A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

Marcus Bennett died recently after a short illness caused by cancer. Marcus was one of the main players of the Bournemouth Club for over 30 years. He was the club secretary from 1994 and ran the Bournemouth Tournament, being the main contact between 1990 and 1998. He was also on BGA Council from 1997 to 1999 and earned his shodan diploma (1d) in 1994. He is shown here receiving a prize at the 1990 Coventry Tournament.

The new club contact is Kevin Drake who said their dear friend will be sadly missed.

Despite some having troubles with flights nearly 30 players from the UK enjoyed the sun in Pisa for this year's European Go Congress. The event itself had a record turn-out with over 1400 players having pre-registered; the main tournament had around 850 players.

Leading the way for the British players were teenagers Tom Bradbury (5k) and Edmund Smith (5k). In the main tournament, after a barnstorming start, Edmund ended up with 7/10, and Tom with 6/10. In the Weekend tournament Edmund got 4/5 while Tom got 3/4. The rest of the players had a mixture of results.

While not playing Go the participants attended lectures and had game reviews, or explored Tuscany, including the cities of Florence, Siena and Lucca as well as Pisa itself.

Here is a full set of results.

Attention Go Club members: We are currently updating the Club Directory (see Find a Club on the menu at the top of each page). If you are our primary contact for your club then the recent mail message from us may be languishing in your spam folder. Please review your entry in the Directory and notify us of anything that is out of date by email to club-chair@britgo.org. If you are not the primary contact, please take time to review the entry anyway.

The Summer 2018 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.

On Saturday July 21st the first game of the British Championship, between Andrew Simons and Sam Aitken, took place. After more than 6 hours of play, Andrew Simons won by 2.5 points after Sam failed to successfully invade a large corner of Andrew's.

The title match is best-of-three.

Matthew Macfadyen gave a commentary on KGS. Both the raw game record, and the version with Matthew's commentary, are available here.

A commentary by Andrew Simons is available here.

During the 5th Annual World Collegiate Weichi Championship in Cambridge BGA reporter Andrew Simons had a chat with some of the players.

Interview 1

AS: Hi. What's your name and where do you come from?

YW: Hi. My name is Yuzhang Wu and I'm from China originally but studying at Manchester University in England.

AS: What are you studying?

YW: Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering.

AS: Did you learn Go here or in China?

YW: I learnt in China, but now Eric Zhang in Manchester is my teacher, maybe you know him?

AS: Ah, Yangran, yes I know him well, we often meet at the London Open tournament. So what group are you playing in and how was your first game?

After the AWCC had ended, the following day the BGA used one of the two playing rooms, the Hicks Room in Cambridge's University Centre, to organise the UK Go Challenge Finals. Thanks to the Ing foundation of Shanghai, the Go equipment used by the AWCC has been donated to the BGA and it was used by the 28 children attending the Finals.

Battled over 7 rounds on 13x13 boards, the finals ended up in a three-way tie based on number of wins, as the top three players each won six games and lost to one of the other two. The places were determined by the knock-out system used, as there were three prize certificates, but prize money was shared. The top three were Charlotte Bexfield, Edmund Smith and Yue Wen. These won U18 Girls, U14 Boys and U8 Boys respectively.

The other age-group winners were: U16 Boys David Baldwin, U12 Boys Alexander Hsieh, U10 Boys Theodore Chui, U14 Girls Hilary Bexfield, U12 Girls Julia Volovich, U10 Girls Zoe Walters, U8 Girls Auden Oliviere.

The fifth Annual World Collegiate Weiqi Championship (AWCC) was held in Cambridge this year and organised by the International University Weichi Federation (IUWF). Naturally it was supported by the BGA and sets were provided by the Ing Foundation in Shanghai. Many of the organising team were students at British Universities including Daniel Hu, Junan Jiang, Weichin Dai and Joanne Leung.

The tournament had 102 players (a view of one of the two playing rooms is shown here). It was held over two days and six rounds, apart from the A group that also had semi-finals and final (shown below) on the third day, the Friday. This was broadcast on a Chinese Go server, like the pro games, and analysed by professionals (shown below middle with Daniel Hu translating) for the other student players.

The 5th International World Collegiate Weichi Championships (IWCC) started on Tuesday in Cambridge with an Opening Ceremony. About an hour of speeches was followed by a dinner. Participants were welcomed by a number of dignitaries, including BGA President Toby Manning.

The first three rounds of the Championship take place on Wednesday, with the remaining 3 rounds on Thursday. UK hopes are resting on British Champion Daniel Hu, from Cambridge University and current British Champion, but he lost 2 of his first 3 games..

Alongside the Championship is the semifinals of the Chang Qi Cup, a Professional Tournament normally held in China. The photo shows the start of the second game between Shi Yue and Mi Yuting; Mi Yuting defeated Shi Yue 2-0 in the best of-three match.

The 26th Welsh Open proved to be a hot one - both in the air temperature approaching 30C and the fierce competition for overall winner. The regular organisers & tournament directors Helen and Martin Harvey apologised the previous year for ineffective sun-dancing leading to rain. This year the TDs sought forgiveness - for over-zealous sun-dancing, however. The resultant queuing at the bar at least kept the hotel-owner happy, and meant we could avoid the queues if players wanted hot drinks or - in many cases - cold water.

Held in its constant, scenic coastal town of Barmouth since 1993, the event again passed off smoothly and enjoyably. A slight increase meant that 33 played in at least one of the six rounds, including three shodans and down to a 17-kyu. Participants once more travelled from across the UK – from Dundee, Cambridge, London and yes, two from Wales! Numbers and conversation at the evening meals were enhanced by non-playing partners.