the title by winning all his games. On four wins out of six were Neil McLean (1k), Toby Manning (1d), Alistair Wall (1d), Rob Payne (6k) and Roger Daniel (7k). James Richards (2k Edinburgh) won the 9×9 small board contest.

Results

25-Jun: Matthew Cocke Stops Durham Winning Run

The 2018 Durham Go Tournament was held at the Oriental Museum for the second year running. Numbers continue to increase, and the 35 entrants ranged from 20k to 4d, reported organiser Andrew Ambrose-Thurman.

As usual, the Durham tournament has a number of opportunities for socialising - including our annual all-you-can-eat Go BBQ. Luckily the weather was sunny and warm (far better than it has been in previous years!), and there were 25-30 people playing Go on picnic blankets (as shown in the picture) and garden tables, including some who hadn't been able to attend the...

06-Jun: UK Battles Italy for Promotion

Having finished second in the B-League our team would have to play a best-of-five play-off against the second bottom A-League team for promotion. At first it was thought it was going to be against Serbia, but Italy had their lost points reinstated as the allegations of using computer assistance were over turned. Unfortunately short notice at exam period meant some of our top players were unavailable, but the five players we did field definitely stood a chance of winning their way to the A-League, the opponent's grades being 5d, 4d, 4d, 3d and 3d.

The first two boards were played on 29th May, which were both lost, and so we had to win all three games a week later on 5th June.

Chris Bryant wrote: I lost my game...

05-Jun: Joanne and Bruno Win Top Prizes at Pair Go

The 38th British Pair Go Championships was held as the last few years at the Red Lion in Hatfield, who always make us welcome and sell a good lunch. 16 pairs played, split as usual into two sections, and it was again pleasing to see so many young players in the handicap group. To select the top Championship group it looked like the three pairs at 3.5 kyu would have to be split, but in the end the pair of Andrew Simons and Yansai Noeysoongnoen sadly had to withdraw because of illness.

The battle for first place was then expected to be between three former champion pairs and a pair of strong Chinese from London. However Alison and Simon Bexfield beat Kirsty Healey and Matthew Macfadyen, and then beat Xiao Yu Gong and Ho Yeung Woo...

04-Jun: Not the London Open Held Alongside Challengers' League

Over the first three days of the Challengers' League the London Go Centre also hosted the first Not the London Open Tournament. 22 players took part, but not all every day. Winner was Weijin Chen (5d London) with six out of six (emulating his clean sweep at the last LOGC). Second was Finland's Jesse Savo (4d) with five wins and Zihe Zhao (4d Oxford) came third. Czech player Jan Adamek (10k) won five games, Alexandre Kirchherr (6k) won four and Sebastian Pountney (7k) won four out of five.

Results

On the Saturday evening the organisers showed the documentary movie "The Surrounding Game", which follows the quest for the first American Go professional. Appropriately also at the event...

29-May: Sam Aitken Comes Through

The Challengers' League took place over the bank holiday weekend (plus Tuesday) at the London Go Centre. Sam Aitken won all of his games to lead the field, as at Candidates', but it was much closer in the race for second position.

Going into the final round there were permutations which could have led to tie breaks and any of Andrew Simons, Alex Rix and Boris Mitrovic ending up with second place. In the end, Alex lost his game to Sam Bithell and Andrew beat Boris meaning that he took second place with no need for a play-off. Alex was third with four wins, Boris, Charles Hibbert...

27-May: Challengers' League Underway

The eight-player Challengers' League has got underway at the London Go Centre. The players, selected at the Candidates' Tournament earlier in the month, are playing an all-play-all to find the two challengers to play the British title match later in the year. After the first day it was Sam Aitken and Charles Hibbert who were on two wins. On one win were Alex Rix, Andrew Simons (who lost to Charles), Boris Mitrovic and Sam Bithell. Alistair Wall and Tim Hunt were yet to score. The epic game of round 2 was Boris Mitrovic against Sam Bithell which lasted for an hour and a quarter of overtime and saw Sam (1k) beating Boris (2d). The League continues until Tuesday.

Alongside the League, the London Go Centre was organising its Not...

22-May: UK beat Sweden to Head for Play-Offs

In the ninth and last round of the season, the UK (second) beat Sweden three games to one. This left the British total at an impressive seven wins and two draws. Assuming Germany did not draw or lose to Turkey (they won four-nil), the team's next game will be a best-of-five play-off against Italy, the second-bottom team in the A League, to try for promotion on 29th May. This would have been Serbia, but the appeal against the claim of computer-assistance was in Italy's favour and their forfeits will be cancelled, moving Serbia down to bottom.

