Foreign Tournament Report

A pretty bad disaster today: we had major troubles trying to get a team together on the Tuesday night that the Swedes insisted that we play on. (The rules entitle them to do so.)

So we came up one board light and to avoid deduction of two Board Points rather than one, Jon played as Board 1 and we left Board 2 empty: Swedes 1:GB 0 before we started.

It's Paul's first match and he had major troubles with getting in and finding the Playing Room, but he eventually got going.

Then Jon got in an unfortunate fight, lost quite a few critical stones (probably with a number of misplays) and couldn't recover by killing another group. So Sweden 2:0.

Sadly, the other two games weren't very favourable either, with the Swedes cruising to easy wins in both, so a comprehensive defeat 4:0.

After some struggle with dates we were given permission to bend the rules and play this match over two days.

On day 1 (Tuesday) Des Cann lost, as he described it, an unloseable game and Andrew Simons won a lost one, so the score was 1:1.

Day 2 (Wednesday) didn't go according to plan, with Matthew Macfadyen having some shape problems and then losing after a ko struggle. Jon Diamond was doing nicely, but allowed a group to be cut off and could only manage a ko without sufficient ko threats...

So a 3:1 loss in the end - must try harder!

Full details and game records at BGA Euroteams page

Britain (Represented by Matthew Macfadyen, Jon Diamond, Des Cann and Andrew Simons) drew with Denmark in the third round, with Jon blotting his copy book (badly) this time.

Full details and game records at BGA Euroteams page

The team score is now one win, one loss and one draw.

Britain (Represented by Matthew Macfadyen, Jon Diamond, Des Cann and Andrew Simons) scored an excellent 3-1 victory against Belgium in the second round, with Jon maintaining his perfect record.

Full details and game records at BGA Euroteams page

28 players attended the UCC Tournament in Cork, the largest number yet. Seven nationalities, as well as Irish, took part including several Dutch. The winner was Willem-Koen Pomstra (5 dan) from Arnhem. Local 4 dan Tong-Yu Cao only lost to the winner, taking his usual second place. Przemyslaw Dyszscyk (2 kyu Poland) and Maxime Houssin (5 kyu France) won 4 games and Dublin's Jos Elkink (11 kyu) won all 5 games. Best beginner was Cork's Con Quigley (20 kyu).

Results

Jon Diamond did his duty as President of the BGA by winning his game in the UK's first match in the B League of the new Pandanet Go European Team Championship. Unfortunately Matthew Macfadyen, Will Brooks and Jonathan Chin lost their games, so that the UK lost the match 3-1 to Poland.

BGA Euroteams page

Ian Davis took a very high 25th place for Ireland at the 5th KPMC. He won 4 games (against Kazakhstan, Portugal, Brazil and Norway) and lost 3 (against Denmark, Slovakia and Sweden). Piers Shepperson ended 45th for the UK having won 3 (against Panama, Malaysia and Luxembourg), but losing 4 (to Spain, Poland, Columbia and Netherlands).

Vanessa Wong narrowly failed to win the European Women's Go championship, held in Lyon, France. Vanessa ended in the top group of five players on four wins, but was squeezed into second place on tie-break behind Germany's Pei Zhao. Alison Bexfield was 6th and Natasha Regan was 11th in the field of 20 players.

Results

Will Brooks, the student from Cambridge, was equal third in the European Student Go Championship in Darmstadt, Germany. He only lost to the top rated player Benjamin Teuber and to the eventual winner Matthias Terwey. 22 students from 8 countries took part.

Results

The European Team Tournament was held following on from the Leksand Tournament. The Netherlands were the winning team with 8 points and 15 wins. Second was Serbia also with 8 points but 14 wins. Usual winners, Russia, were third. Six teams took part.