BGA Newsletter 334 January 2026

FROM THE EDITOR

This issue, and previous newsletters, will be found in the Newsletter Archive in the Members' Area. In Newsletters after August 2025 the images have clickable links for viewing them full size. Full-size images from earlier Newsletters may be found via the BGA All News pages.

Contributions are always welcome, both from our members and others. We ask that they be Go-related and "newsy". The place for debate and general discussion is the BGA open mailing list Gotalk. However, an introduction to a new topic is fine in the Newsletter. A brief introduction to Gotalk, with a link for joining, is on the BGA page Go on the Internet.

Instructions for Contributors: Please use plain text not file-attachments. Keep it fairly brief, and give web-links and contact details. It's good to include pictures. If they are on the internet, send me the URL, otherwise attach the picture files to your email. Send your contribution to newsletter@britgo.org to arrive by the first day of the month.

Jil Segerman

NEWS

51st London Open Go Congress

The traditional end-of-the-year London Open Go Congress, this time a Bonus B event of the Grand Prix Circuit, took place on December 28th–31st 2025 at the London Go Centre.

Wrapping up with a full victory, Mateusz Surma 3p won the 51st London Open Go, undefeated after 7 rounds! Congratulations!

Michael Cheung 5d won the David Ward Trophy as best UK player, and the Lightning Tournament was won by Yuanzhen Li 6d. Among other activities, professional player Fan Weijing 3p gave lectures and game reviews.

Pictured: Fan Weijing (left) and Mateusz Surma

Several games are posted on the London Go Club OGS account under "Reviews and Demos". Game comments by Lucas Neirynck 6d are on Twitch, and Mateusz has produced a video review of his game with tournament runner-up Minseong Kim 7d for the LGC YouTube channel. Fan Weijing's lectures and game review will also be published there.

Finally a huge thanks to the tournament director Gerry Gavigan, for the updates and photos, and to the European Go Federation who posted these and more.

Pandanet - South Africa

In the third game of the 2025–2026 B-League season the UK team had to play South Africa and managed to get their first win of the season, 3-1. Further information here.

BGA Tournament Winners

Full results here.
London Open - Mateusz Surma
London Lightning - Yuanzhen Li

UK Player is European Grand Prix 2025 Champion!

Congratulations to Damen Ho-Yeung Woo 6d, who has won the European Grand Prix Finale 2025, held in Stockholm from 8th–11th January 2026. This prestigious event brings together the top performers across the 2025 EGF Bonus Point Tournaments.

After a challenging group stage, opening with a loss to Lukáš Podpěra 7d and then narrowly turning around his next game from a losing position, Damen came back strongly and powered through the knockout rounds. He avenged his recent London Open defeat to Mateusz Surma 3p, then defeated Andrii Kravets 2p to reach the final, where he faced Lukáš again – this time winning to claim first place.

Full details, including game records, can be found on the dedicated EGF webpage and the event report can be found here. The games were live commentated and past streams can be found on the EGF Twitch channel. Thanks to the EGF and photographer Damir Medak for the picture.

European Youth Go Championship

On March 25th-28th (29th), the 31st European Youth Go Championships will take place in the middle of a wonderful natural park in Croatia, Plitvice Lakes! There will also be the traditional Pair Go tournament, and workshops along the event to improve together.

ADMIN

EGC: Video Conference

The BGA has requested the organisers of this year's EGC in Ankara to host a ZOOM video-conference on the event. There will be a short presentation followed by a question-and-answer session.

Please do attend the video-conference if you can, it would be great to have a good turnout for them. Even if you think it is unlikely you will go it should be interesting to hear about all the preparations required. The details are below.

The conference will take place on Tuesday 20th January at 19:00 UK time (which will be 22:00 in Turkey). To join the meeting use this link which can also be found on the Events Calendar.

Lesson series from Korean Professionals

Following an initial experiment last year the BGA has negotiated a monthly series of six online lessons from two top Korean professionals. The lessons will target players at the 9 kyu - 3 dan level. Players outside that range will be very welcome, and will doubtless find a lot of value in them. Hopefully we can achieve a good attendance. Details are on Colin's recent Gotalk email and are posted on the BGA Events Calendar.

EVENTS COMING SOON

This Month: Video Meeting on the EGC in Ankara, Online Lesson 1, Lancaster
February London Youth, Coventry, Leinster Open (Dublin) NEW, Online Lesson 2, Cheshire
March Cambridge Trigantius, Online Lesson 3, European Youth (Croatia)
April British Go Congress, Online Lesson 4
May Candidates (British Championship) and Aspirants, Not the London Open, Online Lesson 5, Welsh Open (Barmouth)
June Durham, Cambridge Youth, Online Lesson 6
July European Go Congress (Turkey)