A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

For the first time in many years, the Scottish Open was won this year not by a Scottish resident but someone Scottish-born - Sandy Taylor (2 dan Durham) - winning all five games to take his first tournament title. 23 players took part in total. A drop in local players was caused by the closure of long-term sponsor Real Time Worlds and a local wedding anniversary.

Another slightly more scratch team than usual (Matthew couldn't play again) for our final game against Spain proved more successful with a 3:1 win (probably).

The probably is because Toby was playing on Pandanet for the first time and he and his opponent failed to manage to set the time limits correctly and play their game.

The organiser of the Bracknell Tournament was also the winner: Ian Marsh (1 kyu Bracknell) was the best of the 28 players. Also winning all three were Xinyi Lu (4 kyu Maidenhead) and Laurence Anderson (7 kyu Bracknell). Poland's Marcel Zantman (6 kyu) won two and then had a last round jigo.

British Go Journal 155 (Spring 2011) has just been posted to members.

The game records and problems are, as usual, now on the website: http://www.britgo.org/bgj/issue155.

Also included in this issue are some Book and Software reviews.

In March the BGA was approached by a Taiwanese Game Manufacturer who wanted to use the text and diagrams from our “How to Play GO” booklet in a new Go set produced in volume for the North American and European market.

14 players took part in the Cambridge Bar-Low. The only players winning 4 games were in equal first: Graham Lamburn (1 kyu), John Richardson (1 kyu) and Adan Mordcovich (2 kyu).

Results

28 players from 2 kyu to 5 dan attended the Candidates' Tournament held at Selwyn College in Cambridge. Andrew Kay (4 dan) was unbeaten winner and Des Cann (4 dan) won five out of six. The rest of the qualifiers, on 4/6, were Hui Wang (5 dan), Alan Thornton (1 dan), William Brooks (3 dan), Nick Krempel (3 dan) and Alistair Wall (3 dan).

The BGA is currently aware of around 75 active Go Clubs in the UK - but we'd like to know more to give us a better idea of what we can do to help clubs and what clubs can do that's good for, for example, recruitment.

Held at: Malmesbury Town Hall, 9th April 2011

The meeting opened at 7:34pm and those present (22 in number) signed the attendance sheet.

[1] Election of tellers

Steve Bailey and Jenny Radcliffe were appointed tellers.

After a 4 year gap, Guildford-based West Surrey Go Club won the Thames Valley Team Tournament for a second time, winning ahead of teams from Maidenhead, Bracknell and Reading. Mark Nubbert from West Surrey led his team by being the only player with three wins. The winners in the traditional 10x10 side event were Xinyi Lu with 7 wins and Tony Atkins with 4/4.