A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

The 38th British Pair Go Championship was held at its now regular venue, the Red Lion in Hatfield. As well as serving lunches and drinks, this has a garden to sit in (when it is not raining), is very close to the railway station and has some nearby shops (including that Hertfordshire delight, a Simmons bakery).

Some of the stronger pairs could not play this time; for instance Natasha Regan was lecturing on Go at the Cheltenham Science Festival. However, thanks to the minibus from Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) there were still 15 pairs, many including youngsters.

The Challengers' League, the second stage of the British Championship, took place over four days this Bank Holiday weekend at the London Go Centre. The event was held alongside the Not The London Open Tournament and the players were able to take advantage of having Antti Tormanen (1p) present to review games.

Last year's champion, Sam Aitken, decided not to defend his title, which meant that there were places for seven qualifiers from Candidates' Tournament plus the runner-up from last year, Andrew Simons. Unfortunately some of the top players from that event couldn't take part, so several reserves got to play. The format was the usual all-play-all seven round tournament, with long time limits and no more than two games a day.

The Second Not The London Open took place over the second May Bank Holiday weekend at the London Go Centre. At 21, we had a slightly bigger entry than last year, reported organiser Gerry Gavigan, but we've still got a long way to go before we reach the size of its progenitor the London Open Go Congress. However in its own terms the tournament was successful. A nice feature of the weekend was the five or six people who just dropped in watch and enjoy the event, such as Bruno Poltronieri and Martha McGill.

This time the Scottish Open moved back to the weekend at the end of May and to a first time venue at Columbkille’s Church Hall in Rutherglen, just east of Glasgow. Unfortunately there was a drop in numbers attending, with just 15 players taking part at some point. So the decision was made to make the event a Swiss System event, with handicaps less one; everyone playing all rounds had a chance of winning.

In the end it was the two dan players and a 7k who ended on five wins. Peikai Xue (2d London) was the winner of the title on SOS tie-break (shown right collecting his prize). His only loss was against Jakub Ziomko (1d Aberdeen) who finished second. Coming third was Quinlan Morake (7k Glasgow) who beat Jakub but lost to Peikai. Taking prizes for four wins were Edinburgh's Grzegorz Kudla (2k) and Neil Sandford (16k).

After a six year gap the Oxford Tournament was relaunched and successfully attracted 57 players. The previous Oxford event had 92 players, but that included a team playing a varsity match and attendances were generally higher in 2013. This time a new venue was used, Oxford Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre. This former meeting hall, converted into a community centre including a chapel and various side rooms, is conveniently near the centre of the city, tucked in behind Pembroke College and the new shopping centre.

Best of the players was Chao Zhang (6d London) who won all three games, including beating Romania's Alexandru-Petre Pitrop (4d), America's Hugh Zhang (6d) and Cheng Gong (3d London City). Hugh was rewarded with the runners-up prize. Those winning all three games lower down were Malcom Walker (5k No Club), John Bamford (7k Oxford Uni) and Paul Heeney (18k No Club).

The Kyu Players Weekend, held at the London Go Centre over the first May Bank Holiday, started with a teaching day on the Saturday. Teachers were former professional Chao Zhang (6d), former British Champion Daniel Hu (4d), Charles Hibbert (3d), Joanne Leung (2d) and Jonathan Turner (2k) - shown bottom left - who variously led small groups in analysis, discussion and simultaneous playing sessions. The lectures were videoed and may be found on the LGC YouTube channel.

About 30 players enjoyed the 2nd Nottingham kyu training day and rapid tournament. It was held, as in 2018, in The Dice Cup board game cafe, near the city's Victoria Centre. The number of players was boosted by a minibus of students from Cheadle Hulme School (CHS), accompanied by Martin and Helen Harvey, and physics teacher Mike Winslow.

In the morning the teaching was given by Andrew Kay, Sandy Taylor, Martin Harvey, Robin Dews, Carl Roll and Tetsuro Yoshitake, a student from Japan, studying at the University of Nottingham.

In the afternoon there was a three-round rapid-play tournament, with 30 minutes per player, sudden death. The winner was Tetsuro Yoshitake (3d Nottingham), who won all three games including that against Andrew Kay (4d Birmingham). Tetsuro was presented with the Nottingham Tournament Trophy, which is engraved with the names of previous winners of the Nottingham Tournament, from the 1980s, around 2010 and from 2018.

Fifteen players gathered in the small Hertfordshire town of Letchworth, more formally known as Letchworth Garden City, to play in this year's Candidates' Tournament, the first round of the British Championship. It was held at the community hall called "The Settlement" and we are grateful to Simon and Alison Bexfield who arranged the venue and also acted as ghosts. Our thanks also go to Matt Marsh for running the Tournament.

As usual the event had six rounds over three days of the first May Bank Holiday, run on the Swiss system. With six players to qualify for the Challenger's League, four wins would almost certainly ensure qualification, while with three wins one would need to do well on the tie-break to qualify.

Andrew Kay (3d Birmingham) made sure he wasn't worried by tie-break by winning all six. Sam Bithell (1d Cambridge) did very well, only losing to Andrew. On four wins were Boris Mitrovic (2d Edinburgh), Tim Hunt (2d Milton Keynes) and Jamie Taylor (2d Cambridge).

Each year the British Go Congress is held in a different place, with the BGA's Annual General Meeting on the Saturday evening. The 2019 edition was held in the MacDonald Hotel on Manchester's London Road, not far from Piccadilly Station. The weekend started with a teaching session on Friday afternoon with Toby Manning. That evening the British Open Lightning was held; it was won by London's Peikai Xue (2d), shown below left with the trophy.

On the Saturday and Sunday 80 players, many of whom were below 10k, enjoyed the usual six round British Open tournament. It was for the first time won by Chao Zhang (6d) from London, with six wins. Zherui Xu (4d) from Cambridge was placed second with five wins, ahead of Zihe Zhao (4d Oxford) and Nagisa Matsuura (1d Leeds).

When the Welwyn Garden City Tournament found that the sports centre housing their Bridge Club venue was closing, the organiser, John Collins, had to move the event to the Sunday and to the new venue of the Harpenden Arms, in the High Street of the nearby town. This is also the venue of the new Harpenden Go Club, so it was in fact a good way to promote that too.

It was a bright sunny spring morning, good for travelling by road, but unfortunately a power failure on the railway meant no Thameslink trains at all from London that morning.