UK Tournament Report

The delayed deciding third game of the 2015 British Championship was played on Sunday 14th February 2016 at Andrew Kay's mother's house (who provided curry at lunchtime).

Up to 100 fans watched the live relay on KGS in the British room by "BGAadmin" from 10:00.

After 299 moves it was found that Andrew Simons, playing black, was 15.5 ahead.

Andrew Simons is therefore the champion for the first time.

Game Three Relay

Lucas Baker (2d London), shown on the left left playing Baron Allday, won all his games to win the Cheshire Tournament. The event was held as normal at the Community Centre in Frodsham and alongside the Frodsham Chess Congress.

Others of the 30 players also winning all three games were three of the large team from Cheadle Hulme School: Daniel Atkinson (26k), Jack Nolan (18k) and Jason Brown (16k). In addition the runner-up, Tony Atkins (1k Reading), received a prize and Joel Barrett (20k Manchester) was awarded a prize for winning two games and being told the wrong handicap in his other.

Winners in the self-paired 13x13 side event were youth players Yusuf Ahmed for 12/19, Daniel Atkinson for 9/11 and Matthew Benton for 7/9.

Andrew Simons (shown right playing Des Cann) won all his games to win the Maidenhead-Hitachi Tournament, held as normal at the Hitachi Europe HQ, thanks to Hitachi.

Also winning three games were Roger Huyshe (3k Shropshire), Malcolm Hagan (5k Winchester), Stephen Bailey (7k Arundel) and Robert Scantlebury (9k Sheffield). Paul Barnard (2k Swindon) won 2.5. All players on two wins won a prize each too, with Hitachi maintaining their generous Go-support with a fine array of prizes.

Best teams were Arundel (Steve, Malcolm, Pauline and Casey) on 9/12 and "No Go" (Roella, Edmund, Charlotte and Zaki) on 8/12. The 13x13 prizes went to Edmund Smith (8k Milton School) with 3/4 and Lily Danson (15k Cheadle Hulme School) with 4/7.

Results

The 42nd London Open was dominated by Sai Sun (5d) from Beijing who won three titles. She won the Open title and £120, with six wins out of seven, won the Lightning and also the Pair Go with Xinchi Gong. In all 76 players took part in the event, held as usual at ISH in London.



On hand to do game analysis and lectures was the professional from Romania, Catalin Taranu (5p). He lectured on the opening and analysed the game between Andrew and Sai.

Congratulations to the Cambridge A team (Lou Yuxiang, Paul Smith, Atta Chui and James Wood) for winning the seventh season of the online league. In second place were Edinburgh 1. Winning division 2 and promotion to division 1 were UK Youth.

The winning teams received prizes consisting of places in Guo Juan's Group Classes and subscriptions to the Internet Lectures and Training system. See the Internet Go School site for more details.

League Details

The 42nd London Open has got underway at ISH in London. 74 players took part in the first round, lower than expected thanks to Bank Holiday travel problems.

On hand to do game analysis and lectures is the professional from Romania, Catalin Taranu (5p).

Results

Despite being very near to Christmas and at a new venue near Edinburgh Castle, St Columba's by the Castle Episcopal Church Hall, 16 players managed to take part.

Tied at the top on three wins out of four and equal SOS were "Henry" Hongyi Chen (2d) from Glasgow and Polish player Jakub Ziomko (1d) from Aberdeen.

Two further prizes for three wins were awarded to Ben Lloyd (3k Edinburgh) and Ron Bell (5k Borders).

Results

Local club player Ruizhu Wu (5d) won the Coventry Tournament at Warwick University. He beat Guoqiang Sun (5d Warwick Uni) into second place by winning their game in the final round. Former club organiser Bruno Poltronieri (4d Cambridge) took third place. Andre Cockburn (6k Nottingham) won all three games, as did Simon Andre (8k Leicester). Edmund Smith (8k Cambridge) took the junior prize.

Despite a late start thanks to the car delivering sets getting stuck in traffic on what was a rather windy day, the 38 players were able to leave by 19:00 even if they stayed for the prize-giving.

Results

The Bexfield family managed to have the winner in each of the two sections at the South London Tournament. Alison (1d) won the four-player teachers' section and Charlotte (10k) won the 16-player handicap section. Both wins were awarded by the lowest grade tie-break, Alison from Alex Rix and Tim Hunt, and Charlotte from Paolo Capriotti (5k Nottingham). The lowest graded players on two wins, who also won prizes, were David Siegwart, Ben Murphy, Francesco Chiarini, and Ryan Nguyen.

Results

In the morning before the tournament the 16 students were taught by four teachers - Nick Krempel, Alex Rix, Tim Hunt and Alison Bexfield. Nick was replaced by the strongest student, Bruce Tinton, for the tournament.

The 2015 British Youth Go Championships (BYGC) featured 34 competitors, aged from 6 to 17 (including two foreign players currently resident in the UK), with strengths from 2 dan to 35 kyu.
King Edward VI (Aston) School, Birmingham, was again the venue, thanks to Andrew Russell.
All games were played on full-sized (19 by 19) boards.

To determine the overall winner, Oscar Selby had to play and beat Alex Terry in a rapid play-off game.

Section Winners (Runners Up)

Youth Champion: Oscar Selby (Alex Terry)
U18: Alex Benton (Kapriel Chiarini)
U16: Alex Terry (Hasan Nisar)
U14: Oscar Selby (Jack Nolan)
U12: Edmund Smith (Aidan Wong)
U10: Alexander Hsieh
U8: Jianzhou Mei (Andreas Ghica)