BGA Newsletter 266 May 2020

FROM THE EDITOR

Contributions are always welcome, both from our members and others. We ask that they be Go-related and "newsy". The place for debate and general discussion is the BGA open mailing list Gotalk. However, an introduction to a new topic is fine in the Newsletter. A brief introduction to Gotalk, with a link for joining, is on the BGA page Go on the Internet. See also the BGA temporary Coronavirus page.

Instructions for Contributors: Please use plain text not file-attachments. Keep it fairly brief, and give web-links and contact details. It's good to include pictures. If they are on the internet, send me the URL, otherwise attach the picture files to your email. Send your contribution to newsletter@britgo.org to arrive by the first day of the month.

Jil Segerman

NEWS

The full set of recent news items, including further details of some of the items shown here, are on our News Pages, and on News Headlines.

BGA May 2020 Online Tournament

The BGA is organising an online tournament, running on the Bank Holiday weekend of Friday 8th to Sunday 10th May, to fill the gap a little whilst no face-to-face tournaments are taking place. The tournament will be a 3 round EGF rated tournament and we welcome players of all strengths to take part. Closing date for entries is midnight on Wednesday 6th May. More details here.

BGA Online League

The Online League will be restarting sometime in May; more details to come in the near future. Teams of three or more players are requested to contact Oliver Bustos Langton at online-league@britgo.org with names and ranks ASAP. Individual players interested in joining up are also requested to send their details in - we will endeavour to create teams out of such players.

Pandanet Go European Team Championship

The last match, played on Pandanet, was on 7th April when we had a difficult tie: against Italy, losing 3-1. The final match is on 19th May at 20:00 against Belgium. Spectators welcome. See here for more details.

European Go Congress

There will be no European Go Congress this year. The Congress planned for Ukraine this year is delayed until 2021 and for Romania until 2022. The 2020 EGF AGM will be held electronically.

Online Go for Juniors

Paul Smith writes: " We have had several successful meetings of the Cambridge junior players (and some of their parents) in our OGS group. We have got 25 members of the group now. We decided that any UK junior players (and their parents if they also play Go) are welcome to join our meetings there on Sundays at 4pm. If anyone is interested please let me know and I will send the details." Email paul361smith@gmail.com
Also if there is some other OGS group who would like to play a match against us at some point, let me know, I am sure we could arrange something.

Newcastle Go Club played Santiago Club Tengen

Tom Coulthard writes: "We put some information about our recent on-line Go meetings on social media and one of our followers is a Brit-in-exile in Chile, playing with Club Tengen in Santiago. He spotted our post and suggested arranging a club match. We had about 10 players in all and used the Discord app to chat and review the games while we played on the IGS server. Needless to say, the Chileans mostly had great English although we do have one Mexican player and the rest of us did attempt some broken Spanglish!
All in all, the event seemed a great success and it was great way to make some new Go connections. One of the Chilean players has since done some game analyses and shared those with us which was very kind and much appreciated. And while it wasn’t really the point, I’m pleased to report that the Geordies kept up national pride with a good performance - even though the 8 hour time delay meant we were drinking evening beers while they were having lunchtime coffees!
It’s been frustrating not to be able to play in person during the current lockdown, but every cloud has a silver lining and it has been nice to get more to grips with technology and use that to play new people.

ADMIN.

BGJ 191 is now available

The Spring 2020 edition of the British Go Journal is now available in the Members' Area. Printed copies should be sent out shortly.

BGA Coronavirus Advice

A reminder of the BGA temporary page with ideas for meeting and playing online. Also Jon Diamond mentoned a youtube Tutorial Introduction to Zoom

EVENTS COMING SOON

Events not cancelled at time of going to press include:
MAY
Not the London Open
JUNE
Galway
Welsh Open, Barmouth
AUGUST
Scottish Open, Dundee
Mind Sports Olympiad, London
Youth Training Residential near Grantham, Lincolnshire
SEPTEMBER
Cornwall
T Mark Hall Rapid Play, London
European Women's Championship, London
LATER
October, Wessex, Three Peaks
November, Doki Doki Festival (Manchester), British Youth Go Championship
December, London Open

OVERSEAS
The European Go Federation's Tournament Calendar includes the Major European Tournaments and a World Tournament Calendar.