Go in Britain: 2011

Summary

The 2011 tournament scene saw the new generation starting to dominate the winners' list, with Andrew Simons and Andrew Kay doing well, and Nick Krempel doing well in the British Championship. Vanessa Wong continued to well internationally.

Events continued to promote Go as a Mind Sport, including the 1st UK Festival of Mindsports, an evening on the London Eye.

Guo Juan, 5p, visited in the spring for a teaching day and Kobayashi Chizu, 5p, visited London and Oxford in the autumn. Aoba Kaori, 4p, and Yasuhiro Nakano, 9p, also visited London.

A new event was held in Welwyn Garden City, but Wanstead and Fife were not held, and the British Small Board was held over into early 2012. However tournament numbers still tended to drop, not helped by the BGA book shop having stopped.

Unfortunately during the year we lost Gerry Mills, who died after serious illness, aged 81, and Xinyi Lu, who was killed falling from some rocks in China, aged 26.

British Go Congress

The British Go Congress was held in the town hall in the ancient Wiltshire town of Malmesbury. The Lightning was again held on the Friday evening and was won by Andrew Kay. 48 players took part in the Open and the Champion was Chong Han on tie-break from Andrew Kay and Vanessa Wong. The Nippon Club Cup was won by Durham Go Club.

Having won lots of games over the previous twelve months, the winner of the Stacey Trophy for most wins during the year was Alistair Wall, with Toby Manning a close second.

Regional Tournaments

Andrew Simons and Andrew Kay won the most events, with four wins each. Andrew Simons won Maidenhead, Oxford, Milton Keynes and Belfast. He also won the first BGA Online League. Andrew Kay won Durham, Three Peaks and Coventry, to go with his Lightning title. Chong Han, from Loughborough, won Nottingham and East Midlands, as well as the British. Matthew Cocke won three, namely Arundel, and the Open and 13x13 at the MSO in London.

Ian Marsh won his own event at Bracknell and also the Cornish Open. Sandy Taylor won the Scottish Open and also tied for first in the Welsh Open with Alex Kent. A Chinese student, Yunlong Liu won the Wessex and the 2011 Edinburgh Christmas. The delayed 2010 Edinburgh Christmas was won by David Lee. Cambridge Trigantius was won by David Ward, Cheshire won Alex Rix, Shrewsbury by Toby Manning and Swindon by Bei Ge. Richard Moulds won the Northern. The new Welwyn Garden City was a tie between Alison Bexfield and Alan Thornton.

The Cambridge Bar-Low was a tie between Graham Lamburn, John Richardson and Adan Mordcovich. Matt Marsh won the Cheshire Handicap, Sue Paterson the Cornish Handicap and Malcolm Hagan the West Surrey Handicap.

Central London A won the third online league. The spring London team match was won by the Nippon Club team and the autumn one was won by China A. West Surrey was the winner of Thames Valley team title.

Pair Go

The British Pair Go title was won again by Matthew Cocke and Natasha Regan. They represented the UK at the European Pair Go Championships in Turkey; they took 11th place. In the handicap group the winners for a second time were Sam McCarthy and John Collins. The event was again at Boars Hill in Oxfordshire. Alison and Simon Bexfield represented the UK at the International Amateur Pair Go Championships in Japan in November; they were placed 17th.

British Championship

The Candidates' Tournament was again at Selwyn College, Cambridge. Best of the 28 players was Andrew Kay and Des Cann was Second. The rest of the qualifiers were Hui Wang, Alan Thornton, William Brooks, Nick Krempel and Alistair Wall. In the League, held at the ISH in London, reigning champion Matthew Macfadyen won and Nick Krempel was second, to be the Challenger. The match, the first time the best of three, was won 2-1 by Matthew.

International

Andrew Kay played in the KPMC International Baduk Championship in Korea coming 22nd. Alex Selby played at the World Amateur, held in Shimane in Japan, ending in 43rd place.

Vanessa Wong, in Brno, narrowly missed on winning the European Youth Championship again, losing only to the winner Mateusz Surma. Roella Smith won two games and Kelda Smith won three games in the U12 section.

Vanessa also got to play in the online Transatlantic Youth match, beating the USA's Hugh Zhang. She was 22nd in the European Open in Bordeaux and was top female at the Sport Accord World Mind Games Qualifier to get to join the European team at the event in Beijing in December. Matthew Macfadyen won two games and so failed to get on the team.

The UK team in the B League of the new Pandanet European Teams, ended 7th for the 2010-2011 season and ended 2011 in the same position for the next season.

Youth Events

The Youth Championship was held at Bloxham in Oxfordshire and attracted 24 players. Mazhar Warraich became the Youth Champion, also winning under-18 ahead of Jamie Taylor. The other age groups were won by Tian-Ren Chen, Aidan Putman, Roella Smith and Anthony Ghica. Silas Yufu Shi (Loughborough) was the Open winner. The Castledine Trophy was won for a third year by Loughborough.

The Youth Grand Prix continued, decided after the London Open, but Adan Mordcovich already had an uncatchable lead (756), ahead of Roella Smith (406) and Owen Walker (312).

The ninth UK Go Challenge went ahead with finals at Aston. 24 players from the heats took part. Gold was won by Adan Mordcovich, Silver by Mazhar Warraich and Bronze by Hamzah Reta. Top junior school was Milton and Aston was the top senior school.

London Open

The London Open ended the year as usual. 119 players took part in the Open, a big increase on 2010. Unbeaten winner was Young-Sam Kim, 7d, from Korea. The next places were taken by Lingjun Miao (4d China), Yunlong Liu (3d China), Chong Han (5d, UK), Andrew Kay (4d UK) and Ching-Nung Lin (6d Taiwan). The second-third and fourth-fith places were tied. Winning six games were Rafael Mello (11k Durham), Carl Roll (7k Nottingham) and Martha McGill (2k Edinburgh). Young-Sam Kim also proved he could play fast as well as slow by winning the Lightning, beating David Lee in the final. On hand to do teaching was Korean Professional Miss Ko Joyeong, and she won the 16 team Pair Go with Chong Han. Young-Sam Kim continued his tradition of not losing by winning the Rengo, taking Sandro Poldrugo and Yoshiho Ikuta with him. They beat Tom Urasoe, Wen Hao Goh and Yunlong Liu in the final.

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