British Championship: 2001

The Title match

The 2001 British Go Championship was decided when Matthew Macfadyen, the reigning champion, beat the challenger Young Kim in the best-of-five-games title match. This was held at the Mind Sports Olympiad from 20th to 26th August, and we thank the MSO for providing the venue for us and also thank Francis Roads, Natasha Regan and Tim Hunt for refereeing the games.

Matthew won the match 3-1 so only four games were required, but congratulations too to Young Kim, who was the only person to win a game against Matthew in the title match in the previous five years.

Photograph of Young Kim

Young Kim was born in Seoul, Korea in 1941 and started playing go at the age of 19 years. At that time Go was not as popular as it is now, and there was no Go teaching in schools. He was taught by his parents, and achieved correspondence at the age of 26. He then went on to study Go under the tutelage of a 4 dan professional. After completing a course of 30 games played with the professional, he achieved his 4 dan certificate in 1980 from the Korean Baduk association. He has been playing Go in this country since 1983 but this is his first appearance in the Title Match. His favourite player is Lee Chang Ho. He is a keen Golfer.

Photograph of Matthew Macfadyen

Matthew Macfadyen has competed in the Title Match for the previous 13 years, winning 9 of them. He learnt the game aged 12, and reached 6 dan before becoming 30. He has been European Go Champion 4 times. He was teaching Go for a living, offering both individual correspondence courses and group seminars.

Here are the game records from the title match:

Game 1 was a game that remained quite close throughout, despite a number of changes in where one might have thought each player was going to make territory. Matthew won by 4.5 as white.

Game 2 appears to have been a slightly easier win for Matthew, this time with black. The margin was 9.5.

In Game 3 Matthew made an uncharacteristic oversight (expecting move 35 to be played at as an extension down rather than across) early on and found himself in a lot of trouble. Matthew struggled long and hard, but Young Kim was able to find an answer to his every struggle, and wrapped up the game without a slip.

In Game 4 the fighting started early and never really stopped, right up until the point where Young Kim had to resign.

Young Kim qualified for the title match by winning the Challenger's League.

The Challenger’s League

This was an eight player all-play-all event which took place on 4th to 7th May. The competitors were:

  1. Des Cann (Second in the 2000 Title Match)
  2. Matthew Cocke (Second in the 2000 Challenger’s)
  3. Young Kim (Third in the 2000 Challenger’s)
  4. T Mark Hall (First in the 2001 Candidates’)
  5. Quentin Mills (Second in the 2001 Candidates’)
  6. David Ward (Joint third in the 2001 Candidates’)
  7. Tim Hunt (Joint third in the 2001 Candidates’)
  8. Charles Matthews (Fifth in the 2001 Candidates’)

and game records and the results are available.

The Candidates’ Tournament

The first stage of the 2001 British Go Championship was the Candidates’ Tournament which took place in the Daiwa Foundation, a beautiful building overlooking Regents Park in London, on Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th March. 18 players took part.

The results are available.

Players who qualified for the 2001 Championship

Last updated Fri May 05 2017.
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