Britain dropped their first point of the season with a draw against Portugal. They stayed two points clear at the top of C League as Bulgaria drew with Croatia. South Africa beat Greece to close the gap to one point in third.

The match result:

1. Des Cann (B) lost to Cristovão Neto (Quetzalt, 1d) by 13.5

2. Sandy Taylor (W) beat Pedro Pereira (Pite, 1k) by 16.5

3. Toby Manning (B) beat Francisco Pereira (xikuh, 1k) by resignation

4. Chris Bryant (W) lost to Pedro Carmona (PCT, 2k) by resignation

Toby wrote: A win for the UK... A strange game, I kept on attacking him, nearly lost when he counterattacked but I found a game-saving tesuji... Then one of his groups died...Game Over.

Chris wrote: My play was a complete mess, really furious with myself, can't believe I lost that game, I could have beaten myself playing against an empty chair it was such a disaster.

The UK had six players representing it at the European Youth Go Championships held over the weekend of 15th March in Zandvoort am Zee in the Netherlands.

Looking very smart in their UK Youth Team hoodies there was a good team spirit. After the first two rounds things were not looking good for the UK, but in the later rounds we did pick up more wins to end with a total of 14 points out of 36.

One of our players had a very exciting finish in the last round. After an epic game, in which her opponent had gone into three sets of overtime, Roella claimed a win by one point – after the additional extra 6 points komi courtesy of Ing overtime rules which give two penalty points per overtime set.

The Trigantius tournament was held in the bar of the Cambridge University Social Club in Mill Lane on the bank of the Cam on a gloriously sunny day.

Taking the Trigantius Trophy, and his second title since taking up tournament Go at the start of 2015, was London's Charles Hibbert (3d) with three straight wins.

Other prize-winners on three wins were Alison Bexfield (1d Letchworth), Yuji Tanaka (3k Japan), Martin Harvey (4k Manchester), Philip Smith (5k), Richard Mullens (6k London City), Fred Zhu (7k Cambridge) and Ben Murphy (10k Billericay).

Special prizes were awarded to those on two wins in categories of best Single Figure Kyu and best Double Figure Kyu.

The UK team went clear top of the European C League by beating the other team with six wins, Bulgaria. Congratulations to the team for winning all four games to take the top place in the league by two match points.

1. Des Cann (W) beat Sinan Djepov (youngpro, 5d) by 11.5
2. Sandy Taylor (B) beat Magdalena Mladenova (BlackSky, 1d) on time
3. Paul Taylor (W) beat Miroslav Gospodinchev (miro92, 1k) by 9.5
4. Toby Manning (B) beat Alexander Savchovsky (Feanor, 1k) by resignation

League Page with game records

For the first time the Irish Go Congress, that features the Confucius Cup (Irish Open) and Irish Rapid Play, also featured a Chinese Chess Tournament. As well as the players, there were Chinese guests from the Go and Chinese Chess organisations including 7p Go professionals Hua Xueming and Huang Yizhong. The venue this time was the historic Gresham Hotel in the centre of Dublin.

The Friday night Irish Rapid was won by Oh Chi-Min (7d Durham) and the runner up was Kirsty Healey (2k Leamington).

The main Go event, the Confucius Cup, was keenly contested between the four 7d players at the top. The number of players was boosted to an excellent 58 on the last day, by a party of youngsters from Galway joining in. In addition there were 17 Chinese Chess players, including the winner Huang Chunlong.

Chris Bryant completed the final game of our match against Croatia with an easy 16.5 point win on Saturday. He got all four corners and failed to follow the proverb "If you win all 4 corners resign" and lived easily in the centre. The game was uneventful without too much fighting.

On the Tuesday Des Cann lost his game on board 1 and said: "I lost my first game this year. I blame it on being a bit stressed at work recently :-)

The game was mostly OK for me but my opponent played fast keeping me under pressure.

Alistair Wall (2d Wanstead) ended top of the list of 34 players who attended the largest Cheshire Tournament (not counting the 2009 British Open). He beat the previous winner, Mark Elliot (1d Manchester), in the last round.

James Brownrigg (5k Chester) was the only other player on three wins, in this now single-section event.

An enthusiastic and well-behaved party of lads from Cheadle Hulme School did well, all winning at least one game, despite this being - for most of them - their first tournament: Alex Benton (12k) was the best junior and Daniel Gascoyne (27k) was the best novice. Jack Nolan won the most games in the 13x13 side-event (with 8) and Yusuf Hussain, teacher Zaheer's son, played the most games (14).

The players thanked the co-hosts - Tony Pitchford and Tony Atkins - for successfully organising the event.

The entry forms for the 2015 UK Go Challenge are now available on the UK Go Challenge website. Packs will be ready by the middle or end of February.

The only thing that has changed this year is the prizes. Back again are the ever-popular black and white logo bugs. This year they are carrying the motto "Play Go!". The top prize is back too; instead of a trophy, it is one of the "Play Go!" tote bags.

Also different is the coloured star for three points, which is replaced by a colourful Cheer Words sticker.

We hope all UK youth or school Go clubs can take part.

Tony Atkins
UK Go Challenge Organiser

In round four of the European Youth Go Team Championship the UK’s youth team narrowly lost to Czechia 2-3. As expected, Tom and Roella lost on boards 1 and 3, although they put up a good fight against much stronger opponents. Oscar managed a good win on evenly matched board 2 and Edmund cruised to victory on board 4. This left us needing a win on board 5 where we had chances with our player on paper only one grade weaker. Anthony played well and looked to be heading for a win but the greater experience of his opponent paid off in the endgame and so we lost the match overall, but gained some valuable tie break points from our wins.

This puts us in 11th place out of the 13 teams. There is one round left to play on 31st January in which we receive a bye. We have the chance to play a friendly match against the German B team instead.

Lecture to be given in the British room on KGS by Matthew Cocke, 5 dan. Aimed primarily at single digit kyu players, but others should also benefit. Start time: 19:30. Join the game of "BGATeach".