On Saturday 21st July 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.

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, Yangran, yes I know him well, we often meet at the London Open tournament. So what group are you playing in and how was your first game?

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 Boys and U8 Boys respectively.

The other age-group winners were: U16 Boys David Baldwin, U12 Boys Alexander Hsieh, U10 Boys Theodore Chui, U14 Girls Hilary Bexfield, U12 Girls Julia Volovich, U10 Girls Zoe Walters, U8 Girls Auden Oliviere.

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 the third day, the Friday. This was broadcast on a Chinese Go server, like the pro games, and analysed by professionals (shown below middle with Daniel Hu translating) for the other student players.

The 5th Annual World Collegiate Weichi Championships (AWCC) 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 are the semifinals of the Chang Qi Cup, a Professional Tournament normally held in China. The photo shows the start of the second game between Shi Yue and Mi Yuting; Mi Yuting defeated Shi Yue 2-0 in the best of-three match.

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 one of the six rounds, including three shodans and down to a 17-kyu. Participants once more travelled from across the UK – from Dundee, Cambridge, London and yes, two from Wales! Numbers and conversation at the evening meals were enhanced by non-playing partners.

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

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 tournament itself.

The top board games were broadcast live over the internet and shown on a big screen in the side room (where there were refreshments available and boards for reviews and side events), although sadly this didn't work properly for some of the games.

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 against Carlo Metta by resignation. It's been a long time since I felt that outclassed in a game.

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 to reach the final. Joanne Leung and Bruno Poltronieri beat Natasha Regan and Matthew Cocke, to also reach the final. After a tough game, it was Joanne and Bruno who became the champions for the second time.