Promoting Go in the UK and beyond

World Amateur Go Championships, 27/05/09-30/05/09

The 30th WAGC was held at the Ecopa Arena in Fukuroi city in Japan's Sizuoka prefecture. 66 countries took part. Unbeaten winner was Yuqing Hu of China. Scoring 7 were Korea's Shin-Hwan Yoo and Hong Kong's Nai San Chan. The group on 6 wins were Chinese Taipei, Japan, Singapore, Laurent Heiser of Luxembourg, Thomas Debarre of France and Ondrej Silt of Czechia. Canada topped the group on 5 to come 10th. UK's Matthew Cocke won 4 games to take 33rd; he beat Turkey, Vietnam, Lithuania and Belarus, and lost to Canada, Australia, Finland and Malaysia. Ireland's Brian Gallagher was 52nd with 3 wins; he beat Cyprus, Philipines and Chile.

Amsterdam Tournament, 21/05/09-24/05/09

Amsterdam, a Pandanet Major in the Pandanet Go European Cup, was held as usual at the European Go Centre. 81 players took part this year in the 39th edition. Winner was the Korean 7 dan from Germany, Oh Chi-Min. Zhang Yanqi from France came second. Good results were achieved by Galway's Claas Roever (5 wins) and Cambridge's Matthew Ried (4 wins).

Madrid Tournament, 09/05/09-10/05/09

Yet again Korean's dominated the top of the results table. Oh Chi-Min won and Lluis Oh came second. 62 players took part at Madrid. The same weekend at Kragujevac in Serbia the winner was Nikola Mitic. Both were PGEC events.

European Pair Go Championships, 24/04/09-26/04/09

A total of 20 pairs from 12 countries took part in the European Pair Go Championships held in Prague. Winners on 6/6 were Russians Natalia Kovaleva and Dmitrij Surin. This was the fourth win in row for Natalia and the third for Dmitrij. Second on 5/6, were Jitka Bartova and Jan Hora from Czechia. On 4 wins were two Romanian pairs, one Hungarian pair and two more pairs from Czechia, of whom Romanians Adelina Sora and Cornel Burzo took the third place.

Bled Tournament, 17/04/09-19/04/09

The first event of the new Pandanet Go European Cup season was in Bled in Slovenia. Hwang In-Seong and Ting Li both ended on 5/6 and equal first. 53 players took part.

Paris Pandanet Go European Cup Finals, 11/04/09-13/04/09

347 took part in the 37th Paris Open, including a large party from the Ukraine. Oh Chi-Min, the Korean living in Germany, was the clear winner. Second on tie-break on 5/6 was Fan Hui from France, third was Hwang In-Seong, also Korean from Germany, and fourth was, commendably, Antoine Fenech from France. The only Brit taking part was Andrew Kay, who got a good result with 3 out of 6 at 3 dan. In the European Cup rankings first was Ondrej Silt who scored 81 points from 7 events. Second with 44 was Pal Balogh and fellow Hungarian Csaba Mero was third.

Irish Open, 20/03/09-22/03/09

The 20th Irish Open was held as usual in the Teachers' Club in Dublin and again this year was part of the Pandanet Go European Cup. There attendance was 44, including two 7 dan Koreans from Germany.
The Irish Rapid handicap tournament on the Friday evening had 18 players and was won by Oh Chi-Min (7 dan). Second was Anna Griffiths (8 kyu) and third was Javier Fernandez (3 dan). In the Open, the winner for a second time was Hwang In-Seong (7 dan) with 5/5. In second place was Oh Chi-Min with 4 wins. The group on 3 wins were Csaba Mero, Wei Wang and Javier Fernandez. Winning four games were: Albert Sanchez (1 kyu), Helen Harvey (3 kyu), Jonathan Decembry (8 kyu), Milos Podpera (9 kyu) and David Horan (10 kyu). Anthony Pitchford (11 kyu) won all 5 games.

European Youth Goe Championships, 05/03/09-08/03/09

This took place in Baja Luka in Bosnia. 43 under-18s and 40 under-12s took part. Winner on tie-break was Israel's Ali Jabarin (4 dan). Second was Artem Kachanovsky (5 dan) from Ukraine, also on 5 wins. Winner under-12 was Mikhail Sidorenko (2 dan Russia) on 6 wins. Second was Dmitri Miliutkyn (4 dan Russia) with 5 wins.

World Student Championships, 03/03/09-04/03/09

As usual 16 representatives from around the world took part in the World Student Oza Championships, the seventh, in Tokyo. Winner was Zhao Wei from China. Jie Lee from the USA gave the best ever western results ending second. Best of the three European players was Jan Hora from Czechia who won two out of four (10th). The other two were Klara Zaloudkova from Czechia (14th) and Igor Nemly from Russia (13th).

