Go in Britain: 1990

The 16th London Open was the fourth Grand Prix tournament of the 1989-1990 European series. It was won by the then relatively unknown Chinese player Zhang Shutai, who was living in London. He scored an impressive 8 straight wins, to point himself two points ahead of the rest of the field. A very strong field too with 16 of the 132 players 4 dan or above. Hans Pietsch, the young 5 dan from Germany, was placed second on tie-break from Frank Janssen, 5 dan Netherlands, and Matthew Macfadyen, Britains 6 dan. Pietsch, however, won the Lightning beating Viktor Bogdanov in the final.

Zhang Shutai was very active on the Grand Prix circuit, taking first place having won also at Paris and Helsinki and then later at La Chaux de Fonds in Switzerland. Matthew Macfadyen was not at Paris as in was in Japan trying to stop Takemiya winning his third Fujitsu Cup. However Matthew did share first place at Gothenburg with Ivan Detkov.

In Britain, Matthew Macfadyen won his third successive Cambridge Trigantius, Coventry, Milton Keynes and Shrewsbury. Oxford was won by local student Edmund Shaw who also won the Wessex and Wanstead. At the British Go Congress in Salford, Edmund was the best of the 86 players to win the British Open. Simon Shiu won the British Lightning, beating Bob Hitchens in the final. Harold Lee was the first winner of the Stacey Trophy for winning the most games above the bar in the previous 12 months. Oliver Schmidt, then living in London, won Bracknell. Des Cann won Leicester and the Northern. Alex Rix won Bournemouth and Stuart Barthropp the West Surrey Handicap.

At the British youth Go Championships at Stowe, Adam Shepherd of Coventry was the under-18 winner and Champion. Furze Platts Sam Beaton was under-16 winner. Mark Simmonds won under-14 and only lost to Adam Shepherd by half a point. For the seventh time Furze Platt were the best school (actually competed early in 1991).

Matthew Macfadyen held on to the British Championship, challenged this year by John Rickard of Cambridge. Edmund Shaw represented the UK at the World Amateur and was 21st. Alison Cross was 19th in the Womens World Amateur. Britain won the November match against the London Japanese, but lost a three-player friendship match a month earlier at the Montcalm Hotel in London in the presence of professionals Takemiya, Miyamoto and Saijo.

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