A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

Natasha Regan celebrated her 40th birthday by winning the British Pair Go Championship for a second year running with Matthew Cocke. This time they beat Kirsty Healey and Matthew Macfadyen in the final. The handicap winners from 2008, Sam McCarthy and John Collins, won the handicap section again. Best dressed pair was Jenny Radcliffe and organiser Francis Roads.

Natasha Regan and Matthew Cocke took 11th place (the 9th best country) at the European Pair Go Championship in Istanbul, Turkey. They lost to Czechia, France and Germany, but beat Poland and two pairs from Turkey. Best of the 31 pairs taking part was the pair from Hungary, Rita Pocsai and Pal Balogh. Czechia was second and Ukraine third.

Results

The match between the party of visiting retired Japanese Go players and the BGA/London team ended very close. With one result to come in it was tied at 8 all. The outstanding game, the bottom board, decided it in Japan's favour 9-8. Winning for the British side were Nick Krempel, Alex Rix, Jonathan Chetwynd, Michael Webster, Jonathan Turner, Xinyi Lu, Jiri Keller and Roger Daniel. After the match most players then went on for a meal in China Town.

The UK representative at the 32nd WAGC was Alex Selby from Cambridge. He won 3 games to take 43rd place. His first game was a loss to former World Champion Hirata of Japan. He then lost to Nechanicky of Czechia and Trippel of Switzerland, before beating Neville Smythe of Australia. He then lost to Minieri of Italy, beat the player from Azerbaijan, lost to Pedersen of Denmark and won the last game against Mexico. James Hutchinson of Ireland was 36th with 4 wins against Denmark, Argentina, Portugal and Brazil. The unbeaten Champion was Bai of China. Second was Choi of Korea. The group on 6 wins were Eric Lui (USA), Thomas Debarre (France), Hirata (Japan), Jun Fan (Canada) and Franz-Josef Dickhut (Germany). 57 countries took part at the Shimane prefectural hall in Matsue, a ancient castle town in the west of Japan.

Matthew Macfadyen, British Champion 2010, won all seven games in the Challengers' League to earn the right to defend his title. This year he will be playing Nick Krempel (3 dan London), who won five games in the League, in a best of 3 final. Hui Wang and Alistair Wall just missed out on playing for the title by one win each.

Results

For the first time in many years, the Scottish Open was won this year not by a Scottish resident but someone Scottish-born - Sandy Taylor (2 dan Durham) - winning all five games to take his first tournament title. 23 players took part in total. A drop in local players was caused by the closure of long-term sponsor Real Time Worlds and a local wedding anniversary. A new sponsor, Denki (games software), ensured that, as ever, all players took away a jar of Dundee's famous marmalade. Prizes were also awarded to David Lee (2 dan Dundee) and Dieter Daems (9 kyu Leuven) for four wins out of five, and to Martha McGill (2 kyu Edinburgh), Boris Mitrovic (2 kyu Edinburgh), Tom Croonenborghs (1 dan Antwerp), Eugene Kee-Onn Wong (4 kyu Glasgow) and Andrew Thurman (7 kyu Durham) for three wins. Edwin Brady (1 kyu St Andrews) and Sandy Taylor (2 dan Durham) jointly won the Lightning tournament with three wins out of four.

Results

Another slightly more scratch team than usual (Matthew couldn't play again) for our final game against Spain proved more successful with a 3:1 win (probably).

The probably is because Toby was playing on Pandanet for the first time and he and his opponent failed to manage to set the time limits correctly and play their game. This game had been set up at the last minute as Spain couldn't raise a 4th board until the day of the match. So, since Toby's opponent was much weaker and would have needed to finish early in any event, he had allowed Toby the win.

In other games Andrew and Jon both gave their opponents a serious opportunity to kill significant groups, but these weren't taken, and they both captured other groups in return to win by resignation.

The organiser of the Bracknell Tournament was also the winner: Ian Marsh (1 kyu Bracknell) was the best of the 28 players. Also winning all three were Xinyi Lu (4 kyu Maidenhead) and Laurence Anderson (7 kyu Bracknell). Poland's Marcel Zantman (6 kyu) won two and then had a last round jigo. Bahareh Afshari won the problem solving, Mike Charles won the 13x13 and Peter Collins won the caption contest.

Results

In March the BGA was approached by a Taiwanese Game Manufacturer who wanted to use the text and diagrams from our “How to Play GO” booklet in a new Go set produced in volume for the North American and European market. They said “We found the 'How to play Go' on your web site is very clear and easy to understand”.

Accordingly the BGA has granted them a non-exclusive licence to use this text (with appropriate acknowledgements etc.) for a sum of £1,000.

Edwin Brady was instrumental in getting the booklet updated in 2010, but a large number of other people were involved in producing the text (noting also those involved in the previous version in 2004). We think this agreement is a testament to the quality of the work undertaken by all those involved and thank them all.

14 players took part in the Cambridge Bar-Low. The only players winning 4 games were in equal first: Graham Lamburn (1 kyu), John Richardson (1 kyu) and Adan Mordcovich (2 kyu).

Results