Last 3 months News

Newsletter Archive


05-May: Against Finland again Alison only winner For the second match in a row in the B-League, Alison Bexfield was the team's star player, with the only win. Finland thus won the match three games to one. Germany won their match which moved the team down to fifth position, with just one match to go. League Page with game records Alex Kent wrote of his game against Javier-Aleksi Savolainen: I lost my game by resignation. The opening had an interesting bit of symmetry on the bottom side which meant it was miai to lean on the each of our 3-4 stones. I gave my opponent too much scope to lean on (and potentially separate) the top side, so I fell a bit behind. My assessment was that I was nearly alive in the centre so my opponent...
04-May: 2021 AGM - Meeting details A reminder that the AGM will this year be held on ZOOM on Friday 7th May at 20:00. Any proxy votes must be set up in advance by sending an e-mail to secretary@britgo.org, arriving no later than the end of Wednesday 5th May, containing your name and address, who will be your proxy, and if you wish (this is optional) how you want them to vote. The ZOOM meeting link has been added to the member's area of the website at https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews - you will need to be logged in to the site to access it.
30-Apr: BGA AGM - Officer & Council Nominations The deadline for nominations has now passed, however as explained below nominations for Council will still be accepted at the AGM. Officers nominated unopposed, and hence appointed for another year are: President - Toby Manning Treasurer - Richard Wheeldon Secretary - Colin Williams Nominated to be Council Members are: Andrew Ambrose-Thurman, Gerry Gavigan, Matt Marsh, Peter Rootham-Smith As there is still one Council vacancy, according to our constitution extra nominations for Council members can be accepted at the AGM itself. Any such nomination will need two supporters. Details of the ZOOM meeting will be posted to the member’s area of the website, and circulated by a news item such...
26-Apr: Reports added as supporting papers for the AGM The President's, Secretary's, and Membership Secretary's reports have been added as supporting documents for the AGM. They can be found with the other documents on www.britgo.org/history/councilnews The Treasurer's and Auditor's reports are covered within the Annual Accounts.
21-Apr: All Winners from China in Online Youth Event The first CCTV World Youth Amateur Online Weiqi Tournament was in two sections, the first being for youth teams. Jayden Ng, Scott Cobbold and Caleb Monk played the seven qualifying rounds over each weekend from late October to mid-December on the Chinese server Yike. They beat Colombia, lost to China, France and close matches against Croatia and Hungary. They then beat Argentina and Slovakia to end thirteenth out of 22. The teams making the knockout stage were both China teams, Singapore, Russia, France, Ukraine, Malaysia and Canada. The teams from Germany, Thailand, USA and Hungary finished just above the UK. The semis saw the two China teams face off and Singapore take on and beat Russia. In the 26-player junior individual...
16-Apr: AGM Documents - and a call for new Council Members A number of further papers have been added to the AGM documents list, mostly relating to the motions on the agenda. They are quite short, and It would be very helpful if you could read them prior to the AGM. The documents list is just below the agenda on https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews (you need to be logged in as a member) Also added is a short paper asking you to consider standing for a place on the BGA Council. We have a number of Council members not standing again this year, so this year in particular we are looking for other BGA members to come forwards and assist with the running of the BGA. Any of the current Council members would be very happy to answer any questions you might have about what being in the...
16-Apr: Alison Props Up Team Against Germany Germany had been struggling in this year's B-League, but the grades of the team they fielded against the UK suggested this match was likely to go their way. Four interesting games ensued and the top three boards were won by Germany. However Alison Bexfield was the team's star player, with a very entertaining game giving her the only UK win of the evening. The loss meant the team slipped to fourth position with two matches to go. League Page with game records Daniel Hu wrote of his game: I lost by resign to Benjamin Teuber after losing a large group at the end. The game was mostly good for my opponent, but within +/- 5 points. This was after I backed down from an early fight,...
