Norway Beaten Four-Nil

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 19 Mar 2019

Our team played very well and got their first win of the season, against Norway. This moved the team up to seventh place and out of the relegation zone. The next match will be on Tuesday 16th April, against Sweden.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Severin Hanevik after more than three hours of play and 331 moves including passes. I played an AI-style early 3-3 and then was happy he gave me the thick old joseki in bottom left even though he got sente. He surprised me when he resisted my attachment and took the outside ponnuki, and again when he didn't connect up to the corner; LeelaZero says he should have done so immediately and I should have prevented that instead of my solid tiger mouth. Nevertheless I had a ko for later. I then peeped his wall, as is the rage these days and built a reduction group. I used that to start the ko, but did so too early as he correctly ignored my threat.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Improved Entry at Trigantius

Trigantius
Cambridge
Sat, 9 Mar 2019

This year's Trigantius saw a much improved entry of 69 including seven new players. The venue was again the University Social Club in Mill Lane and the bright spring weather helped attract the large attendance. Play took place in the main bar area (as seen in the picture) and overflowed into a back room for the bottom six boards. Unfortunately this large number made it take longer for Geoff Kaniuk and his team to set the rooms up and to register the players, so the event was half an hour late starting.

Games were successfully played using Fischer timing of 45 minutes, plus 15 seconds per move, which meant the event was still an A-Class for ratings, but this allowed play to continue a bit longer than anticipated.

Last updated Tue Mar 12 2019.
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UK Draws with the Swiss

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Sat, 16 - Tue, 19 Feb 2019

Our team fought hard and managed a draw against Switzerland. The next match will be on Tuesday 19th March, against Norway.

Andrew Simons wrote: I played my game against John Walch on the evening of Saturday 16th. I won on time, but was fairly confident of winning anyway. The game started with a diagonal opening and me 3-3 invading (as I did against Sam in the second championship game); he took the gote wall so I took its extension and then peeped at it. He resisted, connecting on dame, so we had a fight and I was happy to build centre strength, and then, as he haned at q11, I got to make the dame cut in sente. His group was hard to attack directly though, so we played some more opening stuff. I made a makeshift defence against h17 invasion with l18 hane and got to cap his c9 stone (if he runs it out then I get a splitting attack on lower group) and he made a fun second line invasion on top.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK Youth Team completes their 2018/19 season

European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC)
Venue: http://www.gokgs.com/ in room "Tournaments" > "Euro Youth Team".
Sat, 24 Nov 2018 - Sun, 17 Feb 2019

Team Captain Alison Bexfield, and all her squad of 12 players in the UK Youth Go team, can look back on this 2018/19 season with satisfaction, as we finished comfortably mid table, out of the 12 teams. Whilst we lost narrowly (2-3) to Czechia, in the final fixture last weekend, it was an exciting match, and each margin was between one and a dozen points.

If one is superstitious, one might argue that we were "off colour" in the final match - playing 3 boards with the "wrong colour". That's because the match saw White winning on all 5 boards! It was always destined to be a fine margin either way with players, on paper, exactly evenly matched on 4 boards. But we congratulate Czechia on their win, and well done esp. to Edmund and Yanyi. We hope all our players still can gain from the good experience, esp.

Last updated Wed Feb 20 2019.
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UK Youth team to play Czechia

European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC)
Venue: http://www.gokgs.com/ in room "Tournaments" > "Euro Youth Team".
Sat, 16 - Sun, 17 Feb 2019

Alison Bexfield, Team Captain, has selected players for the UK Youth Go team playing - mostly on Saturday - versus Czechia.
This is our 4th and final match in the 2018/19 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC) and, against the 3 countries we've played so far, we are 2-1 up.

The two teams' captains have done really well, and managed to line up players with exactly the same paper grade as each opponent, save for a 2-grade advantage to the UK on board 1.

