Twenty five years ago Paul Smith and some others started the Cambridge Junior Chess and Go Club. In order to celebrate their first quarter century it was decided to run an event that would be attractive to both children and adults. After a five year gap, the British Small Board Championship was brought back. It was suspected the main reason for this was that Paul Smith was fed up of having the trophy for so long!

The venue was the modern lofty hall in Storey's Field Centre, in the newly constructed district of Eddington, with a separate room for relaxing and eating some of the large variety and numbers of cakes kindly provided by Andrea Smith and others in the family.

Twenty five years ago Paul Smith and some others started the Cambridge Junior Chess and Go Club. In order to celebrate their first quarter century it was decided to run an event that would be attractive to both children and adults. As the UK Go Challenge Finals were not held in the summer as normal, it was decided the event would be the finals for 2018-2019 (making deciding which age group players were in harder than normal). In order to make it interesting for adults it was decided to combine the event with the 2019 British Small Board Championship, as both events are played on 13x13. It was good to see that event back after a five year gap, though it was suspected it was brought back as Paul Smith was fed up of having the trophy for so long!

The 2019 UK youth go squad has been selected. The team of fifteen players comprises a mix of U20, U16 and U12 players, who form a team to compete for the UK in the European Youth Go Team Championship, played online between November and February. Each of the four matches involves five players (one Under 20yo, two U16 and two U12).

The UK team has improved in strength each year since the championship first started and this year is no exception. The prospect of making it into the youth team and acquiring one of the distinctive red team hoodies has boosted youth go in recent years. Team manager Alison Bexfield explains that she reviews the results from rated tournaments during the year, to select new players for the team.

The first game of this year's British Championship title match took place on Saturday 5th October, between Andrew Kay and Andrew Simons (the two top-placed players from this year's Challenger's League). After an entertaining game Andrew Kay came out on top, winning by resignation. As well as a live relay on KGS, Matthew Macfadyen commented on a clone of the game. The next game of the best-of-three title match is expected to take place in early November - more details to follow.

This year 36 players took part in the annual Sheffield tournament, now in its fifth edition at Greenhill Library. Tetsuro Yoshitake (3d Nottingham) was the eventual winner with three wins and he is shown, right, receiving his prize. The next three places had to be separated by SOS to give second place to Toby Manning (1d Leicester), third to Richard Wheeldon (2k London) and fourth to Carl Roll (2k Nottingham).

Winning all three games were Ashley Lester (7k Nottingham), Daffyd Robinson (13k Lincoln) and 4 from Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) - Sam Barnett (13k), Amy Upton (13k), Morgan Pittaway (24k) and Jacob Rubert (29k). These CHS 4 had all been to this year's summer Go camp. The group of 11 from CHS competing at Sheffield won 61% of their games on the day.

Peikai Xue (2d London) won all three games to win the Swindon Tournament. 29 players took part at the now usual Conservative Club venue in Old Town. Jim Clare (1d Reading) was second on sos tie-break from Swindon's Tony Putman (1k) and Christian Scarff (1k), each with two wins. The only other player to win all three games was the London junior player Scott Cobbold (6k). Both he and Aidan Putman (1k Swindon) went home with "prestigious" trophies, Aidan's for the 13x13 side event.

Results

Twenty-one players made it to Arundel this year. The organiser was especially grateful to those who had travelled many miles – some even braving the M25 – to experience Go in tournament conditions and enjoy the Arundel sunshine. This year there were two winners as shown in the picture: Alistair Wall (1d Wanstead) and Jonathan Reece (1k), who was on a brief visit from his home in South Africa. Alistair and Jonathan both had two wins in the four person round robin of the top boards. Two people won all three of their games: Malcolm Hagan (7k Arundel) and Pierre Oliviere (11k Harpenden). Although there was only one dan player in the tournament, there was a good showing of double-digit-kyus – seven in all.

Results available soon

In the 2019 Korea Prime Minister Cup International Baduk Championship, our representative, Andrew Kay, came 9th out of 62 entries. He had 4 wins (against Cyprus, France, Argentina and Hungary) and 2 losses (to Korea, who came second, and Thailand). This is one of the best results ever in an international tournament by a British player. He is shown here playing the player from Hungary.

The Irish representative, Ruari McCloskey, was 59th with 1 win (against India).

The overall winner was He Xin of China with six wins. The group on five wins was Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei, Germany (Arved Pittner), Thailand and USA. Eighth was Hong Kong. Results

There was a disappointing turn-out at the Cornish Go Weekend which was held in Falmouth this year; it had, however, the same format as in previous years.

On the Saturday morning Ian Marsh and Toby Manning led a teaching session, while the Handicap Tournament on Saturday afternoon was won by local man Miles Henderson Smith (11k), with Peter Collins (3k Bristol) being runner-up. Results

On Sunday Toby Manning (1k Leicester) won the 3 round McMahon Tournament for the seventh time, while local man Paul Massey (1k) was the runner-up. Results

On 7th September 2019 the second T Mark Hall Rapid Play Tournament was held at the London Go Centre. There were 22 entries ranging from 5 dan to 25 kyu, including several youngsters. The winner, with a clean sweep, was first time entrant Zhang Zhiqing (5d China). Second place went to another first timer, Gene Wong (3d), a youngster from Hong Kong. Third was Alistair Wall (1d). The battle below the bar was won by three 2 kyu players, Quentin Rendu, Richard Wheeldon and Paul Smith. Pierre Oliviere was the best-placed DDK and he also kindly brought along some of the youngsters. A special "fighting spirit" prize was awarded to another first timer - Ellis Martin (20k) from Sir John Lawes School - who hung in there despite having no success.