BGA Newsletter 311 February 2024

FROM THE EDITOR

This issue, and previous newsletters, are available in the Newsletter Archive in the Members' Area.

Contributions are always welcome, both from our members and others. We ask that they be Go-related and "newsy". The place for debate and general discussion is the BGA open mailing list Gotalk. However, an introduction to a new topic is fine in the Newsletter. A brief introduction to Gotalk, with a link for joining, is on the BGA page Go on the Internet.

Instructions for Contributors: Please use plain text not file-attachments. Keep it fairly brief, and give web-links and contact details. It's good to include pictures. If they are on the internet, send me the URL, otherwise attach the picture files to your email. Send your contribution to newsletter@britgo.org to arrive by the first day of the month.

Jil Segerman

NEWS

The full set of recent news items, including further details of some of the items shown here, are on our News Pages.

Pandanet: Victory Against Denmark

Our team in the Pandanet Go European Team Championship defeated Denmark 3-1. Congratulations to Bruno Poltronieri, Scott Cobbold and Alison Bexfield who provided our victories. We now lie top in League C.

European Youth Go Team Competition

The UK youth squad won their third round match 3-2 against Romania leaving the UK in third place. In the fourth and final round we lost 3-2 to Austria, despite appearing to be the better team on paper, and as a result just failed to reach the podium. The event was won by an unbeaten Ukraine, whose team included an Under-20 5 dan and two Under-16 3 dans. The other podium places were taken by Poland and Germany (subject to confirmation).

London Youth win Euro City Youth Go League

This event had 29 teams entered, of which 9 were from the UK. Each team has 3 members and matches are played on 13x13 boards. In each match players play twice, once with an even game and once with handicap. After a set of round-robin matches, the top division final was between London and Wuppertal (Germany). In the handicap games, the London players were white on all three boards and only Alain Cheung won his game. In the even games, Shizhao Li managed to avenge his defeat against Alain but the other two games went to London so the final score was 3-3. London won on tiebreak because they won more of the even games; this is exactly what happened in the previous edition of the league. Congratulations to the London team of Alain Cheung, Scott Cobbold and Gene Wong - and their (non-playing) captain Chiu Wong.

European Youth Go Championship - Sponsorship

Sue Paterson, Trustee of the Youth Go trust, writes:

The EYGC is from 21st March – 23rd March 2024 in Hamburg, Germany. More details can be found here.

The Youth Go Trust is offering £50 sponsorship to any young people who would like to attend the tournament and who fit the entry criteria. Please contact trustees@youthgotrust.org.uk.

In addition, the Youth Go Trust is happy to consider individual requests for financial support to attend this or other tournaments in the Go calendar. Further information about the Youth Go Trust can be found here.

ADMIN

British Go Journal 206

The Winter 2023-24 issue of the British Go Journal is now available as a pdf in the Members' Area on the BGA website. You will need to log-in as a Member here. Then go to the Members' Area and click on the link below the cover picture. The link for sgf files, including the problems, for this edition is here.

CONTENTS
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Toby Manning
UK NEWS Tony Atkins
HOW TO USE THICKNESS Toby Manning
LOOPHOLE SHODAN Francis Moore
ADVICE FOR DOING TSUMEGO – PART THIRTEEN Richard Hunter
HOW TO USE THICKNESS - ANSWER Toby Manning
YOUTH NEWS Tony Atkins
PROMOTING GO Yang Yuchia
BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIP 2023: GAME 2 Artem Kachanovskyi
TOURNAMENT HISTORIES XIX: BAR-LOW Tony Atkins
WORLD NEWS Tony Atkins
SOLUTIONS TO THE JOURNAL PROBLEMS
ASSOCIATION CONTACT INFORMATION

Printed copies should start to arrive, with members receiving them in the next few days.

The copydate for the next edition is 1st April

Tournaments and Public Liability

For Tournament Directors:

The BGA has now put in place Events Insurance to cover the tournaments run during the year. This replaces the third-party liability cover we used to have.

BGA Health and Safety Officer Sam Bithell has produced, with Board Approval, a number of documents; this is the Prime Policy document and other documents are linked from that page. More information will shortly be placed in the Tournament Handbook on the Resources for Organisers page.

2024 Candidates' Qualification

The qualification rules for the Candidates' event require a player to have attained the necessary grade in a tournament ending during the 12 months prior to 31st March. In a desire to open up the event to as many people as possible, whilst not reducing the general standard, the Board have agreed that in 2024 the British Go Congress (which ends on 7th April) will also count as a tournament from which people can qualify for the 2024 Candidates.

2024 Annual General Meeting / Extraordinary General Meeting

The BGA’s 2024 AGM will be held online using Zoom on the evening of Thursday 23rd May.

It will be immediately preceded by a hopefully short EGM in order to make some changes to the Company Articles. The changes if approved will remove the limit on the number of Directors, and adjust appropriately the voting system for the appointment of Directors. Additionally they will remove a possible contradiction in the wording of how Directors are nominated.

The EGM, immediately followed by the AGM, will commence at 20:00.

Nominations for Directors must be submitted to the Secretary (secretary@britgo.org) by Thursday 11th April, but earlier would be preferred. All nominations must be in writing and if on paper must bear the signatures of the two other members proposing and seconding the candidate. If a nomination is submitted by email, the members proposing and seconding must send separate emails from their registered email addresses to signify their proposing and seconding. No nomination shall be accepted unless the candidate has indicated his willingness to stand.

Except for proposals from the Board, proposals for inclusion on the agenda of either meeting must be submitted to the Secretary (secretary@britgo.org) by Thursday 11th April, or at a later date on the discretion of the Company Secretary, bearing the signatures of the two members proposing and seconding each proposal if on paper, or evidenced by separate emails from the proposer’s and seconder’s registered email addresses.

The agendas for the meetings will be issued prior to Thursday 15th April.

Officers, Directors and Volunteers
In line with his announcement last year Toby Manning has confirmed he will be standing down as President at the AGM, though will stay as a Director if elected. Colin Williams has agreed to stand for President, but would very much welcome other nominations for the post. Peter Rootham-Smith has said he will be standing down as a Director. It is possible that other individuals may also wish to step away from being a Director.

All the above means that there will need to be a re-allocation of responsibilities, and that an injection of new blood into the broader management team would be extremely welcome.

If you are willing to put a little time in to help the BGA organise and promote Go in the UK please contact any member of the Board. We can shape the division of work to suit both your availability and your skills or interests. We would be especially keen to hear from people willing to help out at Director or Officer level.

EVENTS COMING SOON

This Month: Mind Sports Olympiad Grand Prix 19x19 (online), Ulster, Oxford, Mind Sports Olympiad Grand Prix 13x13 (online)
March Cheshire (Frodsham), Cambridge Trigantius, Coventry, Mind Sports Olympiad Grand Prix 9x9 (online), European Youth Go Tournament (Hamburg, Germany)
April British Go Congress (Kenilworth), Rip-Off (Dublin)
May Candidates', Not the London Open
June Durham, Pair Go (Leicester), Welsh Open (Barmouth)
July European Go Congress (Toulouse, France)
August Youth Camp, Mind Sports Olympiad (London)