Lai, Hung and Kuo of Chinese Taipei 1 won the gold medal in the Team Tournament. In the semi-finals they beat Singapore 3-0 and then in the final won 2-1 against Chinese Taipei 2. Chinese Taipei 2 (Lo, Tsai and Hsu) had beaten Russia 2-1 in their semi-final and had to be content with the silver medal. Singapore won the bronze medal beating Russia 2-1 in the play-off for third.

The two UK teams ended 6th and 12th in their respective groups at the World Mind Sports Games.

UK 1 ended with three wins in the 14-team B Group to get a very good 6th position. On the second day of the event they lost 3-0 to Chinese Taipei 1, lost 2-1 to Japan 1 and beat Australia 2-1.

UK 2 beat Romania 2 in round 3, lost to Macau in round 4 and beat Italy 2 in round 5, all matched 3-0, to end 12th in the 16-team A Group.

The teams that qualified for the knock-out stage were Chinese Taipei 1 (the only unbeaten team) and Russia in B Group and Chinese Taipei 2 and Singapore in A Group (on tie-break from Austria and Czech Republic).

Team UK 1 won both their first matches in the WMSG Team Tournament. They beat Ireland 2-1 in the first round (Matthew Cocke lost to Ian Davis by 1.5 points) and in the second round Chong, Vanessa and Matthew beat the Netherlands 1 team 3-0. The UK 2 team lost both their matches 0-3, the first against Canada and the other against USA 1.

Lai won the Men's Individual and Lin won the Women's Individual tournaments to take double gold.

Unfortunately Vanessa Wong lost her semi-final against Osawa and then lost to Sarah Yu of Canada by 1.5 points to miss out on a great opportunity. Sadly, very late in the latter game she answered a smallish ko threat rather than living in her opponent's corner, which cost her about 10 points and a Bronze medal.

Congratulations to her.

Vanessa Wong won both her games on the third day of the WMSG Women's Individual to qualify for the knock-out stage with 4 wins. Osawa Maya of Japan lost her fifth game to Sarah Yu of Canada, so both those players qualified on four wins too. The fourth player into the knock-out was Lin Hsiao-Tung of Chinese Taipei, also with 4 wins. The other UK Players, Anna Griffiths and Natasha Regan, both ended on 3 wins.

In the Men's Individual the four qualifiers were all from Chinese Taipei: Lai and Lo on 5 wins and Kuo and Hung on 4 wins. Top UK player was Chong Han in 20th place with 3 wins. Henry Manners also won 3, Andrew Simons 2 and Paul Tabor 1 win.

The female members of Team GB were all on two wins after three rounds of the Women's Individual at the World Mind Sports Games. Unfortunately Vanessa Wong did not win her third game, against Osawa Maya of Japan, so ended the day in fourth place not first or second.

In the Men's, Chong Han won a second game to end the second day in 11th place of the Men's Individual. Henry Manners also had two wins.

Results

Our picture library for the WMSG 2012 is now available.

The British team did well in the first round of the Men and Women events at the World Mind Sports Games.

All three women and three of the four men won. Chong Han and Vanessa Wong are the top team players with a chance of medals. Only Andrew Simons lost his game by 7.5 against a Brazilian 3d.

Jon is a retired IT professional living in East Sussex and learnt to play Go at school at the tender age of 14, becoming 1 dan and British Champion in 1965. He was Champion for 11 of the next 12 years, ending up by being promoted to 6 dan, but retiring to spend more time with his family (as they say) in 1977. In retirement he did represent the UK at the first World Amateur in 1979 and has been part of the UK team from the start of the Pandanet European Go team Championship.

As well as being on the BGA Council for many years in the 1970’s Jon founded the Go club at Cambridge University, started the British Go Journal and was editor for several years. More recently he produced the now obsolete BGA CD. (Barry Chandler insists he was co-editor of BGJ 146, focussing on the World Mind Sports Games - Jon isn't so sure...).

A quick update to the state of affairs with the Shodan Challenge for this year:

Firstly, the league website is not finished yet unfortunately. This will be finished as soon as is possible for people to begin playing and submitting games.

Secondly, there have not been many entries (around a dozen).