A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities
Last 3 months News
28-Jan: Sunday Evening LectureLecture to be given in the British room on KGS by Matthew Cocke, 5 dan. Aimed primarily at single digit kyu players, but others should also benefit. Start time: 19:30. Join the game of "BGATeach". |
24-Jan: Charles Hibbert wins his First Tournament
Charles Hibbert from London entered Maidenhead-Hitachi Tournament as his first ever tournament. Having achieved 3d on both KGS and IGS, he entered at 2 dan and went on to win all three games to claim the Maidenhead title. Also winning three games, and in second and third place, were Alistair Wall (1d Wanstead) and Jitka Bartova (1d Praha). As usual all players winning three or two games got a prize from the eclectic selection on the prize table or, this year, a mystery envelope. Those on three were: France Ellul (6k Maidenhead) and Fred Holroyd (8k... |
17-Jan: BGJ 170 now availableThe Winter 2014-15 edition of the British Go Journal, number 170, is now available in the members' area as a PDF and should be soon arriving in the post with members (except for electronic only members). |
16-Jan: South Africa makes Go Moku for the UK!Our match against South Africa, probably our strongest opponents in League C, was a nerve tingler, coming down to the closest of all possible finishes.
Paul was struggling a bit in the opening, but captured a group slightly unexpectedly and was going happily along into yose with about a 15 point lead when he missed the implications of a throw-in and lost an 11 stone group though dame-zumari. Sigh... Still, Des Cann (pictured right) soon... |
11-Jan: CLGC A Team winners of Online League Season 6Congratulations to Centrol London Go Club A team, Franciso Divers, Michael Webster and Chuck Fisher, for winning the 2014 season of the online league ahead of Belfast and claiming back the GoGoD shield, which they last held in 2011, from Edinburgh. The second division was won by Cornish Rogues (Paul Massey, John Culmer and Rob White), who will be moving up to the first division next year, narrowly beating the Three Counties team. We are starting to take bookings for the next season of the online league, which we hope to start promptly in April, so please could everyone who wants to take part get in touch with me at jmc AT toad.me.uk to confirm that they want to play. Whilst we like to have teams associated with... |
06-Jan: We'll be exhibiting at FestivalAsia!
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31-Dec: Chi-Min Oh wins the London OpenThe 41st London Open Go Congress took place at International Students House at the end of December 2014. As well as the main seven-round tournament, there were Pair Go, Doubles, Lightning and Rengo side events, and the tournament culminated in 40 participants attending a New Year's Eve Dinner. The main tournament was won by Chi-Min Oh (7d, Durham, UK) on seven wins, and prizes sponsored by the British Go Association were also awarded to YoungSam Kim (7d, BIBA, Korea) coming second with six wins, Mateusz Surma (7d, Dzimierz, Poland) coming third with five wins and Xiao Ma (5d, Nuremberg, Germany) coming in fourth with four wins. The David Ward Cup was awarded for the first time, in memory of long-standing UK player David... |
30-Dec: British Go Congress 2015 updateCongress details have been on our website calendar page for some time. We have reserved some rooms at the venue hotel, and just one single room is left from our allocation, as of a few minutes ago! This will be released in the next few days. If you wish to book at the venue, you should do so right away. The Hotel telephone number is: 01743 499955 Email: reservations@prince-rupert-hotel.co.uk There are only a few hotels in the town centre (plenty further out) and wherever you choose to stay, it will probably pay to plan ahead. As to the tournament itself, the early bird discount runs up to 31st January. Any... |
30-Dec: London Open Day 2
Day two of the London Open, Monday 29th December, saw rounds three and four of the Open. At the top in round three Benjamin Teuber lost to Mateusz Surma and Young-Sam Kim lost to Chi-Min Oh. So the two on four wins faced off in round four; Oh beat Surma to take a clear lead. At the end of the day the other players on four wins were: Kalle Timperi 1k, Lova Wåhlin 2k, Johannes Siven 3k, Alberto Adriasola 4k and Jannik... |
28-Dec: London Open Day 1
