A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

Our team fought hard and managed a draw against Switzerland. The next match will be on Tuesday 19th March, against Norway.

Andrew Simons wrote: I played my game against John Walch on the evening of Saturday 16th. I won on time, but was fairly confident of winning anyway. The game started with a diagonal opening and me 3-3 invading (as I did against Sam in the second championship game); he took the gote wall so I took its extension and then peeped at it. He resisted, connecting on dame, so we had a fight and I was happy to build centre strength, and then, as he haned at q11, I got to make the dame cut in sente. His group was hard to attack directly though, so we played some more opening stuff. I made a makeshift defence against h17 invasion with l18 hane and got to cap his c9 stone (if he runs it out then I get a splitting attack on lower group) and he made a fun second line invasion on top.

Team Captain Alison Bexfield, and all her squad of 12 players in the UK Youth Go team, can look back on this 2018/19 season with satisfaction, as we finished comfortably mid table, out of the 12 teams. Whilst we lost narrowly (2-3) to Czechia, in the final fixture last weekend, it was an exciting match, and each margin was between one and a dozen points.

If one is superstitious, one might argue that we were "off colour" in the final match - playing 3 boards with the "wrong colour". That's because the match saw White winning on all 5 boards! It was always destined to be a fine margin either way with players, on paper, exactly evenly matched on 4 boards. But we congratulate Czechia on their win, and well done esp. to Edmund and Yanyi. We hope all our players still can gain from the good experience, esp.

Alison Bexfield, Team Captain, has selected players for the UK Youth Go team playing - mostly on Saturday - versus Czechia.
This is our 4th and final match in the 2018/19 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC) and, against the 3 countries we've played so far, we are 2-1 up.

The two teams' captains have done really well, and managed to line up players with exactly the same paper grade as each opponent, save for a 2-grade advantage to the UK on board 1.

The board line-ups for the match are:

The 21st Cheshire Tournament became the first event in the UK to use Fischer Time on new BGA electronic clocks. The 42 players successfully used the new system that gives extra time for each move played. The basic time was set at 40 minutes and ten seconds were added each move, remaining a B class tournament; only one game was lost on time (selecting the optional warning beep helped most avoid this) and fast players often had more time left at the end than they started with.

Most of the prize winners were from the two minibusfuls from Cheadle Hulme School. Ali Moin won a 13x13 prize for the most games played (winning 3 out of 9) and Sam Barnett for the best percentage/most wins (with 6 out of 6). These two were also among the eight youngsters who won two games and won some sweets. Five of the youngsters won all three games, namely Hugo Ryan (35k), Ben Geertman (25k), Rahul Surapaneni (19k), Joseph Curtis (17k) and Daniel Gascoyne (15k).

Good news if a tad late ...

Well, mea culpa entirely for this late snippet, but no doubt Santa was still delighted with the photo. Taken in December, it shows his helpers enjoying their lunch break at Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) in South Manchester. It seems that not even snow can stop the fun, for those with suitable head-wear. The school Go Club has been running for over 5 years now, with great support from CHS, their teachers past and present, minibuses, drivers, the BGA and DeepMind.

47 CHS students (and counting!) have experienced at least one national Go tournament. One current student Tom Bradbury - who'd not played Go before joining CHS - has now amassed no fewer than 33 events, over 6 countries!

Daniel Jones (spoon_man666 at hotmail.com) wrote: The inaugural meeting of a new Go club for the Nath Port Talbot area took place on Sunday 20th January at the Beefeater Bagle Brook, Pentyla-Baglan Rd, Port Talbot, SA12 8ES.

There were four players and another popped in because he was busy and could not stay to play but wanted to meet everyone there. We have also had a couple of people join our Facebook group, which has reached eight members. The next meeting is provisionally on Sunday 24th February.

More details

Our team lost again by three games to one, this time against Austria. The only win was by Joanne Leung, making her debut in the League on board 4. The next match will be on Tuesday 19th February, against Switzerland.

Andrew Simons wrote: I lost on time against Viktor Lin, from a good position that had just turned bad in an overtime panic. We had a nice opening fight when he allowed my powerful cut at p3: we both had weakish groups running out to the centre, but I got to cover the head at m11 and he didn't make much territory on his half of the board in the process. A fight on the lower side ended with an exchange, capturing a load of cutting stones for good profit to settle my groups. I think c4 was a mistake though (e3 or h2 better), as although I got a ponnuki and sente I lost chances to attack his group which didn't actually have eyes yet; he was obviously going to steal the base of my ponnuki next and pretend to attack it.

There was much fun and games at the Maidenhead-Hitachi Tournament. As usual it was held at the Whitebrook Park headquarters of Hitachi Europe, though news was shared that due to potential company relocation it might be the last. In between rounds, as well as playing 13x13 games, most of the ten youngsters taking part played different games with Alison, the non-playing organiser. In addition, as well as wine and mystery envelope prizes, the prize table contained a large selection of board games as shown right.

The winner of the tournament was the former Chinese professional, Chao Zhang (6d London), shown right. He beat Jon Diamond, Alex Kent and Andrew Simons to take the title.

Alison Bexfield, Team Captain, sent us 2 posts on Sat. 12 Jan. re this UK Youth Go Team match.

--- Pre-match ---
The British youth go team are back in action today, playing Hungary.
This is our 3rd match in the 2018/19 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC).

Our line-up for today's match is:
U20 Yueran Wang
U16 Edmund Smith
U16 Josh Gorman
U12 Yanyi Xiong
U12 Emily Oliviere

We welcome Emily from Harpenden to the squad as our newest member, making her debut today. She joins the squad after a strong showing at the British Youth championships (which I use for talent spotting).

Three boards commenced play at 2pm and we have won on board 4 with a convincing win by Yanyi. The other two - boards 1 and 3 - are currently still playing. Boards 2 and 5 start play at 4pm. All games take place on the KGS server.

--- Post-match ---

The group which has been meeting in Letchworth and Stevenage as Letchworth Go Club (adults) has reconstituted as the Stevenage (North Herts) Go Club and will no longer meet in Letchworth, but only in Stevenage, every Tuesday from 7.30pm till closing time (11pm). The first meeting is on 8th January 2019 at:

Cafe Green, IBIS Hotel, Danestrete, Stevenage, SG1 1EJ.