Foreign Tournament Report

Our Team Gets a Fourth Win for the Season

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 26 Apr 2016

The British team moved up to a creditable fifth position in the B-League by scoring their fourth win of the season. The time it was against Switzerland.

In a late change Andrew Simons played John Walch (3d) on board 1. Andrew writes:

In my game against John Walch we both played slowly and carefully (I got into overtime before move 100 and him not long after), but he made a mistake right at the end which allowed me to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat. I avoided a book opening by ignoring his 4-4 approach to approach his 3-4, we had some reasonable josekis. When I pressed his 3-4 he attached and I didn't hane as he had the ladder. He backed out of playing a complicated variation in that corner and stymied my lower side ambitions so I approach the top right, which was maybe bad direction (instead defend left side) as the side was open.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Our Team Wins Against Italy

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 5 Apr 2016

Congratulations to the British Go Association team who beat Italy by three games to one in the online Pandanet Go European Teams. With just two matches to play, their new sixth position (just behind Italy on third board score tie-break) is enough to keep them in the B-League for next season.

Bruno Poltronieri wrote about his win by resignation against Alessandro Pace:

Not a great game from me, but I somehow managed to pull off a win by a couple of points (if we ignore the part where he accidentally let me live in his territory while we were fighting the last 1 point ko...). My main mistake of the game was not living under his shimari before it was too late, which left him with a pretty huge territory. I was quite certain I was behind at that point, so I reduced as deeply as I could.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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AlphaGo completes match 4-1 up

AlphaGo
Seoul

AlphaGo completed the Google DeepMind Challenge Match with a fourth win to Lee Sedol's one.

In a very close fifth game, AlphaGo threatened to get a very large middle that Lee Sedol had to reduce in order to win. After playing a defensive move that also attacked, AlphaGo looked like getting enough, and, despite Lee Sedol's best efforts, AlphaGo was a couple of points ahead with the komi. With just the smallest yose left, Lee Sedol resigned.

At the closing ceremony, thanks were said and plaudits given to both sides. The million dollar prize will go to various charities.


Some more detailed commentary and pictures were available on the GoGameGuru website.

Detailed game records and notes about the match can be seen here.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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AlphaGo loses to Lee Sedol in Game 4

AlphaGo
Seoul
Sun, 13 Mar 2016

AlphaGo created a big central area, which Lee Sedol cleverly found a way to take apart to make the game 4 of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match close. AlphaGo played some strange moves when it thought it was behind, seemingly to test Lee. However these lost the machine some points and, despite being in overtime, Lee played very accurately and eventually at about 08:45 GMT AlphaGo resigned. Human and South Korean pride have thus risen!


Some more detailed commentary and pictures were available on the GoGameGuru website.

Live streaming of the event will continue again for the final match in the 5-game series, on Tuesday at 4am GMT.

Detailed game records and updates about the match can be seen here.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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AlphaGo wins third game to take the match

AlphaGo
Seoul
Sat, 12 Mar 2016

AlphaGo played very strongly in a desperate ko fight by Lee Sedol to take AlphaGo's big territory and thus win the third game of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match.

This means AlphaGo won the match with two games left to play.

Charities will benefit from the $1,000,000 prize.


Some more detailed commentary and pictures were available on the GoGameGuru website.

Detailed game records and updates about the match can be seen here.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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AlphaGo makes it two in a row!

AlphaGo
Thu, 10 Mar 2016

In the Google DeepMind Challenge Match, being held in Seoul from 9th-15th March, Lee Sedol lost the second game in the match, having been outclassed in some middle-game play in the centre.

Lee (playing White) was in his final period of byo-yomi after the two-hour main time, whereas AlphaGo (Black) was in its first.

The final score was a few points in Black's favour, so Lee resigned, as in the first game.

Comments from the Press Conference:

Lee Sedol: "Yesterday I was surprised by AlphaGo’s play, but today I’m quite speechless. At no time did I feel that I was leading, and I thought that AlphaGo played a near-perfect game." When asked what were AlphaGo’s weaknesses “Obviously I haven’t managed to find them out…” and when asked about his prediction for the third game said “It’s not going to be all that easy for me, but I’m going to exert my best efforts to win at least one game..

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK beats Slovakia while the world holds its breath...

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 8 Mar 2016

Whilst the world was holding its breath waiting for the start of the Google DeepMind Challenge in Seoul there were some more prosaic games of Go being played - the latest round of the Pandanet European Go Team Championship.

The UK has got off to a poor start in the second division, but with our latest 3-1 win over second-placed Slovakia we're gradually hauling ourselves up the table.

Andrew Simons was our sole loss, not totally unexpectedly to to 1 dan pro Pavol Lisy, but our other three (Bruno Poltronieri, Alex Kent and Charlie Hibbert) all scored good wins to round off the match.

Andrew Simons said: "My game was rather like my first game of the British Championship, a disappointing loss after throwing away a large opening lead in late fighting, though I suppose I should be glad to have outplayed Pavol in the first 100+ moves.

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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AlphaGo wins the first game!

AlphaGo
Wed, 9 Mar 2016

In the Google DeepMind Challenge Match being held in Seoul from 9th-15th March Lee Sedol resigned after the 186th move, when he realised that he was about 7 points behind and without hope of winning.

Congratulations to the DeepMind team, although some of the non-UK members may not be so happy about the GB flag being shown for AlphaGo (Lee obviously has a Korean flag).

Aja Huang, 5 dan, was their representative playing the moves on the board against Lee, who had Black.

“#AlphaGo WINS!!!! We landed it on the moon,” tweeted DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis after the game. “So proud of the team!! Respect to the amazing Lee Sedol too.” At a jam-packed post-game press conference, Lee admitted “I was so surprised. Actually, I never imagined that I would lose.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
If you have any comments, please email the webmaster on web-master AT britgo DOT org.

Joanne Leung does well at ESGC

European Students
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Sat, 19 - Sun, 20 Sep 2015

Joanne Leung (2d) represented the UK at the European Students Go Championship, held at the Confucius Institute in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She won three games out of five, including a half-point win over a 5d, to take 6th place out of 14. As second-highest female, she earns a place at the World Student Pair Go Championships in Tokyo this December. Joining her there will be Julia Seres of Hungary, Alexandr Vashurov of Russia and the event winner Peter Marko from Hungary.

Peter Marko won the event on tie-break from Austria's Viktor Lin. Lin earned support to the World Collegiate next July in Canada. Third place was taken by Mateusz Surma, who as a European professional cannot play in these events.

Results

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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