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BGA President Gerry Gavigan welcomed 22 women, from ten countries around Europe, to the European Women's Go Championship. It was held at the London Go Centre on the 3rd and 4th October and was fought over five rounds.

Ting Li (6d) from Austria was unbeaten to take the title for a remarkable fourth year in a row. Second place went to Milena Bocle (3d) from France, who only lost to the winner (as shown in the photo of Ting Li below). Olesia Marko (4d) from Ukraine topped the group on three wins to take third place. Each was awarded with a glass trophy.

Noteworthy was the young age of…

British representative Bruno Poltronieri 4d secured an excellent 7th place finish at the 46th World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC), held in Mungyeong, South Korea from 6-13 September.

Competing against representatives from 52 nations over eight rounds, Bruno finished with an impressive 6–2 record. His campaign featured victories over 5 dan players from France and Ukraine, only losing games to a 5 dan from Poland and a 6 dan from Singapore. This result marks the first top 10 finish at WAGC by a British player in 34 years—since Matthew Macfadyen’s 5th place in 1992.

We caught up with Bruno after his return from South Korea to discuss his tournament experience on and off the board, and future Go plans.

Interview…

The Spring 2026 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read in the Members' Area, with printed copies being sent out to those that receive them.

After finishing second in League B (behind the Netherlands) the UK team had to play a promotion match against the team second bottom in League A. At one point it was expected this would be Hungary, but Israel ended in the ninth slot on tie-break. Italy was bottom and automatically relegated. Israel fielded a strong team and only Damen Woo, playing on board one, managed to win for the UK, so the match was lost 1-4 and the UK remain in League B next season.

League Page with game records

Damen Woo wrote: I had played a few games with this opponent, Amir Fragman, previously. In this game, I tried a creative opening to throw him a surprise and take the game off-book. Swimming in…

The Welsh Open was in its usual seaside venue of the Dragon Theatre in Barmouth. It was a little earlier in the year than normal and this worked well as they had had lovely sunny weather throughout the weekend. The tournament featured 28 players, ranging from 4d to 23k, including former multiple winner Matthew Macfadyen. It was great too that the late Brian Timmins' daughter Helen, and her daughter, visited to present prizes, and donate more Go equipment to the Youth Go Trust.

Jake Game (4d) from Swindon was the champion winning all his six games. Second was Alvina Kwok (3d) from Oakham School with five wins.…