The board line-ups for the match are:

Last updated Fri Feb 15 2019.
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Fischer Time Trialled at Cheshire Tournament

Cheshire
Frodsham
Sat, 2 Feb 2019

The 21st Cheshire Tournament became the first event in the UK to use Fischer Time on new BGA electronic clocks. The 42 players successfully used the new system that gives extra time for each move played. The basic time was set at 40 minutes and ten seconds were added each move, remaining a B class tournament; only one game was lost on time (selecting the optional warning beep helped most avoid this) and fast players often had more time left at the end than they started with.

Most of the prize winners were from the two minibusfuls from Cheadle Hulme School. Ali Moin won a 13x13 prize for the most games played (winning 3 out of 9) and Sam Barnett for the best percentage/most wins (with 6 out of 6). These two were also among the eight youngsters who won two games and won some sweets. Five of the youngsters won all three games, namely Hugo Ryan (35k), Ben Geertman (25k), Rahul Surapaneni (19k), Joseph Curtis (17k) and Daniel Gascoyne (15k).

Last updated Wed Feb 06 2019.
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Youngsters play Go despite snow ...

Good news if a tad late ...

Well, mea culpa entirely for this late snippet, but no doubt Santa was still delighted with the photo. Taken in December, it shows his helpers enjoying their lunch break at Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) in South Manchester. It seems that not even snow can stop the fun, for those with suitable head-wear. The school Go Club has been running for over 5 years now, with great support from CHS, their teachers past and present, minibuses, drivers, the BGA and DeepMind.

47 CHS students (and counting!) have experienced at least one national Go tournament. One current student Tom Bradbury - who'd not played Go before joining CHS - has now amassed no fewer than 33 events, over 6 countries!

Last updated Mon Jan 28 2019.
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New Go Club in Port Talbot

Daniel Jones (spoon_man666 at hotmail.com) wrote: The inaugural meeting of a new Go club for the Nath Port Talbot area took place on Sunday 20th January at the Beefeater Bagle Brook, Pentyla-Baglan Rd, Port Talbot, SA12 8ES.

There were four players and another popped in because he was busy and could not stay to play but wanted to meet everyone there. We have also had a couple of people join our Facebook group, which has reached eight members. The next meeting is provisionally on Sunday 24th February.

More details

Last updated Fri Jan 25 2019.
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Joanne Wins Debut in League Against Austria

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 22 Jan 2019

Our team lost again by three games to one, this time against Austria. The only win was by Joanne Leung, making her debut in the League on board 4. The next match will be on Tuesday 19th February, against Switzerland.

Andrew Simons wrote: I lost on time against Viktor Lin, from a good position that had just turned bad in an overtime panic. We had a nice opening fight when he allowed my powerful cut at p3: we both had weakish groups running out to the centre, but I got to cover the head at m11 and he didn't make much territory on his half of the board in the process. A fight on the lower side ended with an exchange, capturing a load of cutting stones for good profit to settle my groups. I think c4 was a mistake though (e3 or h2 better), as although I got a ponnuki and sente I lost chances to attack his group which didn't actually have eyes yet; he was obviously going to steal the base of my ponnuki next and pretend to attack it.

Last updated Wed Jan 23 2019.
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Fun and Games at Maidenhead

Maidenhead
Hitachi
Sat, 19 Jan 2019

There was much fun and games at the Maidenhead-Hitachi Tournament. As usual it was held at the Whitebrook Park headquarters of Hitachi Europe, though news was shared that due to potential company relocation it might be the last. In between rounds, as well as playing 13x13 games, most of the ten youngsters taking part played different games with Alison, the non-playing organiser. In addition, as well as wine and mystery envelope prizes, the prize table contained a large selection of board games as shown right.

The winner of the tournament was the former Chinese professional, Chao Zhang (6d London), shown right. He beat Jon Diamond, Alex Kent and Andrew Simons to take the title.

Last updated Mon Jan 21 2019.
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