UK Move up to Third

In the fifth game of the 2025-2026 B-League season the team played Belgium. Three games were played at the weekend, with the UK ahead going into the Tuesday night. Bruno managed to win on time to take the match. Croatia won again, beating Sweden, to remain top. The Netherlands defeated Ireland, four games to nil, moving to second place, with the UK in a creditable third place. The next match is on 24th February with UK against Croatia.

League Page with game records

Michael Cheung beat Lucas Neirynck (6d) by resignation when a large group in the middle ran out of liberties and died.

Bruno Poltronieri beat Lucman Bounoider (3d) on time: He wrote: I got a bit lucky. The game started very badly after I played, and messed up, a joseki I hadn't played in a while. I was at least 12 points behind after the first corner... I tried my best to play quickly on the board after that, which left me with a couple of weakish groups. Small mistakes from my opponent meant I lived reasonably well and his lead reduced a bit, but still it wasn't good. However my opponent messed up in the next big fight due to time pressure. I was also pretty low on time so missed a big chance to end the game, but still the game was turned around. Then my opponent lost when he had to play 3 moves in 1 second! The game was definitely not over, however, and could have gone either way.

Jake Game beat Jan Ramon (3d) by 22.5 and wrote: Somehow white was lucky in my game and I managed to win. Cannot really say what was happening throughout the game, but it was a very exciting series of bizarre and fun scenarios.

Mark Elliot lost to Renaud Gaban (2d) by 16.5 in what was his first Pandanet game. He wrote: I had close game with both sides making plenty of mistakes.