UK Tournament Report

The 2014 London Open got under way 15 minutes late on Sunday 28th December after a repairing. 108 players in all are expected, with 101 already playing. As usual a large number of players are from outside the UK, with many strong Chinese players as well as players from several European countries.

Also present are three professionals: Fan Hui from France, Dongeun Choi from Korea and Hajin Lee, the IGF Secretary.

Again the venue is ISH at the top of Great Portland Street convenient for seeing London and providing accommodation for those staying over.

Results

The Edinburgh Christmas tournament saw a total of 25 players.

Tongzhou (Joe) Cai (3d Glasgow) sparkled the most and took the bottle of champagne with 4 wins from 4. Prizes for 3 wins went to co-organiser Boris Mitrovic (3d Edinburgh), Alistair Wall (2d Wanstead), Niall Paterson (5k Glasgow), Baron Hasslinger (5k Edinburgh) and Greg Cox (10k Dundee). The remaining two prizes went to Quintin Connell (9k Glasgow) for 2 wins from 3, and Magdalena Mladenova (1d Sofia) as the furthest-travelled on 2 wins.

Results

The second South London kyu players' teaching day and tournament was again at the Croydon Quaker Meeting House. Nineteen students were taught in the morning by four teachers - Andrew Kay, Alex Rix, Tim Hunt and Alison Bexfield. In the afternoon there was a three round tournament.

In the teachers' section the teachers all played each other, in a round-robin tournament, with all games even. In the students' tournament all games were played with handicaps equal to grade difference where appropriate.

Andrew Kay won the teachers' tournament with three wins; he received a prize of a bag of delicious gingerbread men from the organiser's excellent local cake shop.

For a second year running the Coventry Tournament had a local winner. As the previous winner, Bruno Poltronieri, concentrated on organising, it was his University of Warwick club mate Philip Leung (5d) who won this time. He was rewarded with a bottle of port and a box of Maltesers. Second was Wu Ruizhu (5d) also from Warwick and third was Alison Bexfield from Letchworth. Those on 3/3 also got prizes: Ben Riddell (2k Cheltenham), Andre Cockburn (7k Nottingham), John Capper (12k Nottingham) and Christopher Manser (17k Warwick). 32 players took part.

Results

Congratulations to Andrew Kay who defeated Alex Kent today to retain the British Championship by three games to nil.

A copy of the game is available, with comments from Matthew Macfadyen 6d.

Thanks to Nick Wedd for hosting, and to all others involved.

Toby Manning

Game Three Relay raw record including unmoderated comments.
Game Three Review with comments by Matthew Macfadyen 6d.

After a year gap Matthew Cocke regained the Three Peaks title. He won all five games, at the event at the Commodore Inn in Grange-over-Sands, to take the title for the fifth time. Winning four games were Roger Huyshe (4k Shropshire) and David Cantrell (6k South London). 31 players, including organiser Bob Bagot, took part.

A new venture this year was a team event with a small engraved toast rack as the prize. This was kindly donated by Graham Blackmore (one of the regulars). The first winners were a team from Shropshire -The Wollerton Wanderers - Brian Timmins, Kath Timmins and Roger Huyshe.

Results

Organiser Alison Bexfield wished that all the 26 players at the first Letchworth Rapid Play had fun, and the thirty minute time limits saw most games ending in fun battles and not reaching their natural end. The venue was the Central Methodist Church in Letchworth Garden City which allowed the main group of players to be in the hall, but also a group of junior novices to be able to play 13x13 games in a side room.

Prizes were awarded by sections. The Open section winner was Tim Hunt (2d Milton Keynes) with six wins. Major Section (3k-9k) was won by Ben Ellis (3k Milton Keynes) randomly picked from the group on two wins by his daughter Sophie. Minor Section (10k-20k) winner was John Collins (10k St Albans).

The 45th Wessex Tournament was held at St Mark’s Community Centre once again, as usual taking place on the day the clocks go back. 34 players competed for trophies.

Tongzhou Cai, a 3-dan student from Glasgow, travelled furthest and took victory as overall winner. Other winners were Martin Harvey (5k) and Dick Norton (8k), both from Manchester. Saving face for the southerners was Peter Collins (2k, Bristol). All these four won three games.

Thanks go to the organisers, including Ian Sharpe and David King.

Results

There were 12 players in this year's tournament, held in Robinson College in Cambridge. As usual there were some excellent cakes.

The overall winner was determined by even games with double elimination. Most other games were handicap games. Games played with handicaps are shown in red. A couple of games in the first round were affected by dodgy clocks, but thankfully nobody complained too much and the problem was then sorted with the help of Andrew's phone.

Paul Smith (pictured) was the organiser, and also winner for the second time. He celebrated by going to watch the American singer-songwriter Dean Friedman performing in St Ives.

The junior winner was Melchior Chui.

Jon Diamond seems to only win the East Midlands in even years, so having won in 2010 and 2012, he was back as champion in 2014. He was one of several BGA council members in the Leicester area for the weekend, as there was a council meeting on the Sunday.

The only other player on three wins was Edwina Lee (Maidenhead).

32 players took part.

As the main organiser fell ill, the full results were delayed.

Results