Foreign Tournament Report

Natasha Regan and Matthew Cocke took 11th place (the 9th best country) at the European Pair Go Championship in Istanbul, Turkey. They lost to Czechia, France and Germany, but beat Poland and two pairs from Turkey. Best of the 31 pairs taking part was the pair from Hungary, Rita Pocsai and Pal Balogh. Czechia was second and Ukraine third.

Results

The UK representative at the 32nd WAGC was Alex Selby from Cambridge. He won 3 games to take 43rd place. His first game was a loss to former World Champion Hirata of Japan. He then lost to Nechanicky of Czechia and Trippel of Switzerland, before beating Neville Smythe of Australia. He then lost to Minieri of Italy, beat the player from Azerbaijan, lost to Pedersen of Denmark and won the last game against Mexico. James Hutchinson of Ireland was 36th with 4 wins against Denmark, Argentina, Portugal and Brazil. The unbeaten Champion was Bai of China. Second was Choi of Korea. The group on 6 wins were Eric Lui (USA), Thomas Debarre (France), Hirata (Japan), Jun Fan (Canada) and Franz-Josef Dickhut (Germany). 57 countries took part at the Shimane prefectural hall in Matsue, a ancient castle town in the west of Japan.

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. This game had been set up at the last minute as Spain couldn't raise a 4th board until the day of the match. So, since Toby's opponent was much weaker and would have needed to finish early in any event, he had allowed Toby the win.

In other games Andrew and Jon both gave their opponents a serious opportunity to kill significant groups, but these weren't taken, and they both captured other groups in return to win by resignation.

With a somewhat more scratch team than usual (Matthew couldn't play etc.) we lost 1-3 against Slovenia.

Thanks to Jonathan Chin for stepping up at the last minute to play board 4. He was leading with a huge centre, but then there was an unfavourable big exchange in a ko and he ended up losing by 1.5 points.

It could easily have been 3-1 the other way as Jon was also leading, but played self atari at the end. Doh...

The season is nearing its finale with only one more match to be played (vs. Spain). For more details, see the BGA Euroteams page

In the 3rd edition of the TransAtlantic Youth Go Match Vanessa Wong, representing Europe, beat Hugh Zhang (aged 14) by 10 points. Hugh took 1st place in the USA 2008 Redmond Cup Junior division and 2nd place in the 2008 US Youth Goe Championship.

This event provides the opportunity for youth players on both sides to get top-level playing experience and make new go friends. The tournament is organized as a team match with eleven players per side, with players being invited to by their national or continental go associations.

Games were played in the Transatlantic Youth Go Tournament room on the KGS go server on 17th April.

Europe won for the first time, beating the USA by 6 games to 5.

Results

Wins on boards 2 and 4 for the UK ensured the honours were split evenly between the UK and Austria.

Captain Will Brooks finally broke his duck, and Jon Diamond did his duty as president, while misfortune befell Matthew Macfadyen and Andrew Simons.

The season is nearing its end with only 2 more matches to be played (vs. Slovenia and Spain). For more details, see the BGA Euroteams page

Vanessa Wong was second at the EYGC for a second year running. She lost, as last year, to Mateusz Surma from Poland who retained the under-16 title. Also travelling to the beautiful setting of the lakeside Santon Hotel in Brno, Czechia, were sisters Kelda and Roella Smith from Cambridge. In the under-12s Roella won 2 games at 11k to place 13th and Kelda won 3 at 20k to place 41st. Vladsylav Verteleckyi from the Ukraine was the under-12 champion.

Results

Finland's Antti Tormanen (6 dan) tied with Wei Wang (6dan) in the 62 player Irish Open. This was Antti's fourth tournament win of the Pandanet Go European Cup, which put him top in the points table with 57. Wei Wang, studying in London but being Chinese, is ineligible for Pandanet points, so the next points went to Slovakia's Lisy Pavol (5 dan) and Czechia's Ondrej Silt (6 dan) in equal third. This put Csaba Mero and Ondrej Silt equal second in the Pandanet points table on 51.
The other point places went to Willem-Koen Pomstra from the Netherlands, Juri Kuronen from Finland, Quentin Mills from the UK, Gavin Rooney from Ireland and Germany's Bernd Sambale.

Patrik Macek (6 kyu Slovakia) won all five and the following each won four: Jan Reichelt (1 kyu Germany), Martin Klemsa (2 kyu Czechia), Marek Fulle (4 kyu Slovakia), Peter Kollarik (9 kyu Slovakia) and Marek Gutowski (13 kyu Poland).

Results

As usual, many of the players in Dublin for the Irish Open congregated in the Teachers' Club on the Friday night for the Irish Rapid handicap tournament. The 26 players had to cope with the decreasing time limits and the handicap-plus-one games. Best at coping was Ian Davis (1 dan) from Belfast. Second, losing to Ian in the fifth round, was Jan Reichelt (1 kyu) from Germany. Also winning 4 were Cork's Gavin Rooney (2 dan) and France's Jean-Philippe Leduc (1 dan).

Results

Team leader Will Brooks lost again, but the team still beat Croatia thanks to wins from Matthew Madfadyen, Andrew Simons and Nick Krempel.

The 3-1 win puts the UK in a much safer position for avoiding relegation, nearing the end of the season.

BGA Euroteams page