It is with deep sadness that we have to announce the death of T Mark Hall on Monday after a long illness.

T Mark was a long and faithful servant of the British Go Association, of British Go in general and of World Go through his partnership with John Fairbairn in GoGoD (Games of Go on Disk). He was on our Council for some 22 years, serving for 20 of these as Treasurer, a record of service that will surely be unsurpassed.

He was a fine player, especially at Lightning Go, and won many tournaments, although never quite challenging for the final of the British Championship. His last tournament appearance was in the British Open in April this year when he came 4th.

18 players made it to this year’s Edinburgh Christmas Open, the lowest entry for many years, with none from “furth” of the border.

David Lee (3 dan Dundee) won all his games and was champion for a second year running. He was joined on 4 wins by Rob Payne (7k Edinburgh) and Joseff Thomas (17k Glasgow). The remaining prize went to the furthest travelling player on 3 wins, which was Carel Goodheir (9k Skye). Other players with 3 wins were Boris Mitrovic (2d Edinburgh) and Greg Cox (10k Dundee).

Results

The South London teaching day and tournament went ahead today with 24 students and 3 teachers - Andrew Kay, Tim Hunt, and Francis Roads, to whom we are very grateful that they gave up their time for us. Students were split into groups of similar strength and spent some time with each of the teachers in the morning.

In the afternoon was a three round tournament. Students were again split into groups, each of which played a Swiss-style tournament with handicap equal to grade difference.

I plan to close the current league season on 21st December at noon, leaving people free to enjoy the Winter Solstice at 17:11.

We've had a good few games in Divisons 2 and 3 although Divison 1 has been a bit thin on the ground.

Unless anyone objects beforehand I shall declare drawn unplayed games in matches which have started. However I would prefer to see them played out so if that means you please can you finish them as soon as possible.

Please can all teams confirm as soon as possible that they will be playing next year. I hope to get the next season under way in March, so everyone please check that they can play. We would be pleased to welcome any new teams that want to join the league, so don't be shy!

I hope everyone has enjoyed the league this year and I look forward to some interesting games in the coming year.

John Collins

We are pleased to announce that the online Korean Go Server, is sponsoring an Oxford vs Cambridge Match at the London Open.

The match, which will be shown online on the WBaduk server, will be on the evening of December 30.

Each team will have 4 members: two current students, and 2 alumni.

More information is available at the LOGC page

We are very grateful to WBaduk for their financial support making this match possible.

We started out tied with Turkey at the top of Division C, but they are nominally the strongest of the other teams in the Division and quite close to us in overall strength. Nevertheless we had high hopes as we put out our strongest team.

Sadly, this was not to be to be the case as we lost all three completed games...

On top board Andrew Simons had a good opening with one cutting group between two weak groups. He didn't play that severely and his opponent managed to settle both groups, but he got some decent profit in exchange, though Andrew did make an annoying timing mistake which meant his opponent could get a big tenuki during the fighting.

Bruno Poltronieri, 3d, organised a successful Coventry Tournament again, a very successful one for him in that he was the winner. Second was Andrew Kay, 4d, and third Yuanbo Zhang, 3d. Winning all three games were Manchester's Chris Kirkham, 4k, and local student Joseph Ireland, 8k. 37 players took part.

Results

Andrew Kay won the first game by resignation and the second game on time to retain the British Championship, winning 2-0 verses Andrew Simons.

<

ul>

The Online Study Group (formerly Shodan Challenge) will be starting on 29th November and running for six weeks. Players of any strength who wish to improve their go-playing abilities are very welcome!

You are encouraged to choose a goal to work towards for six weeks, and a study plan to follow during that time. Using the group, you can arrange matches with players of similar strengths, request / offer teaching games, or discuss variations of a game you have played or watched. There will be a league system in place to help you find opponents of around your strength.

(Stronger players are also encouraged to join to help review games and offer advice. Please note that you are only committing to six weeks at a time, and you are not assigned individual students to mentor, so the level of commitment required is low!)

To sign up, please send an email to me with your name and approximate rank (if applicable).

Just to remind you that the second game of the BGA title match takes place on Saturday at about 10:00am. Once again the moves will be relayed live on KGS.