British Championship: 1997

Summary

The 1997 British Go Championship was decided by a five-game match held at different venues. The winner was Matthew Macfadyen, who was then British Champion until the next championship challenge, a year later. The challenger was Charles Matthews.

The match

In the first game, Matthew Macfadyen won by resignation after 117 moves. The game record is available in Ishi format without comments, or in SGF format with comments by Seong-June Kim.

In the second game, Charles had the upper hand after move 74. However Matthew regained the initiative with move 143, and won by resignation after 230 moves. The game record is available in Ishi format with comments by Matthew Macfadyen and by Seong-June Kim; and in SGF format without comments.

In the third game, Matthew Macfadyen won by resignation after 137 moves. The game record is available in Ishi format without comments, and in SGF format without comments.

The games, with commentaries, also appear in issues 108 and 109 of the British Go Journal.

Matthew Macfadyen therefore won 3-0.

Recent History of the British Go Championship

The British Go Championship is open to anyone with British citizenship or with five years residence in Britain. Since 1993, this included Shutai Zhang, who is a Chinese national and came to Britain in 1988. In 1993, he defeated Matthew Macfadyen, and became British Go Champion. He has retained the title every year until 1997.

In 1997, Shutai Zhang decided not to compete, leaving the title match to be played between the two highest-placed players in the Challenger's League. Some players qualified for this through the Candidates' Tournament.

Tournament Schedule

The British Champion is the first to achieve three victories. The schedule was as follows:

The time limits for each game are three hours per player, with "Canadian overtime" of five stones in five minutes.