Ing Memorial, EGCC, 27/02/09-01/03/09

24 of Europe's top players travelled to the EGCC in Amsterdam for the Ing Chang-Ki Memorial. First for a fifth year was Fan Hui (from China but living in France), winning all 6. Second was Guo Juan, who only lost to Fan Hui. The group on 4/6 was Dinerchtein, Taranu, Pop, Shikshin, Silt and Burzo.

UCC Cork, 17/01/09-18/01/09

The same weekend as Maidenhead, UCC in Cork ran their second tournament with 16 players. This time it was over two days and five games. Excitement came in round 2, when wind damage to the university buildings caused evacuation to a nearby pub that was using candles until they could get their lights back on. Local player Wang Wei (7 dan) was the winner for the second time. Cao Tong Yu came second, with Javier Fernandez third on tie-break. IGA Secretary Eoghan Barry (7 kyu) won four games.

Korea Prime Minister Cup International Baduk Championship, 09/11/08-11/11/08

68 countries were represented at the third International Baduk Championships in Goyang city, not far from Seoul in Korea. Winner this year was 12-year old Li Chen Chien from Taiwan. He dropped a game to Korea in round 6 but got first on tie-break. Second was Sang-Hun Lee of Korea (who only lost to China) and third Wei Zhao of China (who only lost to Taiwan). On 6 wins were Chao Huang of Hong Kong, Ondrej Silt of Czechia, Thomas Hsiang of America, Raphael Shin of Australia, Frederic Donzet of France, Jia Cheng Tan of Singapore and Him Chan Lam of Macau. Japan's player, Kazumori Nagayo, lost to the top 3 players to head the group on 5 wins. UK's Francis Roads was one of the special prize winners. He beat Azerbaijan in round 1, but then lost 4 in a row due to jet lag (to Czechia, Australia, Spain and Indonesia). On the last day he beat Mexico, Bosnia and Turkey to end on 4 wins. Ireland's Terence McSweeney won 3 by beating Colombia, Chile and Mongolia. Photos

World Mind Sports Games, 03/10/08-18/10/08

The first World Mind Sports Games got underway at the China National Conference Center in Beijing on 3rd October. The Opening Ceremony, at a large stadium, started with a parade of flags with Toby Manning carrying the Union Jack. Following the speeches, the promise and the raising of the Chinese and IMSA flags, there was an hour-long modern ballet representing an allegory of Mind Sports.

On Saturday 4th the Go events got underway at the Beijing International Conference Center with the Men's Individual. Here the players were split into groups which included two or more professionals. Matthew Macfadyen's first game was against Park Young Hun (9p) from Korea; he won his second against Matti Siivola. Piers Shepperson lost to America's Yang Huiren (1p), but beat a player from Azerbaijan. The other players in the team were Jonathan Chin, Paul Tabor and Simon Shiu.

On the second day, Sunday, Matthew won both games against Jan Hora and Jens Henker. Jonathan beat a player from Belarus, Paul a 3d from Spain and Simon a Belgian, so all had at least one win. The Women's Individual started. Sue Paterson beat Ukraine's Victoria Korsak. The other team members were Helen Harvey and Maria Tabor.

On Monday 6th the Open Individual started, which excludes professionals. Our two players, Matthew Cocke and Tony Goddard were expected to do well. In fact in the morning game all our seven men players won, as did Maria Tabor. After the morning Matthew Macfadyen was on 4/5 and was expected to play a pro in round 6 to qualify for the knockout stage. However he was paired against Jannik Rasmussen from Denmark, won, ended on 5/6, but failed to make the second stage on tie-break. This was the best result of a western-born player. Piers and Jonathan ended on 3/6; Paul and Simon on 2/6; the team scored 15/30 over all. As expected, at this stage China was already leading the WMSG medal table.

On Tuesday the knock-out stage of the Men's started with 15 professionals and a very strong Chinese player from Canada. The quarter finals contained four Chinese. 3 Korean and 1 Japanese (Yamada). The women's event and the Open continued. Some groups are very strong and an affect of the pairings was that in one group Jana Hricova from Czechia had more wins than Yukari Yoshihara (Umezawa) who is 5 dan pro!

On Wednesday the Women's group stage ended. Maria and Sue both won 3/7 and Helen won 2/7. Four Europeans ended on 5 wins: Rita Pocsai, Eliva Karlsberg, Diana Koszegi and Natalia Kovaleva. Natalia's fifth win was against the Japanese pro Mannami Kana. The qualifiers were a mix from China, Korea and Japan, but included the young teenager from Australia, Joanna Missingham, who is a Chinese pro already. The semi-finals were to be Lee of Korea v Mannami of Japan and Song of China v Park of Korea. In the men's semis Kang Dong-Yoon of Korea beat Li Zhe and Park Jung-Sang beat Wang Xi to set up an all Korean final. That was won by Kang; Li won the play-off for third. In the Individual Open, both Matt and Tony ended the day on 3/6 with one round remaining.

