Bar-Low won by Alison Bexfield
Mon, 01/05/2017 - 19:48 — Tony AtkinsAfter a year's break, the Bar-Low tournament returned, thanks to organiser Jonathan Green at a new comfortable venue - The Young Chelsea Bridge Club, home of the West London Go Club. It was held as usual alongside the Candidates' Tournament.
Thanks to an anonymous donor, the entry fees were cheap, 17 players taking advantage of this. The generous prizes meant that more than half of the competitors made at least their entry fee back, as well as everyone taking home some sweet treats.
Alison Bexfield (1k, Letchworth) was the winner, having secured victory before the last round started. Roger Huyshe (5k, Manchester), Roger Daniel (7k, London) and Lueming Yang (23k, Oxford) also all did well, winning four games out of five.
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UK Team Heads for Promotion Play-Offs
Wed, 26/04/2017 - 15:16 — Tony AtkinsThe 10th round of the B-League on 25th April saw the UK playing Austria. The match was drawn after some good play on boards 1 and 2.
Des Cann wrote: Very happy. Won by 1/2 pt against Viktor Lin ranked 24th on European rating list. He invaded my right-hand side Chinese twice, which was actually reasonable as I had tenukied. Then he leant on my bottom side and went for a severe attack on my small group in between his two groups. However he overplayed his hand and my group lived, cutting of some stones and connecting to my top right corner making it big. From then on he played hard everywhere testing me. It got quite complicated, but nothing fell off. System said I'd won by 12.5, but komi had defaulted to -5.5, so the corrected score was 0.5
Daniel Hu wrote: I won by resign against Lothar Spiegel. My opponent did something weird in the Chinese that I didn’t know what to do against.
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Isle of Man Earlybird Extended
Mon, 24/04/2017 - 15:01 — Tony AtkinsThe Leo Phillips Isle of Man Go Festival is taking place from 30 July - 4 August 2017. Early bird discounted entries are available until 14 May so please enter soon to take advantage of the reduced price.
This popular event has been held 12 times since 1991 and gives you a chance to mix playing Go with sightseeing on the island. The timetable of tournaments allows you to choose how much time to spend playing Go and how much to spend on other things. And there is a range of side events including a continuous lightning tournament, rengo, 13x13 Go and a quiz. Port Erin, where the festival is held, is a delightful small seaside town in the south west of the island.
There are a lot of interesting things to see on the Isle of Man. There are two castles, a lot of great museums and many good beaches and places to walk and see the wildlife. You can travel on the steam railway and even a horse-drawn tram in Douglas.
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AGM Report
Tue, 18/04/2017 - 16:17 — Tony AtkinsThe short Annual General Meeting of the British Go Association was held at 20:00 on the Saturday evening of the British Go Congress in Cambridge.
The President, Roger Huyshe, chaired the meeting and, in his report, thanked Paul Barnard and John Collins who had stepped down from the roles of Membership Secretary and Online Committee Chairman, both after several years. He also stated that player development had taken a backseat due to DeepMind’s AlphaGo matches, but this year training sessions were being planned for the autumn.
The membership accepted his and the other officers' reports (including that of new Membership Secretary Chris Kirkham) and on the recommendation of the auditor, Pat Ridley, approved the accounts for 2016. These showed a surplus thanks to DeepMind sponsorship and the omission of a strong player training day.
The Council were re-elected with Richard Wheeldon replacing John Collins.
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Grand Prix Results
Fri, 14/04/2017 - 20:25 — Tony AtkinsAlistair Wall won for the third year running:
- Alistair Wall 36
- Toby Manning 24
- Andrew Simons 18
The following get cash prizes thanks to John Rickard's family:
- Edmund Smith 1024
- Zaki Betesh 640
- George Han 621
Prizes for the two sections go to:
10k-19k Alan Stokes 438 20k+ Joel Barrett 444
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50th British Go Congress Held in Cambridge
Fri, 14/04/2017 - 18:57 — Tony AtkinsThe fiftieth British Go Congress was held in Cambridge. The location was the very modern Centre for Mathematical Sciences which lies on its own campus near to Churchill College (which provided accommodation).
The event started on the Friday afternoon with a teaching session with tutors Toby Manning and Matthew Macfadyen. In the evening the Lightning Tournament was run on an extended round-robin system, after which the top two players played a final. Richard Mullens (6k) valiantly took second place to Xunrui Zhao (2d London).
After two days of play in the Open the prize winners were:
British Open Winner: Qinmeng Zhang (7d)
6 wins: George Han (5k)
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Euro Pair Go Held in France
Fri, 07/04/2017 - 11:29 — Tony AtkinsThis annual championship for male-female pairs was held on the 1st and 2nd April in Strasbourg in France.
Winners were Natalia Kovaleva and Dmitry Surin from Russia winning all six games. Second were Germany’s Pei Zhou and Lukas Kraemer and third were the Russian professional siblings, Svetlana Shikshina and Ilya Shikshin.
The UK’s Joanne Leung and Bruno Poltronieri were eleventh out of 28. They beat a Slovakian and two French pairs, but lost to the Russian pros, the Romanian Pair and Ngoc-Trang Cao and Antoine Fenech of France.
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Gong Cheng Wins In Sunny Welwyn
Sat, 25/03/2017 - 22:04 — Tony AtkinsThe Bridge Club room at the Gosling Stadium was again the venue for the Welwyn Garden City Tournament. This year skies were blue and the sun was out cheering everyone along.
Winning the tournament with 3/3 was Gong Cheng, a Chinese 2d from London. Also winning three were Alan Thornton (2k St Albans) and Alexander Hsieh (15k Cambridge Junior). As there were lots of prizes left over, all those of the 18 entrants who won two and were at the prizegiving got a prize as well.
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UK Climb to Third in Euro B-League
Wed, 22/03/2017 - 08:08 — Tony AtkinsThe 9th round of the B-League on 21st March saw the UK playing Switzerland. The match was won as Andrew Simons. Des Cann and Jon Diamond won, and only Bruno Poltronieri lost. As top team Poland beat second-placed Italy and all the other teams drew, the UK moved up to third place (just ahead of Austria on boards won).
Andrew Simons wrote: My game was against 4 dan Armel-David Wolff, who I'd met at the World Amateur last year. I thought the opening was slightly good for me once he didn't go for complications by pincering my bottom left approach and I invaded his dubious shape on the left side. Inspired by AlphaGo, I went for the kick and jump when he approached the top left, aiming to overconcentrate him on the side but he extended further on the 3rd line so I didn't get a chance to play the 5th line shoulder hit and he snuck in the corner and lived (for now) in sente which was a bit annoying.
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Eric and CHS Youth win Inaugural South Manchester Tournament
Mon, 20/03/2017 - 11:55 — Martin HarveyThe first-ever South Manchester tournament was held on Sunday 19th March 2017. Despite the drizzle, much fun was had by all. Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) kindly allowed use of their dining hall for the day, and nine of their students enjoyed free tournament entry.
There were two non-playing organisers on hand all day: Mike Winslow (Head of Physics) welcomed attendees and presented prizes, while Martin Harvey of Manchester Go Club ran impromptu teaching lessons for some non-players. To accommodate several 10-15-year-olds, two separate tournaments were run on the same day. The Main tourney was a 3-round affair, while the Fast tourney consisted of 6 rounds.
In the Main tourney, run by Helen Harvey, Manchester Go club provided half the 20 players, and greedily ensured that none of the three prizes awarded left Manchester!
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