Tournament Talk

British Go Journal No. 62. July 1984. Page 28a.

Richard Granville

In the last issue of the BGJ Toby Manning suggested there were too many Go tournaments in Britain. I should like to propose that this is most emphatically not the case.

Toby points out that the number of tournaments has risen from two in 1973 to eight in 1978, and to 13 in 1983. He then states that: "Attendance at individual tournaments has not grown in proportion". However this is not particularly surprising, given that the BGA has not got any larger. On the other hand the increase in the number of tournaments means that the number of tournament games being played has dramatically increased. It is true that numbers at the Wessex, and in particular, British Go Congress have fallen (the latter attracted only 85 this year). However these tournaments are still sufficiently popular to make them worthwhile, while some of the more recently introduced events are very successful. For example there were 68 people at Oxford and 72 at Bracknell this year.

I would even go so far as to say that there is room for two or three more tournaments in the calendar. I believe that there should be a tournament somewhere every two or three weeks.

One thing I do agree with Toby on is that it is unsatisfactory to keep playing the same opponent at tournament after tournament. In my view the best solution is to run some on systems other than the MacMahon. Unfortunately these have not always proved popular (last September the CLGC organised a Rengo - team - tournament, but only five people turned up.

I would like to finish therefore with a commercial for the only non-MacMahon tournament currently on offer - the Leigh Sinton handicap tournament. Since the draw is biased towards producing games on 3-5 stones handicap, players are able to meet opponents they otherwise would never play. Weaker players can learn from stronger opponents, while dan players can still enjoy themselves - and it is the best chance you're likely to have of beating Matthew.