A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

The Northern Go Tournament was honoured to host Romanian-born professional Go player Catalin Taranu (5p). He commented on some of the games, gave a talk at lunchtime, and handed out the prizes. He stayed over to attend a meal and on the following day taught at a workshop in Stockport.

Unfortunately the organiser, Chris Kirkham, committed the first blunder of the day, messing up the registration and therefore starting an hour late! Not making blunders was the overall winner, Eetu Erkkila (1d) from Finland. He beat Yangran Zhang (3d) from Manchester in the final round.

Also winning prizes for winning all their three games were Andrew Russell (4k) from Birmingham, Adrian Abrahams (7k) from Lancaster, Brent Cutts (8k) from Nottingham and Amy Upton (22k) from Cheadle Hulme School. 42 players took part.

As in 2016, Cheadle Hulme School provided an excellent venue for which the organiser was very thankful.

Results

On Saturday 7th October 2017, 15 children from half a dozen schools in South Manchester attended a Go workshop at Greenbank Preparatory School (GPS). Following the same format as in the previous year, GPS had contacted the local Educational 'Gifted and Talented' scheme, who then sponsored the day and selected the children. British Go Association (BGA) members Martin Harvey, building on his connection with Cheadle Hulme School (CHS), plus wife Helen Harvey, Roger Huyshe and Tom Bradbury (Y12, CHS) were kept busy throughout, from 10:00 to 15:30, supervising the games.

While the children were just from years 4 and 5, their attention was good, they learned the basics in the morning starting with Capture Go, and progressed immediately to territory Go.

The UK team started the new season of the European B League by beating Denmark by four games to nil. This put the team in first place, equal with Germany. Congratulations to them for this result!

Daniel Hu wrote:

I won by 16.5 points in a very intense game of 160 minutes against Jannik Rasmussen (4d). I played pretty well, certainly better than on Saturday, but it took me around 20 minutes to get my reading and shape feeling up to scratch. I think my opening was slightly better, playing an AlphaGo joseki, but it was an unfamiliar fight, and it used up a lot of my time. He was left to cut with an empty triangle, while I got sente.

In the middle game, I played an invasion that got slightly messy, as my top side got reduced, and I spent several moves playing dumb second line kosumis on the right side not worth much territory, but reducing his eye space.

After winning the first game of the title match on 19th August, Daniel Hu beat Andrew Simons in the second game on 30th September to take the match 2-0. The game was broadcast in the English Game Room on KGS so the very interesting game could be followed as it was played out from 10:00 through to after 19:00. The fuseki was very interesting - with the same joseki played in adjacent corners. On the sealed move for lunch it seemed Andrew as white had claimed the entire top of the board, but black invaded and after a lot of careful thought a ko was fought, after which the group lived. In then relied on each player carefully playing out the rest of the game to be on the right side of a tight finish. In the end, Daniel won by just 3.5 points.

Edmund Shaw (5d) from Reading made his come back to competitive Go by playing in and winning the Swindon Tournament. He is shown, right, receiving the trophy from David King. Edmund beat Min Yang (4d) from Oxford into second place. Others of the 24 players winning all three games were Martin Harvey (6k) from Manchester and Colin Maclennan (10k) from Twickenham. As last year, the venue was the Conservative Club, conveniently situated in the Old Town part of Swindon.

Results

34 players attended the third Sheffield Tournament held, like last year, at Greenhill Library. Toby Manning won his second tournament of the month by winning all three games. He beat Helen Harvey (3k Manchester) into a noteworthy second place in the last round and is shown in the picture receiving the new trophy from organiser David Wildgoose. Local player Matt Marsh (3k) came third. Two of the large group from Cheadle Hulme School won all three games: Tom Bradbury (6k) and Rowan Borrows (31k). Daffyd Robinson (13k) must have been pleased with his three wins too, having travelled from Lincoln to take part.

Results

The Cornwall Tournaments have a regular following and it was some of those regulars who won the two tournaments. 14 players from 1d to 12k took part in the Cornish Lightning Handicap on the Saturday afternoon. Winner for the third time in four years was Paul Massey, 1k from Mid Cornwall, who is shown with the Dominic Taylor Trophy. On the Sunday there were 16 players in the Open; Toby Manning, 1d Leicester, was the winner for the second year running and the sixth time in all. The others winning wooden Go stone prizes were Tony Atkins (1k Reading) who was runner up in both events, Eric Hall (6k Swindon) who won all three in the Open and 6/7 overall, and Peter Collins (4k Bristol) won won 5/7 overall.

This year the Go events at the Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO), held again at JW3 in London, were at the start of the games festival rather than at the end. This meant lower attendance than the previous year, and the promised party of Chinese children under Sai Sun cancelled through terror worries.

On the opening Sunday of MSO, the MSO Open attracted 14 players from 5d to 8k to play a four round McMahon system event (bar at 3k). Winner of the gold medal and the top prize money was Gong Cheng (3d) who won all four, including beating the favourite Chang Han on time. Silver was shared by Lucretiu Calota (4d) and Chong Han (5d). Three of the below-bar players won two games, so no prize was needed lower down. Results

On the Monday afternoon 12 players entered the 9x9 event.

In the first game of the best-of-three 2017 British Go Championship title match, Daniel Hu beat Andrew Simons to go one up. Played at Geoff Kaniuk's house in Cambridge, they played a long game that lasted well into the evening. With live broadcast in the British Room on KGS, and parallel live commentary by Matthew Macfadyen, more than 60 spectators could be found enjoying the game at any one time.

Eventually Andrew had to resign, having battled against time difficulties for over a hundred moves. The game record, with and without Matthew's analysis, and also a version with Daniel's post-game comments, is in the British Championship section.

The first BGA Youth Residential Training was held at the PGL youth adventure centre at Caythorpe Court, not far from Grantham in Lincolnshire. The BGA group was made up of 19 youngsters aged 10 to 17 from Manchester, Letchworth, Cambridge and London areas, and five adults.

On arrival on Monday 14th August the youngsters were split into two by age for an afternoon of orienteering and raft building. Once dried out and fed, they assembled in the downstairs rooms of the Court for a short Go tournament, followed by Liar Dice and other games. Winner of the top group was Oscar Selby and Hilary Bexfield won both her games too.