UK News

Bob Hitchens reports:

I heard at the weekend of the death of Neil Stein.

I realise that members probably do not know Neil, but some players who were around in the 1960s will.

He was a founder member of the BGA and helped create the BGA’s first bank balance of any size when he recognised the possibility of compensation from University College London for cancelling our booking for the first European Congress to be held in Britain. That opened up a lot of possibilities for the BGA.

When I came on the scene he was the strongest British Go player at 1 kyu. John Barrs was 1 dan with perhaps an honorary element in it, but Stein had the beating of him.

Photos by Tom Coulthard, Alice Ambrose-Thurman and Chizu Kobayashi

On Saturday 11th October Durham Go Club ran a teaching event at Durham Oriental Museum, as part of their Festival of Japan - celebrating the teaching of Japanese at the University of Durham. The Japanese Embassy kindly sponsored Chizu Kobayashi-san, a 5d Japanese professional, to come to Durham to assist with this.

Kobayashi-san taught a range of people, from some of our stronger club dan players to complete beginners. We had around 20 club members turn out for the event to teach members of the public - most of whom had never come across Go before.

As part of its Festival of Japan, Durham Oriental Museum are running a Go teaching event with Durham Go Club on Saturday 11th October 1pm-5pm. The Japanese Embassy have organised for 5d pro Chizu Kobayashi to come, and the event is free and open to all.

There should be teaching appropriate for a wide range of strengths, from complete beginners upwards, including members of the public. Anyone who would like to come to Durham for the event - whether to learn or to help teach - will be more than welcome.

More details are at https://www.dur.ac.uk/oriental.museum/whatson/details/?id=21600

Latest Details now available!

Update from three weeks before the week.

Report by Ben Murphy (edited by Tony Collman)

I attended the Rocket Complex in Holloway Road, London for the first ever combined London Anime and Gaming Convention on Sunday 9th February and quickly set up the table. It was expected some attendees might be familiar with go from the anime Hikaru No Go.

Francis Roads was with me and we showed people the rules of Go and then played a 9x9 game with them either with or without a handicap, depending on their preferences. I brought some Go sets (9x9 boards with 13x13 on the other side) with me and some copies of the book Teach Yourself Go, by Charles Matthews. These were provided by Roger Huyshe, the BGA's seller of books and equipment.

I managed to sell three of the Go sets and four copies of the book. Many people liked Go and found it very easy to learn and there were many strategy game fans at the demo. One man said he was in the Navy and was looking forward to teaching and playing against his friends on his ship.

As we have already announced we are pleased to receive two professionals from the Nihon Ki-in to the UK, with the assistance of the The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.

They will be visiting Oxford and Bognor Regis. Chizu Kobayashi will then go on to visit London and Edinburgh.

The Professionals

Kobayashi Chizu (小林　千寿), 5 dan, born 28th September 1954 in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture. She is the sister of several professionals and was a student of the very famous Minoru Kitani and became 1 dan in 1972, 2 dan in 1973, 3 dan in 1974, 4 dan in 1976 and 5 dan in 1978.

We're please to be able to report that GoGoD is now back online, after a period of down-time, but at a different location:

After spending so many years on the GoGoD database, T Mark Hall was naturally keen that his legacy should endure. He therefore asked John Fairbairn (in photo right) to try to keep the project going, at least until the original target of 100,000 games was reached (it currently has 79,000 games).

To match even a fraction of the work Mark did is a daunting task, but he did leave a large reserve of games for processing, and so John has decided to re-light the flame, but with considerable changes to ease the workload.

The most important are:

• GoGoD moves from standing for Games of Go on Disc to Games of Go on Download.

It has been confirmed that two Japanese Professionals, Chizu Kobayashi 5p and Masaki Minematsu 6p are to visit the European Youth and British Go Congress over the weekend of Feb 28/March 3.

During the preceding week they will visit Oxford Go Club, and during the following week Chizu Kobayashi will visit Edinburgh Go Club.

This will be the first visit of a professional go player to Scotland for 15 years.

Some of you will have been aware that T Mark Hall, who died in December, left a bequest to British Go in his will. This was in two parts:

• his Go books, pictures and other ephemera were left to the British Go Association (BGA)
• a substantial sum was left to the Go community via a Trust, with the Trustees being John Fairbairn and the Officers of the BGA (President, Secretary and Treasurer).

We have arranged for the books etc. to be stored with the BGA Archive until a more suitable location can be found. Suggestions for this location are welcome. [We're mindful that the best locations might wish to be paid for housing it.]

Probate will probably not be for several months and the precise amounts involved won’t be known until then. Details about the setting up of the Trust also need to be worked out.

We will let you know when further details are settled.