A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

Tony started working full time on Go in 2004, but has plenty of previous experience promoting and teaching the game. He was BGA Secretary for many years and was elected to the executive of the European Go Federation in 2000, serving a period as President. He is an amateur 3 dan player having learned the game over 30 years ago. He lives in Reading.

The KisekiGo web site, kisekigo.com, describes Tony’s introductory workshops and his sessions for players who have just started to play Go and who want to know more.

2007

Barry first encountered Go at 6th form after a friend found it in Lasker's Go and Go Moku. They played on a vertical maths classroom chequered chalkboard.

At Oxford Freshers Fair he found a Go club, even two. Too many names to mention from that period - but Matthew was still a kyu player in the first year and mostly taught Barry up from beginner to 6 kyu. Late 1976, for a few years in Reading he remained the junior at about 3 kyu to the collection of dans that met in their houses.

Sometime in the mid 1980's Geoff Kaniuk persuaded Barry to call himself 1 kyu at tournaments; but that was probably a step too far. Family and work were always limiting any Go study, and later on Bridge became his favoured social game.

In 2007 he hosted the Challengers League weekend at his house in Winnersh.

He was Journal Editor for Issues 140 through 150, but only co-editor for 146! Still an email voice in the BGA, though rarely plays Go. He was close to cracking 6*6, by experience alone on KGS, but inevitably the computers raced ahead. Hopefully his current building project in Shropshire will one day host another Go event. "You don't have to be good to love Go"

May 2012

Jonathan is a member of the Cambridge Club and has been BGA Secretary since 2010.

April 2013

John encountered Go vaguely in 1969, at Cambridge in 1972 and again in 1976 and always meant to get into it seriously but never quite got round to it until 2005 when he rolled up at St Albans Go club from which they haven't yet found an excuse to chuck him out.

He's sort of crawled out of the DDK pit painfully slowly since then. He would like to reach a sensible playing level before his dotage.

During his only-too-copious non-free time he runs a small Software company in Welwyn Garden City, 25 years old in January 2011, specialising in Linux and other open-source software.

John admits responsibility for the online league software which he started in 2009. Because of (or in spite of) this, he was elected to the council as Online Chairman in 2010.

4th January 2011

Jon is a retired IT professional living in East Sussex and learnt to play Go at school at the tender age of 14, becoming 1 dan and British Champion in 1965. He was Champion for 11 of the next 12 years, ending up by being promoted to 6 dan, but retiring to spend more time with his family (as they say) in 1977. In retirement he did represent the UK at the first World Amateur in 1979 and has been part of the UK team from the start of the Pandanet European Go team Championship.

As well as being on the BGA Council for many years in the 1970’s Jon founded the Go club at Cambridge University, started the British Go Journal and was editor for several years. More recently he produced the now obsolete BGA CD. (Barry Chandler insists he was co-editor of BGJ 146, focussing on the World Mind Sports Games - Jon isn't so sure...). He returned to playing Go competitively a few years ago, but is only playing at about 4 dan strength (on a good day) and represented the UK at the World Mind Sports Games in 2008 and 2012.

When at University Jon was one of the early pioneers in Computer Go and his programme was one of the two involved in the first inter-computer game of Go in 1970.

He was elected President in 2009.

29th November 2010, revised April 2013

I first encountered Go in my gap year at work where I was writing bits of the operating system for the long defunct mainframe computer company English Electric-Leo-Marconi. I was struck by the novelty of the game and immediately went to the limit of my teenage budget and constructed a board drilled with 361 pinholes with coloured drawing pins for stones.

With less than a dozen games of Go under my belt I took up Bridge instead at University but returned to Go a few years later. I founded the Corby Go Club, moved to Manchester, where I became the secretary and reached a weak 1-kyu grade. Marriage, children and other hobbies intervened and although I occasionally looked at Go books, that was it for some 30 years.

I had always valued in Go both the friendly community and the mental challenge from the huge range of strategic concepts. So come retirement from a varied life in I.T., I thought it would it would be fun to make one more push – from my supposed 1 kyu level and reach shodan. Big shock. Even after getting back into practice, I was just 5 kyu. In my absence, somebody had moved the goalposts, as seems quite clear from anecdotes, player graphs and Toby Manning’s earlier BGJ article “Why am I getting weaker?”

It has also been a surprise – after my 30-year gap – to find so many of the faces unchanged and the BGA membership, at its lowest level since records began. This despite the evidence from the website of a huge amount of effort and professionalism from those running the BGA. No doubt we have to blame the internet and other competition for people’s time, but I’ll see what I can contribute on this front.

I have found tournaments a joy, particularly the two-day ones, which allow more time for socialising and local exploring. I recently took over the small Shropshire tournament and hope to quietly develop that as an attraction for kyu players and Stacey points.