Neither British player won their last game: Matt lost to Pei Zhao of Germany and Tony to Juan Garcia de la Banda of Spain. Ireland's John Gibson ended on 2/7. Six different nations qualified for the knockout stage: Hu and Wang of China, Lee and Ham of Korea, Jo of North Korea, Yongfei Ge of Canada, Victor Chow of South Africa and Jie Li of USA. This last was on tie break from a group of three Europeans (Shikshin, Kachanovskiy, Zhao) and a South American (Aguilar) on 5 wins. Other Europeans on 5 wins were Sannes and Xia (both Norway), Kuin of Netherlands and Radmacher of Germany. The results of the first knock out round were much as expected, so the semi-final line up is Lee of Korea v Jo of North Korea and Ham of Korea v Wang of China. In the Women's, the semi-finals were won by Lee Min-Jin of Korea and Song Ronghui of China. China increased their lead on the medal table as Song, aged only 16, took the Gold. Korea took both Silver and Bronze as Park won the play-off for third against Mannami of Japan.

On Friday 10th it was the last of the week one events. The Individual Open semi-finals saw a win for Jo and Ham to set up a battle between North and South Korea to find which country has the strongest amateurs. The answer was that it was the North as Jo Tae-Won won the Gold. South Korea got Bronze, as well as Ham Young-Woo getting Silver, as Lee Yong-Hee won the play-off. Already the week two players of the BGA team were flying out, whilst the week one players got a chance to visit the Great Wall before returning home.

On Saturday 11th the second week kicked off with the Women's Teams. UK got into the second of two groups of 12. This looked like the weaker of the two groups as it only had two of the five strong oriental countries in it. The UK team of Vanessa Wong, Alison Bexfield and Natasha Regan won their first match against Slovakia. They also won in round 2 against Argentina so top the group alongside China and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan).

On Sunday morning the women lost to Australia and they were not expecting to beat Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) in the afternoon either. China were unbeaten in their group and Korea in the other. The British and German players had been invited to a friendship match with some local players who they beat 18-10.

On Monday 13th the remaining two Go events started: Men's Teams and Mixed Pairs. The men started with a loss, as expected, to the professionals from Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), but won the afternoon match against Portugal. Matthew Macfadyen and Kirsty Healey playing the Mixed Pairs, won their first game against the pair from Argentina, and beat Finland in the afternoon. Their next game would be against Italy. They were in the toughest of the four groups, with Korea, North Korea and Russia, and the groups are all-play-all, so they would have to work hard to get through to the knockout. The Women's Team continued their success beating France and Hungary. They were to play China in the last round and were well placed to win any tie-break for a place in the knock-out.

As expected they lost to China and got through to the last 8 along with Germany, Australia, and the oriental countries. This was an excellent result and something to be surely proud of. They drew Korea in the knockout stage and lost, as the Korean players are all stong professionals. The semi-finals were thus to be between China and Japan, and between the two Koreas. The Men's Team lost to Germany in the morning and lost to Macau in the afternoon; their score is 1/4. In the Pair Go, Matthew and Kirsty beat Italy but then had to play both Koreas which they lost; their score was then 3/5. The Pairs doing well that far included the USA on 4/5, Hungary on 3/4, Ukraine on 4/4 and Mongolia on 4/4 (plus the usual Japan, China and both Koreas).

In the Women's Teams semis the winners were Korea and China, and China went on to win the final giving them their second Gold for Go and 20 medals over all. Korea's fourth Silver took their tally to 7. Japan picked up their first medal by beating North Korea for the Bronze. In the Men's Teams Britain beat both Argentina and Belgium to reach 3/6 with one round left. The Pair Go group stage ended. China topped group 1 and go forward with second placed Czechia. Korea and North Korea qualified from group 2, in which UK's Pair of Matthew and Kirsty ended 4th with 4 wins. Group 3 qualifiers were Japan and Hungary, and group 4 was Ukraine and Mongolia. The 16 pair knockout stage also contained eight professional pairs seeded direct to that stage.

On Thursday 16th the Men's Team group stage ended. Qualifiers from group 1 were Korea (on 7/7), Chinese Taipei (6), North Korea (5) and Ukraine. From 2 they were China (7), Japan (6), Hong Kong (5) and Czechia (5). The British team lost to France to stay on 3 wins. In the quarter finals the pro teams won as expected so it will be Korea v Japan and Taipei v China in the semis. The Pair Go knockout started. All the pro teams won their first round game except for Japan's Konishi Kazuko and Imamura Toshiya who lost to the Korean qualifying pair of Kim Shin-Young and Hong Seok-Ui. In the quarter-finals the remaining qualifiers and the last Japanese went out so the semi-finals will be Taiwan v China and Korea v China.

