Nineteen participants ranging in age from mid-teens upwards, from eight countries took part in the traditional London Open Rengo tournament on the afternoon of New Year's Eve. We could have had eight teams, reports Jenny Rolf-Radcliffe, but that would have lent itself to a boring number of pairs. Thus we had two fours, three threes and one pair to make the games more interesting - after all, a large part of the fun of Rengo is to have games between teams of different sizes. This year was very balanced; at the end of three rounds there were no teams on zero wins and just one team on three wins. The unanimous decision was made to stop playing while we had a clear winner, and to get on with the eating, drinking and talking phases of the evening.

On the 28th December, dozens of people assembled in the capital for the London Open (the 46th), held this year for only the second time at the current London Go Centre. Despite the fact that more entrants were allowed this year (one hundred), there were a fair number of 'no-shows' which meant just 87 players actually took part. This was disappointing and unfair to the people on the waiting list who couldn't enter because the entry limit had been reached; organiser Gerry Gavigan will make sure that next year only those who have paid the full entry fee on booking will be guaranteed a place.

Sixteen countries fielded players with ages ranging 'from seven to seventy-seven'. The grades ranged from 7d to 16k; both stronger and weaker players were well represented with 28 dan players and 15 Double-digit kyus, six of whom were from Cheadle Hulme School (CHS).

In the fourth match of the season, our team (the same players as the previous match) managed a draw against Finland, after a late substitution of a weaker player by them.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Javier-Aleksi Savolainen by 7.5 points. He played even more slowly than me in the opening, so it was a nice sensible game: after some AI-style josekis he shoulder-hit my not-in-the-middle extension and rather than jumping out he cut off my wall below. As it had made some standard kikashi earlier, I managed to get it out in ok shape; we ran for a bit (I think he shouldn't have let me get j12), he capped my group, but then I went for a small local life/connection, which was locally a bit sad but ok given I'd got a big tenuki out of it, and still wasn't dead. He then used his cap to invade my right side, I got some handy kikashi and connected on top and built a wall, but he took all the territory.

This longstanding event returned with a bang this year. After several years of poor attendances there were 24 entrants, with a good spread of grades and seven players above the bar, set at 2k. The outright winner was Matthew Scott (1d) with 4/4. Prizes were awarded to all six players on 3/4: Joel Barrett (4k Manchester), Josh Gorman (4k Glasgow), Quinlan Morake (5k Glasgow), Yun Lu (8k Edinburgh), Frankie Higgs (11k Lancaster) and a visitor from Belgium, Alexandre Terefenko (6k). Nick Gotts (10k Edinburgh) also won a prize for being the highest DDK.

Results

Alison Bexfield, team captain, writes:

The UK youth team played the Netherlands today in their second round match of the 2019/20 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC). It was good to see a team from the Netherlands playing this year for the first time.

When choosing the team for each match I try to pick a team which has good winning chances, but also where the grade differences between players are likely to be close so that our players can develop their match play. The Netherlands team is much weaker in strength than our first round opponents (Russia), so we were able to play a different set of players from our squad of fifteen than the previous round. On paper going into the match we had the edge on four boards by one or two grades, with one board being a grade difference the other way.

A late substitution on board 5 for the Netherlands, due to sickness, gave Yanyi an easy game on board 5.

Cheadle Hulme School (shown left) proved they are the top British school for Go by both having the largest team at the British Youth Go Championships and by winning the Castledine Trophy. The top three of their 19-strong team won the team matches to get the trophy, beating Sir John Lawes School from Harpenden (3-0) and James Gillespie's High School from Edinburgh (2-1) (who beat SJL 2-1). The Best Junior School was Harpenden Academy, beating James Gillespie's Primary School (2-1).

This year's debutant organiser, Adrian Abrahams reports:

There was very nearly no Three Peaks competition this year, after I failed to confirm the venue's booking at the Wheatsheaf pub in Ingleton. Fortunately, I got an eleventh-hour reprieve, when Ai Guan from my own club Lancaster pointed me in the direction of the Ingleton Boy Scouts hut.

Barring a cataclysmic act of nature, the Three Peaks WILL be back at the Wheatsheaf next year.

In the third match of the season, our team had a great win against a team from the Netherlands, winning three games to one. This meant the team was 5th in the B-League.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Filip Vander Stappen by resignation. I took a look at some of his KGS games and he seemed to play an old pre-AI territorial style, so I quickly played AI style opening similar to my title match against Sam last year but attached on the other (better) side in the lower left. When I tried to surround territory on the 5th line he came in and we had our first fight, but I felt confident with his weak side group to push against and my lower right pressing group in decent shape.

The UK youth team fought valiantly against top seeds Russia A team in the first round of the 2019/20 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC), but in the end the match went according to grade and the Russian team won 5-0.

We always knew it was going to be a difficult match, as all the Russian A team are dan players. So we fielded our strongest players from the squad. Even so, only one game was within one grade of the Russian team on paper. Incidentally, this was the strongest team the UK youth team has fielded since this competition began.

Four of our players were experienced members of the team, but we welcomed Bill playing on Board 2 playing in his first team match for the UK.

Despite floods disrupting travel, especially in the N-W, this year's Doki Doki Festival went ahead as planned, in Manchester. Thanks go to all the organisers, helped considerably by members of the friendly Japan Society North West (JSNW).

The annual fun event, with all imaginable Japan-themed activities, stalls and competitions, attracted its usual huge (4,000 over 2 days) and largely youthful attendance. For each such occasion, the organisers invite us back (we're the British Go Association - BGA), to give free Go demos to the public. As ever, we quickly accepted.