Junior Calendar and Events

Children and young people are welcome to participate in all UK Go tournaments, but the tournament organisers, including specific youth events, are not able to supervise children attending the event. Young people under the age of 16 should be accompanied by a parent, carer, teacher or someone acting in loco parentis.

Calendar

Sat 7th June - UK Go Challenge Finals Abingdon School Format: 13x13 tournament open to all under-18s and grades including novices. More Info About UK Go Challenge

Wed 13th - Sat 16th August - Youth Go Camp - Caythorpe More Info

Sat 8th November - British Youth Go Championship
Leicester County Bridge Club, St. Oswalds Road, Leicester, LE 3 6RJ Registration 09:15 to 09:45. Prize giving 17:00. Youth titles at U8, U10, U12, U14, U16 and U18 will be contested, on 19x19 boards, in addition to the title of overall British Youth Champion. Modified McMahon system will be used, 5 or 6 rounds, time limit 20 minutes + 5 secs Fischer time. Beginners and those new to the game will be made particularly welcome, and can select to play most of their games on 13x13 boards. Non-British residents also welcome, but some may not be eligible for titles. Closing date for entries 7th November. Contact bygc at britgo.org

Sat 7th February - London Youth

Firm dates of all tournaments, including the ones open to adults as well, are shown on the BGA Tournament Calendar.

OGS Youth Group

We have our own closed group on OGS called the British Go Association Youth group (group 4739) . In it we run tournaments and teaching sessions and so on. To join our group get yourself registered on OGS and send us your user id by completing our application form, telling us something about yourself, if you want to be invited in to the group. After a couple of days, when you go onto OGS, you should find an invitation to join the group in the notifications.

Online Tournaments

From time to time we run a tournament on OGS in the British Go Association Youth group (group 4739). You should check the calendar above and look out for announcements.

You can also look out for details of some events open to all that you might be interested in on the main BGA Tournament Calendar!

OGS Youth Club

The monthly Sunday meetings of the OGS Youth Club were suspended in October 2023 because of lack of interest and the rise of other club online meetings. We joined the Cambridge club meetings for summer term 2024, but the OGS Youth Club is now suspended. We are hoping a similar Europe-wide club will start shortly.

BYGC

Every year we hold our national championship for under-18s, the British Youth Go Championships. It is normally at at a central location where young players can meet up easily. The 2020 edition was held online, but it has since been held in person again. The 2023-24 BYGC was held on Saturday 11th November 2023 in Leicester, and the 2024-25 event was held on Saturday 9th November, again in Leicester.

2024-25 BYGC Gallery.

2023-24 BYGC Gallery.

2022-23 BYGC Gallery.

Here is the Hall of Fame.

The British School Teams for many years was merged with the BYGC, but from 2022, and in 2023, it is being held again as a separate event online.

Camp

In the summer, since 2017, we have our Youth Summer Go Camp - read about 2024 there. It is held at Caythorpe Court, an adventure centre in Lincolnshire, and gets up to 24 attendees. Dates for next time are 13th - 16th August 2025.

Flyer for 2025

Matches

From time to time we invited to play international matches against players from another country. We pick appropriate players from our youth rating list to take part.

From June 2020 we played a match against Chinese children, which we won (just), and from November 2020 we were playing a match against Hong Kong children (lost on the last game). From March 2021 we had a League against a team from China.

From June to November 2022 we were playing a second match against Hong Kong children - we lost 17-16 - and, starting 25th March 2023, we played two leagues against the team from China.

From autumn 2023 we played a third match against Hong Kong; it ran from 14th October until 17th February. From 9th November 2024 we played (and won) another match against Hong Kong.

Leagues

Members of our youth squad also play for our teams in the annual European Youth Go Team Competition and the Pandanet Youth Go European Team Championships.

We also had teams in the prototype European Youth Team League and then the first Euro City Youth League; the next (expanded) Euro City Youth Go League 2023/24, that started in October 2023, was won by London. There were 8 UK teams in the three leagues and games were played on playstrategy.org on alternate Tuesday evenings.

European Youth

Every year the European Youth Go Championship is held in a different country, normally in the Spring. We last hosted it in 2014 at Bognor Regis and you can look at the Gallery. Most years we send a team. We went to Kiev, Ukraine, in March 2018 and to Stubicke Toplice, near Zagreb in Croatia, in March 2020, although we did not go to Moscow in 2019. The 2021 event was held on line and 2022 was held in Prague, Czechia. 2023 was held in Ankara, Turkey.

The 2024 event was in Hamburg, Germany, from 21st to 23rd March. It was preceded by a "training camp" (18th to 20th March). Toby Manning attended as non-playing captain.

2025 was 6th-8th March in Vatra Dornei, Romania 6th-8th March - Info

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EYGC 2020 Gallery

UK Go Challenge

The UK Go Challenge was back again for 2024. You should have made sure your school or club ran a heat this year! The finals have been run online in recent years, but returned to in-person in 2024.

The 2024 finals were on Sunday 20th October alongside the National Small Board Championship, as part of Cambridge Junior Chess and Go Club's 30th anniversary celebrations.

Mismatch Policy

Some tournaments normally have even games (for example a tournament to find the "Best "Club"). However, this will sometimes result in a large mismatch in grades. When this is likely to occur the following will take place:

• Where a tournament is going to be run as a non-McMahon event there should be a discussion beforehand as to the best way to structure the event to reduce the number of mismatches.
• There should be no automatic Swiss tournaments.
• Where, in order to make an event competitive, a system is devised that might result in mismatches, the weaker player should always be given the option of playing a handicap game / having a different draw if the difference is greater than:
  • 6 grades for a 19x19 game
  • 8 grades for a 13x13 game
  • 10 grades for a 9x9 game
• In such cases the game shall be non-competitive, and a win by default shall be awarded to the stronger player.
• For a team event, the decision as to whether to play a competitive or handicap game should be jointly made by the player and the captain.