Just in case you haven't already heard:

The winner in the Under-20 category (age as at 1st January 2014) will gain a place in the GLOBIS Cup World Youth Go Championship, to be held in Japan on 8 - 11 May 2014 at the Graduate School of Management, GLOBIS University in Tokyo, Japan.

All expenses will be paid, with the exception of the flights.

We have now finished the online league for this year and once again the winners are:

Edinburgh 1

Congratulations to the team and their captain, Martha McGill.

Winning promotion from division 2 to division 1 are their fellow Scots:

Glasgow

Winning promotion from division 3 to division 2 are

Milton Keynes

Alas there have to be losers and this year the relegation victims are

CLGC B (from division 1 to division 2)
Edinburgh 2 (from division 2 to division 3)

Meanwhile the not-quite-so-proud winners of the "Wooden spoon" at the bottom of division 3 are:

St Albans Kyus

Who can't sack their captain 'cous it's me.....

Well done again to Edinburgh and we look forward to another good season next year.

Please could everyone let me know as soon as possible that their teams can play again next year.

The website for these events has now moved to www.britgo.org/eygc2014 and www.britgo.org/eygc2014/british.

The pages have been updated with more information and there are now entry forms for the EYGC and BGC online, together with the ability to pay for entry to the BGC, and a link for booking accommodation at Butlins.

The 2014 AGM for the British Go Association will be held on 1st March 7:30pm as part of the British Go Congress at Butlins Resort, Bognor Regis

Any members with motions for inclusion on the Agenda are requested to send them to the Secretary by 15th January.

It is with deep sadness that we have to announce the death of T Mark Hall on Monday after a long illness.

T Mark was a long and faithful servant of the British Go Association, of British Go in general and of World Go through his partnership with John Fairbairn in GoGoD (Games of Go on Disk). He was on our Council for some 22 years, serving for 20 of these as Treasurer, a record of service that will surely be unsurpassed.

He was a fine player, especially at Lightning Go, and won many tournaments, although never quite challenging for the final of the British Championship. His last tournament appearance was in the British Open in April this year when he came 4th.

18 players made it to this year’s Edinburgh Christmas Open, the lowest entry for many years, with none from “furth” of the border.

David Lee (3 dan Dundee) won all his games and was champion for a second year running. He was joined on 4 wins by Rob Payne (7k Edinburgh) and Joseff Thomas (17k Glasgow). The remaining prize went to the furthest travelling player on 3 wins, which was Carel Goodheir (9k Skye). Other players with 3 wins were Boris Mitrovic (2d Edinburgh) and Greg Cox (10k Dundee).

Results

The South London teaching day and tournament went ahead today with 24 students and 3 teachers - Andrew Kay, Tim Hunt, and Francis Roads, to whom we are very grateful that they gave up their time for us. Students were split into groups of similar strength and spent some time with each of the teachers in the morning.

In the afternoon was a three round tournament. Students were again split into groups, each of which played a Swiss-style tournament with handicap equal to grade difference.

I plan to close the current league season on 21st December at noon, leaving people free to enjoy the Winter Solstice at 17:11.

We've had a good few games in Divisons 2 and 3 although Divison 1 has been a bit thin on the ground.

Unless anyone objects beforehand I shall declare drawn unplayed games in matches which have started. However I would prefer to see them played out so if that means you please can you finish them as soon as possible.

Please can all teams confirm as soon as possible that they will be playing next year. I hope to get the next season under way in March, so everyone please check that they can play. We would be pleased to welcome any new teams that want to join the league, so don't be shy!

I hope everyone has enjoyed the league this year and I look forward to some interesting games in the coming year.

John Collins

We are pleased to announce that the online Korean Go Server, is sponsoring an Oxford vs Cambridge Match at the London Open.

The match, which will be shown online on the WBaduk server, will be on the evening of December 30.

Each team will have 4 members: two current students, and 2 alumni.

More information is available at the LOGC page

We are very grateful to WBaduk for their financial support making this match possible.

We started out tied with Turkey at the top of Division C, but they are nominally the strongest of the other teams in the Division and quite close to us in overall strength. Nevertheless we had high hopes as we put out our strongest team.

Sadly, this was not to be to be the case as we lost all three completed games...

On top board Andrew Simons had a good opening with one cutting group between two weak groups. He didn't play that severely and his opponent managed to settle both groups, but he got some decent profit in exchange, though Andrew did make an annoying timing mistake which meant his opponent could get a big tenuki during the fighting.