Go in Britain 2024

Summary

2024 was a year of continued growth after the changes of the previous four years. The tournament calendar was busy with new events and several events reappearing and attendances were again boosted by players of Chinese origin, most of them very strong at Go.

The biggest change at the online AGM on 23rd May, attended by 60 members, was that a new president, Colin Williams, was elected. He took over from Toby Manning who stepped down after having done the job since 2018. Sebastian Pountney became Secretary.

Three well-known members of the Go community, Derek Hunter, John Tilley and Adam Atkinson, died during the year. A new player seen at events was the BGA's Go robot from China.

British Go Congress

The British Go Congress was held at the Holiday Inn in Kenilworth, with sponsorship by AI Sensei, Go Magic, Guo Juan International Go School and SmartGo Books. 57 players took part in the British Open, which was won by Qi Wen on tie-break from Ho Yeung Woo and Yue Wen. The Lightning was also won by Qi Wen.

Regional Tournaments

In 2024 the top tournament winner was UCL's Peikai Xue who won outright Lancaster, Durham, Newcastle, Nottingham, British Small Board and Three Peaks. Youngster Ryan Zhang won three events: Welsh, Edinburgh and Swindon. Yasumasa Furukawa won both Sheffield and the Northern. Zeyu Qiu won Trigantius and Wessex.

Tianyi Chen won Oxford, Chenghang Liu won Cheshire, Dongshan Wong won Coventry. Ziyin Yuan won Not the London Open. Yifan Bao won T Mark Hall Rapid. Mike Cockburn won the Barlow. Artur Gascon from Spain won the new Tonbridge event. Lucretiu Calota won Ulster. The MSO Open was won by Michael Cheung, who also tied the MSO Small Board with Peikai Xue and Yi Cheng Xiao.

The three online Go events in the MSO GP were won by Yorkson Cheung (19x19), Darius Dobranis (13x13) and Joanne Leung (9x9). An online Student 9x9 was won by Rowan Litting. Paul Tabor won the Spring and Tim Hunt the Summer Online League.

In Ireland the April Rip-Off was won by Dewei Liu from Belfast and Mateusz Surma won the Confucius Cup on tie break from Lukas Podpera and Cornel Burzo.

The 120-player DDK Grand Prix was won by young Clinton Yu from Manchester with 893 points, ahead of Horace Stoica on 442 and Kerry Poltronieri on 427. Olivia Jennison from Cheadle Hulme School was the best player below 20 kyu with 300.

Pair Go

The British Pair Go Championship was held this time at the Bridge Club in Leicester. The champions were Yiran Zheng and Solomon Wong. The eight-pair handicap section was won by Megan Upton and Elliott Barlow.

British Championship

The Candidates' Tournament was held at the Bridge Club in Leicester and attracted 18 players. This was the event used to select the players for the title match. 2023 champion Ho Yeung Damen Woo won 5 wins and Yaoling Yang won 6 wins to be selected.

The title match was played on 14th and 15th September at a private address in Nottingham. The match was won two games to nil by Yaoling Yang, giving the UK another new champion, and so congratulations go to him.

International

The World Amateur was held in Tokyo in May. Alex Rix was our representative. He won three games to place 42nd. Our player in the Korea Prime Minister Cup in Taebaek was Damon Woo; he won five games to come 14th.

The UK online team ended the 2023-2024 season of the European C-League in first place with six wins and just one draw. At the start of the 2024-2025 B-League season the team won the first match, but lost the next two.

Youth Events

The finals of the UK Go Challenge were held in Cambridge in October alongside the British Small Board. It was won by Belinda Chen, with Andrew Volovich and Ethan Chen third. The 2024 Youth Championship was held in Leicester again in November. It was won by Ryan Zhang. Chenhe Yuan, who had just arrived in the UK, was Open Champion. Alvina Kwok was top girl.

The 102-player Youth Grand Prix was won by Clinton Yu on 1153 points, ahead of Ryan Zhang (1059) and third placed Olivia Jennison (620).

The continuing European Youth Go Team Championship for 2023-2024 saw the UK youth team beat Romania but lose to Austria to end fourth. In the new Pandanet Youth Go Team Championship the team ended third. Results were a win and a loss against both Croatia and Romania, but two losses to Ukraine. A fourth online last-team-standing match against Hong Kong saw the UK just ahead at the end of year, with just one or two games to play.

Only eight young players joined the annual BGA Youth Residential, again held at Caythorpe Court, an adventure holiday centre in Lincolnshire. Jed Lau won the 19x19 tournament and Olivia Jennison and Elijah Whitbread won the Pair Go.

With Scott Cobbold (4d) now at university, Ryan Zhang (4d) is the youngster to watch. As well as his several tournament and championship wins, he notably got to the semi-finals of the World Youth held in Romania.

London Open

The London Open at the end of the year was the 50th edition. As usual it was held at the London Go Centre, but with a lowish entry of 73. The strong Chinese players dominated with Tingxu Zhao and Yuhang Xing ending tied on six wins. Chenhe Yuan was third with five wins. Peikai Xue & Yuhang Xing won the Pair Go (Doubles) and Damen Woo won the Lightning. The professional player sent to celebrate the jubilee by the Nihon Kiin was Ohashi Hirofumi 7p.

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