Friday 17th was finals day in the Pairs and Men's Team and the last day of the Games. It was Korea and China, as expected, that got through to the Men's Team final, and Korea were the winners taking their second Go Gold. Japan beat Chinese Taipei to take their second Bronze. In the Pairs Taiwan's Hsieh Yi-Min and Chou Chun-Hsun got to the final to play China's Fan Weijing and Hang Yizhong. It was the Chinese who won this to take China's third Go Gold and leave them at the top of the medal table with 25 medals over all sports. Taipei's Silver was their only medal. Korea took the Bronze giving them 9 medals in total (all for Go).

Gallery.

European Women's Goe Championship, 12/09/08-14/09/08

The European Women's Goe Championship was held in Koblenz in Germany. 12 women from 6 countries took part. The top games were broadcast live on KGS and EuroGoTV. Unbeaten winner was Klara Zaloudkova from Czechia. Second was Manuela Marz from Germany and third was Laura Avram from Romania. UK's Anna Griffiths won 1 out of 3 to place 10th. Photos

Brno Tournament, 05/09/08-07/09/08

Again the Czech event in Brno was a major in the now Pandanet Go European Cup. A huge 164 players attended. Hong Seul-Ki, the Korean from Germany, was again the winner with 6/6. Hungarian Pal Balogh ended second with 5 out of 6, the same score as Ondrej Silt from Czechia. Romanian professional Catalin Taranu topped the group on 4 wins.

European Student Go Championship, 22/08/08-24/08/08

The fourth European Student Go Championships was held on the Ile Saint Marguerite off of Cannes in France. 26 students from 7 countries took part in a six round McMahon. Three players ended on five. After tie-break the order was first Igor Nemly (5 dan Russia), second Jan Hora (6 dan Czechia) and third Jerome Salignon (4 dan France). Top female was again the 3 dan from Germany Manuela Marz (formerly Lindemeyer). UK's Mark Nubbert (4 kyu) ended on 4 points.

US Go Congress, 02/08/08-09/08/08

The 24th US Go Congress was held in Portland, Oregon, with another large attendance. Feng Yun won the Masters and Myungwan Kim won the Open. There was a quite large party of Brits attending: T Mark Hall was third in the 4-dan section and Steve Bailey won the 4-kyu section.

European Go Congress, 26/07/08-09/08/08

The 52nd European Go Congress was held in Leksand in the centre of Sweden. The week started sunny and the congress had a great holiday atmosphere. 667 players took part in the first week of the main tournament, including some strong Koreans as usual. Lai Yu-Cheng of Taiwan was in first place after the first five games. The Brits were doing quite well with best results in the first week to Helen Harvey and Kath Timmins on 4/5. 96 pairs took part in the Pair Go Championships. The final was won by Daniela Trinks and Lee Seung-Geun, beating Kurebayashi Meien (2 dan pro) and Marc Stoehr by a small margin. At first it was thought the others had won but the live broadcast corrected the counting error on the result. At the rather damp weekend 421 players were also playing the weekend tournament. Winner was Kim Joon-Sang from Korea. Because of the Masters only Europeans near the top were Catalin Taranu and Cornel Burzo with 3 wins. Best Brit was John Cassidy, who lives in Leuven, with 4/5. The Rapid was won for a second year running by Hong Seok-Ui. In the end 718 played in the main event. Open winner was Park Jong-Wook with 9/10. Second with 8/10 was Hong Seok-Ui. Lai was third. European Champion was Catalin Taranu for the first time. He topped the group on 7 wins by 1 sos point ahead of Dinerchtein, Shikshin and Balogh. Brits winning 6 were Paul Blockley, Kevin Cole and Martin Harvey.

European Masters, 02/08/08-03/08/08

Held at the weekend of the EGC in Leksnd, 8 of the top European players were playing the European Masters to determine who would play in pro events in the orient. In the first round the top Russians (Shinshin, Shikshina and Dinerchtein) lost (to Silt, Dickhut and Koulkov) and Balogh beat fellow Hungarian Mero, so it was going to be interesting who won. In round 2 the winners were Koulkov (v Balogh), Dickhut (v Silt), Dinerchtein (v Mero) and Shikshina (v Shikshin). So the final was Dickhut v Koulkov, and it was won by Franz-Josef Dickhut from Germany. Pal Balogh (beat Shikshina) and Ondrej Silt (beat Dinerchtein) were third.