A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

David Ward (3 dan) won his local tournament, the Cambridge Trigantius, without having to share the title as he did in 2000. 36 players took part at St Columba's Church in the centre of the city. Other players winning all three games were Michael Charles (1kyu St Albans), Brook Roberts (4kyu Cambridge) and Jan Poslusny (6kyu Prague).

Vanessa Wong was second at the EYGC for a second year running. She lost, as last year, to Mateusz Surma from Poland who retained the under-16 title. Also travelling to the beautiful setting of the lakeside Santon Hotel in Brno, Czechia, were sisters Kelda and Roella Smith from Cambridge. In the under-12s Roella won 2 games at 11k to place 13th and Kelda won 3 at 20k to place 41st.

There will be a meeting of BGA Council on 13th March 2011.

Agenda

Finland's Antti Tormanen (6 dan) tied with Wei Wang (6dan) in the 62 player Irish Open. This was Antti's fourth tournament win of the Pandanet Go European Cup, which put him top in the points table with 57.

As usual, many of the players in Dublin for the Irish Open congregated in the Teachers' Club on the Friday night for the Irish Rapid handicap tournament. The 26 players had to cope with the decreasing time limits and the handicap-plus-one games. Best at coping was Ian Davis (1 dan) from Belfast. Second, losing to Ian in the fifth round, was Jan Reichelt (1 kyu) from Germany.

Team leader Will Brooks lost again, but the team still beat Croatia thanks to wins from Matthew Madfadyen, Andrew Simons and Nick Krempel.

The 3-1 win puts the UK in a much safer position for avoiding relegation, nearing the end of the season.

BGA Euroteams page

"The Ring of Water" is the fifth book in the Young Samurai series of teenage novels by Chirs Bradford. It was published by Puffin on 3rd March 2011. Its hero is an English boy stranded in 17th Century Japan who has learnt to be a Samurai in order to survive. In this book he has to play a game of Go against a Japanese lord in order to gain freedom for him and his friends.

We've finalised an agreement with Pentangle Puzzles and Games for them to be our preferred supplier for Go books and sets. This entitles our members to receive 15% discount on purchases of all Go books and eq

Chong Han (5 dan Loughborough) won his first UK tournament by taking with ease the 8th Nottingham. Also winning 3 were Roger Daniel (5 kyu London), Maria Tabor (6 kyu Nottingham), David Crabtree (9 kyu Chester) and Andrew Russell (12 kyu Birmingham). Mike Charles won the 9x9 prize and Toby Manning the quiz prize.

Results

As part of our ambition to increase the number of British players above 4 dan we are planning a teaching weekend for strong players in Letchworth, Hertfordshire for the weekend April 1st-3rd.

Guo Juan (5 dan professional) will be the teacher, with a variety of lectures and exercises as we had last year.