British Go E-Journal: May 2000

Issue 34       May 2000

Tournament News

Oxford vs Cambridge 11/03/00

The annual Varsity match was held in Cambridge this year. Previous years have seen four person teams, but this time Oxford turned up with 9 players plus three beginners who tagged along to see the city and maybe catch a few games. Cambridge mustered 8 players. The final score was 10-7 to Oxford, thus maintaining the tradition of visiting side winning now in its third year.

Candidates' Tournament 18/03/00-19/03/00

22 players, 6 dan - 1 kyu, selected under the new qualifying system, played at the Nippon Club. Final ordering: 1 Young Kim 2. David Ward (both on 4/4); 3. Alistair Wall, 4. Alex Selby, 5. T.Mark Hall, 6. Francis Roads, 7. Bob Bagot (all on 3/3). The top 5 expected to go forward to the Challenger's League in May.

Coventry 26/03/00

73 players met as usual at the Tile Hill Sports Centre. Winner Seong-June Kim (6 dan Cambridge) stopped Matthew Macfadyen's unbeaten run, by beating him by a small margin in round one, despite a Macfadyen fight-back. Second place went to the loser of the final, Toby Manning (3 dan Leamington). On 3/3 were Paul Clarke (1 dan High Wycombe), Mike Cockburn (2 kyu St Albans), Richard Hellyer (5 kyu Oxford), Richard Thompson (6 kyu Leicester), Laurent Chane (6 kyu Cambridge), Gustav Rober (11 kyu St Albans), Stephen Streater (18 kyu Epsom). The UB50s from St Albans won the team prize with 80%. 13x13 winner was Nicola Hurden (13 kyu Berks Youth) and Ben Blockley received the youngest player award.

Dublin 31/03/00-03/04/00

The 11th Irish Open was attended by 33 players. Winner was Richard Hunter (4 dan Tokyo). Second on tie-break was Des Cann (4 dan Leamington). Third was David Ward (3 dan Cambridge). Winners on 5/5 were Alan Held (3 kyu Switzerland) and Roger Murby (7 kyu Cambridge), and on 4/5 Natasha Regan (5 kyu Epsom) and Gerry Mills (1 dan South-East Wales).

Rapid Tournament winner was Konagai (7p) with 5/5. Second was David Ward (4/5 including beating Saijo 8p) and third was Michael Marz (2 dan Germany). Handicap Champion was Des Cann.

London match

In the Spring Team Match in London, Cambridge showed their usual good form, winning ahead of Central London, Nippon, Wanstead and Oxford go clubs.

Bournemouth 15/04/00

Despite lack of advertisement, 24 players from 2 dan to 25 kyu attended the Bournemouth Tournament, held at the same West Parley Village Hall as in 1997 and 1998. Unfortunately the pub in the directions had changed name leading to a minor road accident. Oddly nobody won all three games. Alan Thornton (2 dan St Albans) held the title by a SOS tie-break. The best 2/3 in each third of the draw collected engraved glasses, others got sticks of rock.

Thames Valley Team Tournament 24/04/00

8 teams of three met at St Paul's in Bracknell for the tournament famous for the large numbers of "T"s in its announcement (21 this year). Reading saw of challenges from Royal Standard, Berks Youth and Bracknell to win the Broken Stone Trophy yet again.

British at Ipswich 28/04/00-30/04/00

26 players met at the Novotel in Ipswich for the Friday evening British Lightning. Nobody won all five and despite T.Mark Hall winning the first four the winner was Tim Hunt (1 dan Cambridge). Others on 4/5 were Des Cann, Francis Roads, Jonathan Chin, Chris Dawson and Tony Atkins. Continuous 13x13 winner was Des Cann and best youth was Shawn Hearn.

Winner of the 59 player British Open was T.Mark Hall (4 dan Bristol) with 6/6. Second was Alistair Wall (4 dan Wanstead) on 5/6. Others on 5/6 were Tim Hunt (Cambridge 1 dan), Vince Suttle (5 kyu Ipswich) and Shawn Hearn (12 kyu Berks Youth). The Bracknell Berks Youth team won the Nippon Club Cup as best team.

Grand Prix

Francis Roads won the Stacey Trophy with 36 points and Des Cann was second on 31, and third were T.Mark Hall and Seong-June Kim on 26. Simon Goss (2 dan) won the Weak Knee Dan trophy with 33 points.

News

Presidents

Alison Jones (BGA President) became Alison Bexfield by marrying Simon Bexfield (CLGC President) on 11/03/00.

Annual General Meeting

The annual general meeting of the BGA was held on 29/04/00 at the Novotel Ipswich during the British Go Congress. The same officers were re-elected with Chris Dawson taking the empty council position. Brian Timmins work over the last 15 years (publicity, membership and BGJ Editor) was recognised with a presentation.

European Results

Paris 22/04/00-23/04/00

The 2000 Paris was won by Du Jingyu (7 dan China) with 6/6; 2. Pei Zhao (6 dan China), 3. Miyakawa Wataru (6 dan Japan) both 5/5; 4 Erik Puyt (5 dan NL), 5. Jeff Seailles (5 dan F), 6. Frank Janssen (6 dan NL), 7. Guo Juan (7 dan NL). 6 of the 239 players were from UK, best scorer being Malcolm Schonfield (1 kyu London) with 4/6.

Milan TT 29/04/00-30/04/00

Best of the 73 players at the first ever European Toyota Go Tour event was Vladimir Danek (Czech) on 5/5. On 4/5 was Viktor Bogdanov (Russia) and best of the group on 3/5 was Leon Matoh (Slovenia).

5th European Youth

This was held in picturesque mountain town of Sinaia in Romania from 3rd to 5th March. A large number of Romanian children took part in the two McMahon system sections. Professional Yuki Shigeno was on hand to teach and encourage them. In the Under-18 section there were 64 players, the winner being Hungarian 5 dan Diana Koszegi. On 5/6 were Andreii Kulkov (3 dan Russia) and Timour Douguine (2 dan Russia). In the Under-12 section there were only 61 players. Winner was Ilia Chikchine (2 kyu Russia) and runner up on 5/6 was Mykola Gluschenko (1 dan Ukraine).

Ing Chang Ki Memorial Cup

24 players from 12 countries in strength from 4 to 7 dan responded to the invitation to attended the Ing Chang Ki Memorial in Helsinki from 10th to 12th March. Unbeaten in first place was the Korean from Moscow: Lee Hyuk. On 5/6 was second placed Alexander Dinerstein (Russia) who only lost to the winner. Guo Juan (Netherlands) lost to both the top players to come third. Also on 4/6 were Robert Mateescu (Romania), Matthew Macfadyen (UK), Felix von Arnim (Germany), Christian Pop (Romania) and Gert Groenen (Netherlands). Matthew's results were +Soldan, +Florescu, -Mateescu, +Eijkhout, -Hyuk and +Lazarev to give him fifth equal.

European Pair Go

Brno in Czech Republic was the venue for the 2000 event. 15 counties attended. As usual Germany won with 5/5. Next came Hungary and the Netherlands on 4 and Romania and the UK lead the group on 3/5. Jackie Chai and Francis Roads won the furthest traveled pair prize and had results +Yugoslavia, +Czechia B, -Germany, +Croatia, -Hungary.

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