A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

Report from Andrew Ambrose-Thurman:

The rain was falling heavily as people made their way to the first morning of Durham Go Tournament 2017, this year held at Durham's Oriental Museum. Despite the downpour there was a reasonable turnout of 29, with this being several people's first tournament, and ranks ranged from 20k to 3d.

This year we decided to video the games on the top board and stream them live over the internet. We also projected the video onto a big screen in the side room, where people were reviewing games and playing in the side events.

The British Pair Go Championship was again held at the Red Lion in Hatfield and the organisers, Francis Roads and Jenny Rofe-Radcliffe, were again pleased as there was an increase to 17 pairs, despite several of the stronger pairs not taking part this year. Most of this number was a large group from Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) and Manchester, which was recognised by the organisers presenting Martin and Helen Harvey with a special prize for arranging this.

In the top group the 2016 champions, Joanne Leung and Bruno Poltronieri, did not do so well and it came down to a final between Alison and Simon Bexfield and Natasha Regan and Matthew Cocke.

Both Daniel Hu and Andrew Simons won six games out of seven to top the list at the Challengers' League. Andrew won in their mutual game, but lost to Charles Hibbert on time, when his flag fell earlier than expected. Charles was third with 5 wins, Tim Hunt won 4, Andrew Kay and Alex Rix 3, Joanne Leung won 1 and Des Cann took eighth place.

Daniel and Andrew now go on to play the title match over the coming months.

Results

The Scottish Open took place at the offices of Skyscanner in the modern Quartermile One building in Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, on 27th and 28th May. 20 players made it along, some having met the night before for some lightning Go and socialising at the "Noughts and Crosses" Games Cafe on Morisson Street.

Prizes were awarded to the top three ranked players: Boris Mitrovic (2d Edinburgh) with 6 wins, Paul Smith (1k Cambridge) with 5 wins and Neil McLean (1k Aberdeen) with 3 wins. Prizes also went to the three 5kyus who each won 4 of their 6 games: Edmund Smith (Cambridge), Stephen Chester (Edinburgh) and Niall Paterson (Glasgow).

Results

AlphaGo won the third game of the the match bringing its opponent, Ke Jie, to tears and winning the match 3-0.

BBC Radio News reported that it had been announced that AlphaGo would no longer play humans.

On the previous day (Friday 26th) AlphaGo had beaten a team of Chinese pros, who could discuss the game, by resignation. Its only loss of the week was with a Chinese professional partner against itself and another Chinese professional partner in a Pair Go game.

The last man-machine match was held in Wizhen in China, between top Chinese play Ke Jie and Deepmind's AlphaGo. The first game on 23rd was very close with AlphaGo just winning by half a point. The second on 25th was a very complicated fight with AlphaGo winning by resignation to clinch the best-of-three match.

Also this week, Deepmind's founder, Demis Hassabis, was the guest on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

For more details of the match read the media reports in the national press or the Deepmind report which has game records at the bottom.

The last round of the B-League on 16h May saw the UK playing Italy. Board one was played a day early. The match was drawn with wins on boards 3 and 4.

Andrew Simons wrote: I'm afraid I lost my game last night against Allesandro Pace. I was happy with how the opening went, and played a shoulder hit I'd seen in a Lee Sedol game to counter his influence strategy. Once I played the last big opening point on the left he played a strange attachment underneath and rather than directly answering I went for a leaning attack. He then played a loose move (f7 rather than f8, afterwards he said it was misclick) which allowed me to clamp to get the side but instead I got carried away and played what was essentially an endgame move at e2 so he fixed the clamp problem in sente. He then played a sharp attachment which I answered submissively and couldn't break into his moyo due to his own clamp tesuji.

We have heard from Alex Eve that David Woodnutt died at home of bowel cancer on Saturday 6th May 2017, aged 69.

Alex writes: “In 1969 he was the first person for five years who I could play Go with who I hadn't taught. He had learnt Go from the New Scientist article in early sixties. He founded the Sussex University Go Club in 1969. I next met him in Buckingham, around which we both lived a long while, and renewed friendship.” He later moved to Kington in Herefordshire.

David was on the BGA Council from 1991 to 1995 and was the journal editor from issue 119 to 132 (2000-2003). He became shodan in 1992 and reached two dan in 1999. He also enjoyed Pair Go, shown here playing with his wife Alison in 1995.

Alison is of course very sad after her loss and our thoughts go out to her at this time.

The Spring 2017 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.

The top player at the 39th Bracknell Go Tournament was Lucretiu Calota (4d St Albans) who beat Alistair Wall (1d Wanstead) in the final (pictured). Chao Zhang (5d London) and Jim Clare (1 dan Reading) took third and fourth places, and Paul Barnard (2k Swindon) took fifth with three wins. Others of the 36 players winning three were Casey Alexander (10k Arundel) , Alexander Hsieh (10k Cambridge Juniors), and Lueming Yang (20k Oxford).

Arundel won the team prize, by one win, over the junior team of "A Football Stuck in a Bush Squad". Nobody competed in the 13x13, but winning the puzzle-solving were Jonny Evans (10k London City) and Cate Howe (28k Cheadle Hulme School). Best haiku-writer was Richard Wheeldon.

Results