A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

The UK team remained unbeaten at the end of the 2014-2015 season to end top of the European C-League. They ended on 20 match points after 9 wins and 2 draws, and had won 33 out of 44 games.

The UK's last match was against Kazakhstan and all games were won by resignation. It looked for a while like the match was to be played early on the Sunday, but in the end only Tim Hunt's game was, the others (Andrew Simons, Sandy Taylor and Toby Manning) playing their games on the normal Tuesday evening.

In the battle for second place, both South Africa and Bulgaria killed the hopes of Croatia and Lithuania by winning their matches against Portugal and Cyprus respectively, both by four games to nil. This meant South Africa would be in the play-off against Switzerland.

Ireland beat Greece to achieve a respectable seventh place.

League Page with game records

The UK held on for a draw in their 10th game in the C-League to win promotion to the B-League with one match remaining. Des Cann was the last to finish after a long game against Iceland's Hallbjorn Gudmundsson, but won by 16.5 to tie the match. Earlier Jonathan Gallimore quickly forced Benedikt Birgisson to resign, but Chris Bryant lost by resignation to Thorbergur Olafsson and then Sandy Taylor lost to Olafur Siguroarson by 3.5.

Second placed South Africa only managed a draw too against Lithuania, but Bulgaria beat Portugal to be placed just behind South Africa on boards won tie-break. Also vying for the play-off place are Croatia and Lithuania who are only one match point behind the other two.

League Page with game records

The BGA team beat Cyprus by three boards to one to stay top of the C-League. Rivals Bulgaria lost four-nil to third place South Africa, who move up to second three points behind us. With just two matches left, against Iceland and Kazhakstan, it is hoped we can remain top.

Chris wrote: My game was pretty one-sided from the start - opponent misplayed the first joseki and ended up with a bad result, and then I killed a few groups before he resigned.

Des wrote: Comfortable win. Nice gain in first corner fight when my opponent didn't know joseki leaving him with a weak centre group. Nice gain in second corner fight gaining lovely thickness whilst he lived on the second line in gote. I then attacked his centre group whilst building a moyo. He tenukied to invade my moyo. So I killed his centre group. He then formed two solid groups on the edge and then connected them together whilst I tidied up all my weaknesses.

Britain dropped their first point of the season with a draw against Portugal. They stayed two points clear at the top of C League as Bulgaria drew with Croatia. South Africa beat Greece to close the gap to one point in third.

The match result:

1. Des Cann (B) lost to Cristovão Neto (Quetzalt, 1d) by 13.5

2. Sandy Taylor (W) beat Pedro Pereira (Pite, 1k) by 16.5

3. Toby Manning (B) beat Francisco Pereira (xikuh, 1k) by resignation

4. Chris Bryant (W) lost to Pedro Carmona (PCT, 2k) by resignation

Toby wrote: A win for the UK... A strange game, I kept on attacking him, nearly lost when he counterattacked but I found a game-saving tesuji... Then one of his groups died...Game Over.

Chris wrote: My play was a complete mess, really furious with myself, can't believe I lost that game, I could have beaten myself playing against an empty chair it was such a disaster.

The UK team went clear top of the European C League by beating the other team with six wins, Bulgaria. Congratulations to the team for winning all four games to take the top place in the league by two match points.

1. Des Cann (W) beat Sinan Djepov (youngpro, 5d) by 11.5
2. Sandy Taylor (B) beat Magdalena Mladenova (BlackSky, 1d) on time
3. Paul Taylor (W) beat Miroslav Gospodinchev (miro92, 1k) by 9.5
4. Toby Manning (B) beat Alexander Savchovsky (Feanor, 1k) by resignation

League Page with game records

For the first time the Irish Go Congress, that features the Confucius Cup (Irish Open) and Irish Rapid Play, also featured a Chinese Chess Tournament. As well as the players, there were Chinese guests from the Go and Chinese Chess organisations including 7p Go professionals Hua Xueming and Huang Yizhong. The venue this time was the historic Gresham Hotel in the centre of Dublin.

The Friday night Irish Rapid was won by Oh Chi-Min (7d Durham) and the runner up was Kirsty Healey (2k Leamington).

The main Go event, the Confucius Cup, was keenly contested between the four 7d players at the top. The number of players was boosted to an excellent 58 on the last day, by a party of youngsters from Galway joining in. In addition there were 17 Chinese Chess players, including the winner Huang Chunlong.

Chris Bryant completed the final game of our match against Croatia with an easy 16.5 point win on Saturday. He got all four corners and failed to follow the proverb "If you win all 4 corners resign" and lived easily in the centre. The game was uneventful without too much fighting.

On the Tuesday Des Cann lost his game on board 1 and said: "I lost my first game this year. I blame it on being a bit stressed at work recently :-)

The game was mostly OK for me but my opponent played fast keeping me under pressure.

We've retained our unbeaten record, with our sixth match still incomplete.

We lead Croatia 2:1 with the final game involving Chris Bryant, our captain, being played this Saturday evening.

Please tune it to Pandanet then to find out whether we make it six in a row, prior to our head to head with Bulgaria in the next round, which will probably decide who comes first in League C.

Full details of our matches are available on our PGETC Page.

Our match against South Africa, probably our strongest opponents in League C, was a nerve tingler, coming down to the closest of all possible finishes.

We managed to put out our top three players for the occasion, Andrew Simons, Jon Diamond and Des Cann, with Paul Taylor (number 6 on our players list) playing on board 4.

Paul was struggling a bit in the opening, but captured a group slightly unexpectedly and was going happily along into yose with about a 15 point lead when he missed the implications of a throw-in and lost an 11 stone group though dame-zumari. Sigh...

Still, Des Cann (pictured right) soon made up for this, as he says: "I had quite a safe game. He made two low extensions from his hoshi, so I invaded in sente and then shoulder hit.

UK stayed second behind Bulgaria in the 12-team C-League. Bulgaria have won two more boards than the UK.

The match against Ireland ended in a 3-1 win for the UK team, as follows:

1. Des Cann (W) beat Ian Davis (hogweed, 1d) by 17.5
   
2. Paul Taylor (B) lost to James Hutchinson (jameshutch, 1d) by 8.5
   
3. Chris Bryant (W) beat Peter Kasko (Kaskai, 3k) by resignation
   
4. Evan McKiernan-Dooner (B) beat Tiberiu Gociu (OTible, 4k) by resignation
   

Links to the games, with .SGFs, are available on our main Pandanet Go European Team Championship (PGETC) page.