UK Tournament Report

This year's Mind Sports Olympiad was held, like the previous five editions, at the JW3 community centre in London. As usual a large variety of games and mind sports, both new and traditional, was played over the eight days of the event. Several Go players and their families were seen in non-Go events, with some, like Natasha Regan, winning a Gold medal.

Unfortunately the first Go event (9x9) scheduled for the Friday morning, 23rd August, was cancelled by the organisers as they thought there was only one entry (Paco Garcia de la Banda from Spain), but it turned out there was an error in their registration system which was not passing that event over to their tournament system; some people were disappointed not to play.

The 2019 Isle of Man Go Festival, held in memory of its creator, Leo Phillips, took place in Port Erin in a new venue, St Andrew’s Church Hall. Although attendance was a disappointing 21 the participants (and several spouses and friends) were a friendly lot and the congress spirit of previous years continued. The new venue proved a success. It was slightly nearer the sea providing a seaview from the kitchen window (the well equipped kitchen also doubling up as an analysis room). Although the cooler than usual for August and slightly breezy weather meant that no one took advantage of the garden to play outside while admiring the seaview.

The main Open tournament was won narrowly on tie-break by Richard Hunter (1d Bristol) from Sandy Taylor (2d Cambridge), but Sandy got his revenge by winning the Afternoon Tournament.

The sun shone well for the 27th annual Welsh Open Go Tournament, held as ever in the coastal town of Barmouth, nestling at the foot of beautiful Snowdonia. 36 players vied over the two days, in the fine Min-y-Mor hotel, where many players had booked rooms, with others opting for the many nearby B+Bs. One intrepid youngster, whilst disabled, travelled solo from Potsdam in Germany, for his first-ever UK trip. The main organiser Helen Harvey was pleased both with the numbers and being sung Happy Birthday at prize giving! We were pleased to have a group of Chinese dan-players leading the field, plus four players who made it over from Nottingham for the weekend, and the return of old faces Eric and Elinor from Swindon.

In celebration of 25 years of Go in Durham, Durham Go Tournament 2019 was suitably festive - from the Go Club cupcakes to the 25 Year t-shirts (0.25% of the 10,000 year ko!)

The weekend started with players meeting in the pub for a meal on the Friday night. There were 36 entries to the tournament - 15 either current Durham players or alumni of the Durham club, and 18 people who had no connection with the Durham club at all. In total 16 clubs were represented; it was particularly good to see the fledgling Beverley Go Club in attendance.

Durham is a friendly, 6-round, weekend-long tournament. This year it was, for the third year running, held at the Oriental Museum.

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.