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The Candidates' and Aspirants' tournaments were once again held over the Early May Bank Holiday weekend, this time in two bright, spacious rooms at the University of Warwick, kindly arranged by the university's Go society.

In Candidates', congratulations to Zeyu Qiu (6d, LGC) who swept 1st place with 6/6 wins. Becky Li (1d, UCL) took 2nd after a remarkable run through a very strong field, finishing on 5/6 with her only loss being to Zeyu. The two will proceed to a best-of-three Title Match to determine the 2026 British Go Champion. Jake Game (4d, Swindon) and Ryan Zhang (3d, London City)…

The British Go Congress returned to Cambridge this year, hosted in the spacious School Hall of the Stephen Perse Foundation Senior School. 66 players competed in the British Open, with a further 7 joining for the Lightning only, making this one of the largest Congresses in recent years.

The Congress opened with a revamped British Lightning Championship. This year's five-round Swiss format replaced the traditional knockout to guarantee all entrants a full set of games. The event was fully handicapped, with a fun twist: above 9 stones, White could choose between giving 15 reverse komi per stone or…

The eighth match of the B-League season, on 14th April, was against our old friends and league rivals Ireland. Gavin Rooney was expected to play board three for Ireland, but in the end James Hutchinson had to move up a board with John Courtney playing board 4, Karl Irwin and Philippe Renaut on boards 1 and 2. The UK team fielded its strongest team to try and cement our second place; this tactic worked as Damon Woo, Michael Cheung, Bruno Poltronieri and Jake Game all won by resignation. As Sweden drew, the team moved one point clear of them in third place, but still behind leaders Netherlands who are uncatchable. The last round will be on 12th May against Finland.

League Page with game records…

The Winter 2025-2026 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read in the Members' Area, with printed copies being sent out to those that receive them.

The top seven places at the Trigantius all went to Chinese players, five of them starting above the 5-dan bar. With none of these on three wins, Yuanzhen Li, an MSc student at University College London, won with two wins and best SoS tiebreak. He is pictured below with the trophy.

Other prizes for three wins out of three went to Toby Manning (Newtown Linford 1k), Simon Thornewill von Essen (Stevenage 3k), Joshua Sing Ching Fai (no club 4k), Wenzhou Mei (Warwick University 5K), John Shafer (no club 7k), Horace Stoica (Stevenage 10k), Clarence Qin (Oxford 12K), and Toby Thornton (Warwick University 13K).…