Andrew Simons wrote: For a change I finished in under two hours, winning by resignation against Martin Li 4d. The opening was Alpha/Leela Zero inspired (I've recently been studying...

21-May: Alistair Wins Hot Manchester Summer

North-West schoolchildren lacked a local Go event for their Summer term, and thus a new Manchester Summer tournament came into fruition. This was kindly enabled by a generous offer by managers of the use of the top floor (not for the first time) of the Bank of East Asia in Chinatown. We have a local connection with them, with local club player Peter Yim being a longstanding BEA customer. Big thanks go also to Peter, for facilitating use of the venue.

On a hot...

19-May: All Go at Welwyn Bridge Centre

On a warm Saturday, 20 players defied the clamour to watch the Royal Wedding and FA Cup Final by playing Go at the Bridge Centre in Welwyn Garden City's Gosling Stadium. Prizes were presented by Sheila Gabriel, deputy chair of the Bridge Club, as shown in the picture.

The overall winner was Min Yang (3d) from Oxford, who included Lucretiu Calota (4d) in his list of conquered. Also winning three games were Edmund Smith (5k) (Kiev-inspired?) from Cambridge, Aorja Harris (12k) from Letchworth, and Theodor Calota (16k) from St Albans.

Results

15-May: Gong Cheng Wins Bracknell

Gong Cheng (3d London City) won the Bracknell Tournament, beating Min Yang (3d Oxford) in the final (as seen in the photo). Others of the 29 players taking part in the event, held as usual at Woosehill community Centre in Wokingham, who won all three games were Neil Cleverly (10k Bournemouth) and Lueming Yang (16k Oxford). The Team prize was won by the youngsters of "I like lunch" and Paul Barnard was the winner of the puzzle competition. Organiser Ian Marsh claimed to be the winner in the 13x13 side event as nobody played in it.

Results...

09-May: Bar Low Held at London Go Centre

Across the May Day bank holiday weekend, the London Go Centre was host to the first round of the competition to see who gets to be British Go Champion, but more importantly on the Sunday we held the 21st Bar Low tournament, reports Gerry Gavigan.

For new readers, the tournament is an opportunity for kyu players to enjoy a competition they stand a chance of winning and to start an EGF rating. For the Bar Low, successfully meeting its objectives can be judged by the number of newcomers and the number of double digit kyu (DDK) players who enter. This year we had 29...

07-May: Chinese Taipei Wins WAGC

Chan Yi-Tien of Chinese Taipei was unbeaten to win the 39th World Amateur Go Championships held at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo. Kim Sangcheon of Korea was second with seven wins. The next group all had six wins: Wang of China, Frejlak of Poland, Murakami of Japan, Kuronen of Finland, Dusan Mitic of Serbia and Islas of Mexico.

The UK's representative, British Champion Daniel Hu, ended on four wins and in 26th place of 61. In the last four rounds he beat Frank Hestvik from Norway, lost to Juri Kuronen, beat Willem Pomstra of the Netherlands and lost to Wichrich Karuehawanit of Thailand.

Ireland's Michael Thai ended with three wins in 48th. In the final rounds he beat Azerbaijan, lost to Portugal and Brazil, but beat Chile...

09-Apr: British Go Congress Held in Bristol

The 51st British Go Congress was held in Bristol and the very modern Future Inns Hotel, just across from the Cabot Circus shopping centre in the middle of the city.

It started on the Friday with a teaching session and then the British Open Lightning. This was won by Alex Kent (3d); he beat the previous winner, Xunrui Zhao (3d) from London, into second place.

However in the British Open, played as usual on the Saturday and Sunday, it was Xunrui Zhao who was the winner, scoring victories in all six games. In second place was Jon Diamond (3d) and third was Sandy Taylor (2d) from the...

30-Mar: European Youth Go Congress, Kiev, Part 2

Day 1 (of 3) of Kiev Tournament (continued from part 1)

The remaining three squad members and their three mothers arrived safely on Wednesday afternoon, on the eve of the main tournament. We all went to a pizza restaurant, for some squad players to get to know newcomers.

On Thursday 29th, the tournament kicked off with an elaborate opening ceremony. This featured firstly a long and colourful Chinese dragon, then a superb circus troupe of youngsters. There were gymnasts, trapeze artists and girls climbing up silk ropes,...

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15-Aug: Marcus Bennett