UK News

David Woodnutt

We have heard from Alex Eve that David Woodnutt died at home of bowel cancer on Saturday 6th May 2017, aged 69.

Alex writes: “In 1969 he was the first person for five years who I could play Go with who I hadn't taught. He had learnt Go from the New Scientist article in early sixties. He founded the Sussex University Go Club in 1969. I next met him in Buckingham, around which we both lived a long while, and renewed friendship.” He later moved to Kington in Herefordshire.

David was on the BGA Council from 1991 to 1995 and was the journal editor from issue 119 to 132 (2000-2003). He became shodan in 1992 and reached two dan in 1999. He also enjoyed Pair Go, shown here playing with his wife Alison in 1995.

Alison is of course very sad after her loss and our thoughts go out to her at this time.

Last updated Fri May 19 2017.
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Grand Prix Results

Stacey Grand Prix 2016-2017

Alistair Wall won for the third year running:

  1. Alistair Wall 36
  2. Toby Manning 24
  3. Andrew Simons 18

Youth Grand Prix 2016

The following get cash prizes thanks to John Rickard's family:

  1. Edmund Smith 1024
  2. Zaki Betesh 640
  3. George Han 621

Double Digit Kyu 2016

Prizes for the two sections go to:

10k-19k Alan Stokes 438 20k+ Joel Barrett 444

Last updated Fri Apr 14 2017.
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Tony Goddard (1947-2017)

Jon Diamond writes: "I received a Facebook message on Sunday from Tony's sister saying that Tony had been found dead in his flat in Sheffield the previous day (28th January)."

"Tony was a long time Go player, who learnt in Cambridge more than 50 years ago. I last saw him last year at the British Open in Sheffield, where he’d been living for a number of years, but sadly he wasn’t playing. He had also only been to the Sheffield Club a few times recently."

"I have no other information about his death or funeral arrangements."

You can read about his career as one of our top players.

Last updated Thu May 11 2017.
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British Go Journal 177

British Go Journal 177, including a report on the European Go Congress and the first British Championship game record, is now available online to members at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj177

Last updated Sat Nov 05 2016.
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T Mark Hall Foundation supports Liverpool Games cafe

The T Mark Hall Foundation, which was set up to administer a large legacy from T Mark Hall, is pleased to support "Sugar and Dice", a Liverpool Games café and location of the new Liverpool Go Club.

The organisers/owners of the café were looking for £12,000 via crowdfunding to improve the premises with LED (instead of fluorescent tube) lighting, better kitchen equipment, etc. and they achieved their target on September 25. The Foundation contributed £1,800.

Sugar and Dice will be offering Liverpool Go Club and British Go Association members free gaming sessions for playing Go at Sugar and Dice for 3 months from their opening; please see their web-site (www.sugaranddice.co.uk) for more details.

Last updated Mon Apr 03 2023.
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British Go Journal 176

British Go Journal 176, including a short story by author Bill Brakes, is now available online to members at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj176

Last updated Tue Aug 02 2016.
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British Go Journal 175

British Go Journal 175, including a report on the AlphaGo v Lee Sedol match, is now available online to members at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj175

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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The British Go Association has a new President

At the AGM on 2nd April in Sheffield, Jon Diamond retired as President after 7 years and Roger Huyshe (pictured) was elected unanimously to replace him.

Jonathan Chin and Toby Manning were re-elected as Secretary and Treasurer respectively.

Brian Brunswick also retired after 10 years as a Council member, as did Donald Campbell; John Collins, Jonathan Green, Matt Marsh and Andrew Russell were elected to Council.

It was reported at the AGM that the membership had increased in the last year to 441, the first time we'd seen an increase for a number of years. The AlphaGo match didn't seem to have a significant impact on membership yet.

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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British Go Journal 174

British Go Journal 174, including the full report on the AlphaGo v Fan Hui match is now available online to members at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj174

We're still getting additional media coverage of this match - see http://www.britgo.org/history/media for the latest.

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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Major Step Forward in Artificial Intelligence

We've issued the following Press Release today (27th January 2016):

A computer program developed by Google DeepMind (AlphaGo) to play the Oriental game of Go has beaten the three-times European Go Champion and Chinese professional Fan Hui (shown on the right in the photo, courtesy of Google DeepMind). This is the first time that a Go-professional has lost such a match, and not only that, by a clean sweep in all 5 games. This signifies a major step forward in one of the great challenges in the development of artificial intelligence - that of game-playing.

These findings were reported in a peer-reviewed study published in the scientific journal Nature: Silver D. et al. Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search.

Last updated Thu Jan 28 2016.
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