April 2013

It was while working for Plessey Telecommunications in the 'maths hut' at Taplow Court near Maidenhead in the early 70's, that I first came across the game of Go. A small group of us used to meet regularly at lunchtimes for 13x13 games and I rapidly became enthused by everything about Go including the elegance of the playing material. Within a year I had constructed my first wooden Go board.

On moving to London in the mid 70's, I became a regular at the London Go Centre in Belsize park run by Stuart Dowsey. A lot of people used to play there on a Saturday afternoon. On a sunny day when the club doors were open, as you approached the building, you could hear an intriguing sound, a bit like gravel being tumbled about. It gives an idea of how many players there were rattling glass stones in their bowls! After attending for about three weeks he said to me - now is the time to join the BGA!

Probably my first involvement in organising tournaments was during the time of the Hammersmith Go Club (mid 80's), where for a while we had a monthly tournament. I made a draw display system for mounting cards into wooden runners. Matthew Macfadyen later turned this into a really nice wooden display system for the London Open, where for many years at the Highbury Roundhouse, I did the draw using specially printed cards.

I then heard that there was a program for doing the pairing, got hold of it and ran the draw for the London Open on a portable computer borrowed from my workplace. It worked fine, but the next year after trying to edit the draw because the pairing was unacceptable, the program crashed and we could not recover the draw. We worked like mad to transfer the draw to cards and got the tournament underway again without being lynched! I vowed to produce a decent program - and GoDraw started life in the late 80's.

I am now developing the next generation of GoDraw. I am also intent on developing a sound model for understanding the behaviour of our rating and pairing systems.

March 2011

Matthew learned to play Go in about 1965 and first became British Go Champion in 1978. He was Champion for a total of 25 years and his European rating confirms he is European 6 dan.

After he became Champion in 1978, he defended the championship against several challengers until he was defeated by Terry Stacey in 1985. He failed to regain it in his challenge against Stacey in 1986. In 1987 Stacey lost the championship to Piers Shepperson.

In 1988 Matthew regained the title by defeating Piers Shepperson. He then again defended the championship against several challengers until 1993, when he was defeated by Shutai Zhang, who had trained in China as a professional Go player. Matthew failed to regain the title from Zhang the next three years. In 1997 Zhang returned to his native China, and Macfadyen was then able once more to regain the title. He has successfully defended it since then, losing only two games in the subsequent eight championship matches. He was unable to beat Bei Ge when he competed in 2006 and 2007, but since then regained his hold on the title until he retired in 2012.

He became European Champion in 1980 and a subsequent three times, the final one in 1989. He has had seven appearances in the World Amateur, best placed 5th in 1992. He partners his wife Kirsty at Pair Go and they have finished second in the European Pair Go twice.

Matthew has two grown up daughters and lives in Barford near to Leamington Spa. He works as an electrician when not playing Go.

January 2011, updated September 2012

Toby learned the rules of Go when he was a teenager in the 1960’s, but it was when he went to Cambridge in 1971 that he first really concentrated on the game. During his three years at University he got to be 1 kyu, and was firstly secretary then President of the University Go Society. He organised the first Cambridge Go Tournament (subsequently called the Trigantius).

His career then took him to Bristol, London, Leamington and Leicester, and in all places he was a keen member of the local club. He helped arrange each Club’s tournaments – the Wessex, London Open, Warwick and Leicester – and has organised three British Congresses as well as many Three Peaks Tournaments.

He got to be 3 dan in 1994, when he won his first tournament (the Three Peaks) although recently he has been playing at 2 dan; in 2002 he won the Irish Open. He has also won tournaments in Cornwall and Cheshire.

He was a Council member from 1976 to 1979 when he was elected President following Brian Castledine’s death, serving for 4 years. He rejoined Council in 2008, during which year he was non-playing captain for the UK Go team at the First World Mind Sports Games in Beijing.

He is married to (non go-playing) Felicity, with no children.

17 February 2010

Martha, 23, is studying for a PhD in History at Edinburgh University. She first learned Go from Matt Crosby at the age of 19, and has played with varying degrees of dedication since.

She represented the UK at the second World Mind Sports Games.

August 2012

Paul, 50, lives in Cambridge. He works as a software developer at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. He learned to play Go when he was 9 years old from a book by the games collector R C Bell. He later started a Go club in his school and they competed in the British Schools Championship in 1980.

He was promoted to 1-dan in 1993 and 2-dan in 1996. In the same year he played on board 2 for the UK team at the European Teams Championship in Zlin. He was the British Small Board Go champion in 2008.

Paul helps to organise the Cambridge Junior Chess & Go Club which has now been running for 18 years, and also a Go club in Milton Primary School. His wife and three children all play Go and at the Oxford Go tournament this year the whole family for the first time all played in the same event.

He represented the UK at the second World Mind Sports Games and was a Council member from 2011 to 2013.

August 2012, revised April 2013