The 2014 London Open got under way 15 minutes late on Sunday 28th December after a repairing. 108 players in all are expected, with 101 already playing. As usual a large number of players are from outside the UK, with many strong Chinese players as well as players from several European countries. Also present are three professionals: Fan Hui from France, Dongeun Choi from Korea and Hajin Lee, the IGF Secretary. |
14-Dec: Joe Cai Sparkles at Christmas in EdinburghThe Edinburgh Christmas tournament saw a total of 25 players. Tongzhou (Joe) Cai (3d Glasgow) sparkled the most and took the bottle of champagne with 4 wins from 4. Prizes for 3 wins went to co-organiser Boris Mitrovic (3d Edinburgh), Alistair Wall (2d Wanstead), Niall Paterson (5k Glasgow), Baron Hasslinger (5k Edinburgh) and Greg Cox (10k Dundee). The remaining two prizes went to Quintin Connell (9k Glasgow) for 2 wins from 3, and Magdalena Mladenova (1d Sofia) as the furthest-travelled on 2 wins. |
14-Dec: UK youth team fight hard, but lose to IsraelThe BGA UK Youth team lost 1-4 to Israel on Sat, 13 Dec 2014, in the European Youth Go Team Championship which sees us currently in 10th place overall out of the 13 teams, with 2 rounds left to play. We were heavily outranked on boards 1, 4 and 5 against Israel, although Tom, Anthony and Hilary acquitted themselves well in the face of grading differences of between 10 and 16 stones. It was good to see the two U12 players playing a solid game, protecting their groups so there were no major dead groups at the end. Charlotte had a quick win and Dylan had his opponent on the ropes for much of the game. His opponent narrowed the... |
09-Dec: UK Stay Second in C-LeagueUK stayed second behind Bulgaria in the 12-team C-League. Bulgaria have won two more boards than the UK. The match against Ireland ended in a 3-1 win for the UK team, as follows:
Links to the games, with .SGFs, are available on our main Pandanet Go European Team Championship (PGETC) page. |
06-Dec: Andrew Kay is Top Teacher in South London
The second South London kyu players' teaching day and tournament was again at the Croydon Quaker Meeting House. Nineteen students were taught in the morning by four teachers - Andrew Kay, Alex Rix, Tim Hunt and Alison Bexfield. In the afternoon there was a three round tournament. In the teachers' section the teachers all played each other, in a round-robin tournament, with all games even. In the students' tournament all games were played with handicaps equal to grade difference where appropriate. Andrew Kay won the teachers' tournament... |
06-Dec: New Electronic Newsletters
If you're a member of the British Go Association you should have received an email about this as well as the first issue. If you didn't then we either don't have your email address or we have it recorded incorrectly. In either case please notify our... |
01-Dec: Race for 2014 Youth Grand Prix reaches final monthWe're now in December - the final month of the 2014 Youth Grand Prix (YGP). Cash prizes of £50, £30 and £20 will soon be decided. With 11 months' results now in, the current standings suggest that the top 3 will come from these 4 players (grade, club and - most importantly, here - current YGP points are in brackets): Edmund Smith (10k Milton 595) Melchior Chui (9k Cambridge 510) |
30-Nov: UK Youth Go team triumphs over ItalyThe UK youth go team, as you would know from previous news items, is one of 13 teams signed up to the European Youth Go Team Championship. Follow that link to see the 12 players currently registered in the UK team. In the second round of matches, the UK team beat Italy on Sat. 29th November. Well done to Thomas, Oscar, Alex, Edmund and Anthony for their 4-1 win, which places the UK currently 6th out of the 13 teams taking part. Every board does count, as board-wins form part of the tie-break if teams have equal match-points. As expected, Alex and Edmund had convincing wins on boards 3 and 4 respectively. Oscar also... |
29-Nov: Local Winner at Warwick
For a second year running the Coventry Tournament had a local winner. As the previous winner, Bruno Poltronieri, concentrated on organising, it was his University of Warwick club mate Philip Leung (5d) who won this time. He was rewarded with a bottle of port and a box of Maltesers. Second was Wu Ruizhu (5d) also from Warwick and third was Alison Bexfield from Letchworth. Those on 3/3 also got prizes: Ben Riddell (2k Cheltenham), Andre Cockburn (7k Nottingham), John Capper (12k Nottingham) and Christopher Manser (17k Warwick). 32 players took part... |
