A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

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.

This year's Trigantius saw a much improved entry of 69 including seven new players. The venue was again the University Social Club in Mill Lane and the bright spring weather helped attract the large attendance. Play took place in the main bar area (as seen in the picture) and overflowed into a back room for the bottom six boards. Unfortunately this large number made it take longer for Geoff Kaniuk and his team to set the rooms up and to register the players, so the event was half an hour late starting.

Games were successfully played using Fischer timing of 45 minutes, plus 15 seconds per move, which meant the event was still an A-Class for ratings, but this allowed play to continue a bit longer than anticipated.

The 21st Cheshire Tournament became the first event in the UK to use Fischer Time on new BGA electronic clocks. The 42 players successfully used the new system that gives extra time for each move played. The basic time was set at 40 minutes and ten seconds were added each move, remaining a B class tournament; only one game was lost on time (selecting the optional warning beep helped most avoid this) and fast players often had more time left at the end than they started with.

Most of the prize winners were from the two minibusfuls from Cheadle Hulme School. Ali Moin won a 13x13 prize for the most games played (winning 3 out of 9) and Sam Barnett for the best percentage/most wins (with 6 out of 6). These two were also among the eight youngsters who won two games and won some sweets. Five of the youngsters won all three games, namely Hugo Ryan (35k), Ben Geertman (25k), Rahul Surapaneni (19k), Joseph Curtis (17k) and Daniel Gascoyne (15k).

There was much fun and games at the Maidenhead-Hitachi Tournament. As usual it was held at the Whitebrook Park headquarters of Hitachi Europe, though news was shared that due to potential company relocation it might be the last. In between rounds, as well as playing 13x13 games, most of the ten youngsters taking part played different games with Alison, the non-playing organiser. In addition, as well as wine and mystery envelope prizes, the prize table contained a large selection of board games as shown right.

The winner of the tournament was the former Chinese professional, Chao Zhang (6d London), shown right. He beat Jon Diamond, Alex Kent and Andrew Simons to take the title.

The BGA's flagship tournament - the [45th] London Open - started as usual on Friday 28th December and ran until 31st December at its new venue of the London Go Centre. The event was limited in numbers because of it was being run at the London Go Centre for the first time and the organisers wanted to make sure things worked with a smaller venue, but still 89 players (including ghosts) took part. Next year they will be able to accept more registrations. Representing 14 countries, the players ranged from 30k to 7d, including some strong children, and there was a large party from Germany. The teaching this year was provided by European professional Ali Jabarin, from Israel, who is shown in an analysis.

The 45th London Open got under way on Friday 28th December at its new venue of the London Go Centre. The event had to be limited in numbers because of the size of the venue, but still more than 80 players sat down to play the first round. Representing 14 countries, the players ranged from 30k to 7d, including some children, and there was a large party from Germany. Top British youth player Tom Bradbury is seen right in a warm up game before the event started. The person to beat this year is likely to be Oh Ch-Min (7d) from France, who is seen at the bottom in his first round game. Teaching this year is being provided by European professional Ali Jabarin, from Israel, who is shown in an analysis below.

The annual Edinburgh Christmas competition - a challenging format of four 45-minute main-time rounds with overtime starting at 30 stones in 5 minutes - was won convincingly by club president, Boris Mitrovic (2d), who beat the other four players starting ‘above the bar’ and was the only entrant to win in all four rounds.

James Richards (1k), Alistair Wall (1d) and Roger Daniel (6k) each won three of their four.

The competition lost out badly to the weather, with only 17 of the 21 entrants actually playing at the event in the hall of St Columba’s by the Castle Episcopal Church.

Results

The 2018 Coventry Tournament was held on 24th November in its usual Warwick University location. This year 38 players took part and Philip Leung (4d University of Warwick) won the event for the third time in a row and the fourth time overall. This is particularly noteworthy as Philip was also the event organiser. Honghao Lu (2d Manchester University) and Peikai Xue (1d Central London) were first and second runner up respectively, with two wins out of three, both only losing to the winner. The picture shows Philip (right) with Peikai. James Taylor (8k University of Warwick) and Rowan Borrow (15k Cheadle Hulme School) were the other prize winners for three wins.

Results

The Three Peaks Tournament was held, as the previous two years, at the Wheatsheaf in the centre of the picturesque small Yorkshire town of Ingleton. 34 players took part, but six played just the Saturday. The tournament ended in a tie as both Matthew Cocke and Chao Zhang ended with four wins out of five. Chao had beaten Matthew but had lost to Peikai Xue, who was third (just ahead of Alistair Wall). Chun Yin Wong (8k) from Lancaster was the only other prize winner for four wins. Bob Scantlebury won the prize for being the first to enter and a prize this year was given to the youngest competitor, Ryan Zhang, who is only 5.

Results