29-Nov: Andrew Kay Holds British ChampionshipCongratulations to Andrew Kay who defeated Alex Kent today to retain the British Championship by three games to nil. A copy of the game is available, with comments from Matthew Macfadyen 6d. Thanks to Nick Wedd for hosting, and to all others involved. Toby Manning Game Three Relay raw record including unmoderated comments. |
21-Nov: Gerry Gavigan Takes Second Place in CorkGerry Gavigan (13k) from South London took second place in the 2014 UCC Tournament. This was held in the Mardyke Pavilion of University College Cork, situated in their sports area next to the River Lee. The 13 players who took part all played handicap games with a maximum of nine stones. Gerry won four games to win 100 euro only losing to the winner, Philippe Renaud (2d) from Galway. Philippe won all five games to gain the 150 euro first prize and Thomas Shanahan (4k Cork) took the third place on SOS tie-break from Artur Gower (18k Galway). |
20-Nov: President Closes Out the Spanish InquisitionThe UK's match against Spain on 18th November was split so that board 1 was played a day later. Des Cann on board 2 wrote: My opponent started our game with the wrong overtime and I didn't notice causing a flurry of emails and abortive attempts to restart. On the board things were much calmer and I was able to plan the yose fairly early. My opponent got a ko in my corner but just using big yose as ko threats was good enough for me. He lived but I won the game quite safely. Toby Manning on board 3 wrote: We had a fairly quiet game, with no major fights. I played a simple fuseki, ending up ahead and by the early middle game I simply had to avoid a major disaster – either losing a group or letting him get a large... |
17-Nov: UK Play First Match in Junior European LeagueThe UK youth team played Romania on KGS on the afternoon of Saturday 15th November, in the first round of the European Youth Go Team Championship. The team played well against some very strong competition. They were hugely outranked on the first 4 boards, but had an even match on board 5, where Edmund did well to turn his game around from a difficult position into a convincing win by resignation. They lost the other four games, although post game analysis on board 3 revealed a slightly early resignation by our player (Dylan), who had played some excellent middle game moves and actually had the slightly better position. All in all a good start against one of the strongest teams – the next matches... |
17-Nov: Matthew Cocke Regains Three Peaks TitleAfter a year gap Matthew Cocke regained the Three Peaks title. He won all five games, at the event at the Commodore Inn in Grange-over-Sands, to take the title for the fifth time. Winning four games were Roger Huyshe (4k Shropshire) and David Cantrell (6k South London). 31 players, including organiser Bob Bagot, took part. A new venture this year was a team event with a small engraved toast rack as the prize. This was kindly donated by Graham Blackmore (one of the regulars). The first winners were a team from Shropshire -The Wollerton Wanderers - Brian Timmins, Kath Timmins and Roger Huyshe. |
13-Nov: BGJ 169 now availableThe Autumn 2014 edition of the British Go Journal, number 169, is now available in the members' area as a PDF and should be soon arriving in the post with members (except for electronic only members). |
09-Nov: Fun and Games at Letchworth Rapid Play
Organiser Alison Bexfield wished that all the 26 players at the first Letchworth Rapid Play had fun, and the thirty minute time limits saw most games ending in fun battles and not reaching their natural end. The venue was the Central Methodist Church in Letchworth Garden City which allowed the main group of players to be in the hall, but also a group of junior novices to be able to play 13x13 games in a side room. Prizes were awarded by sections. The Open section winner was Tim Hunt (2d Milton Keynes) with six wins. Major Section (3k-9k) was won... |
We managed to put out our top three players for the occasion, Andrew Simons, Jon Diamond and Des Cann, with Paul Taylor (number 6 on our players list) playing on board 4.
The Newsletter format is changing. In future all Newsletters will be distributed electronically, from our website rather than manually from the list of addresses that our Membership Secretary has. To keep you better informed, we intend to produce Newsletters monthly, probably in two formats - one without and one with recent News items, the latter for those of you who aren’t constantly looking at our website.