11-Apr: BGA 2020 Accounts now available The 2020 BGA Accounts have been made available in the member's area of the website, and as a supporting document for the AGM Agenda at https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews
11-Apr: Hong Kong Win Final Game Against UK Youth The final game of the match, that started on KGS on 7th November, was held on Saturday 10th April. Played using the Supergo format (last team standing) the match came down to the final players, of the fifteen on each team, playing a head-to-head. The previous weekend the UK's last player, Jayden Ng, had beaten five-game winner Ka Yau Chau. Hong Kong's last player of the team, put together by Liana Ao 4p, was Webber Tse. In a difficult game, Jayden fought bravely against the 5d, but lost a big group and another in time trouble before finally running out of time. This made Hong Kong the winners 15-14. Match Details with game records and YouTube links.
08-Apr: BGA 2021 AGM Agenda The agenda for the BGA AGM, to be held on Zoom at 20:00 on Friday 7th May, is now available in the Members' Area at www.britgo.org/history/councilnews. More papers are likely to be added in the coming days. Colin Williams, Secretary.
22-Mar: BGA Launches YouTube Channel The BGA now has its own YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbbc2yTdNeRDWScNzyihiXw containing initially some of Mateusz Surma's recent lectures and game reviews. This follows on from the success of the London Go Centre channel.
10-Mar: Team Draw Exciting Match Against Italy It was an exciting match against Italy with some interesting games and the added excitement of Jon Diamond's game breaking just at the crucial point in a fight. In the end it ended honours even which left us third in the B-League just ahead of Finland, both on 7 points. At the top Netherlands beat Sweden to go a point clear of Italy with 10 points. League Page with game records Daniel Hu wrote of his game against Matias Pankoke: I was first to finish this time, in less than 2 hours, a surprisingly relaxing game. My opponent tenukied in the upper left which may be slightly questionable. A standard joseki ensued on the lower side, where he should get 2nd line territory on both...
03-Mar: BGA AGM The 2021 AGM will be held, like last year, as a virtual meeting using ZOOM. It will be on Friday 7th May, at 20:00. Meeting link details will be posted to the members area of the website nearer the date. Anyone wishing to submit a motion for the meeting please e-mail it to secretary@britgo.org by Friday 2nd April, with the names of both supporting members.
17-Feb: UK Youth Beat Ukraine to End Second! In the European Youth Go Team Championship, our UK youth team won 4-1 against Ukraine. George Han played his game early and beat Mariia Chernova by 6.5. On the day of the match, Daniel Chun Yang lost to Vsevolod Ovsiienko but Jacob Zhang beat Valerii Krushelnytskyi, both by resignation against higher-graded dan players. Lea Wong won her game against Bohuslav Onyshchuk by 24.5 to ensure the match was won. Sam Barnett rounded off the match on the following Tuesday by beating Olesia Malko by 23.5. This meant the UK took second place overall, the first time we had been in the top three. Russia beat Czechia in the last round and, as predicted, took first place (having won...
10-Feb: Team loses to Croatia A late change on each team meant it was going to be close against Croatia in the fifth match of the season. In the end the UK lost three games to one, with Des Cann taking the only win. At the top of the B-League Italy drew and Netherlands won to equal Italy on match points. The UK stayed third, just ahead of Finland on board points tie-break. League Page with game records Alex Kent wrote: I lost by 2.5 points to Matej Zakanj (komi was applied retroactively as it was set incorrectly). The opening seemed very balanced - I played a slightly dodgy sequence in the lower left corner but this ended up working in the board position. We ended up with a situation where we each had a...
04-Feb: BGJ 194 Now Available in Members' Area The Winter 2020-21 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.
17-Jan: UK Youth Gobble Up Turkey Alison Bexfield writes: In the European Youth Go Team Championship, our UK youth team won 5-0 against Turkey. Having narrowly lost to Romania in round 2 we were facing a relatively inexperienced team from Turkey. This gave us the chance to offer a game to those members in the squad who had not played in the first two rounds. Even though on paper we comfortably outranked our opponents on every board, the lack of over the board rated games during lockdown means that the stated grades do not always reflect reality for rapidly improving young players and so we could not be complacent. However, our team of Jayden Ng (Under 20), Edmund Smith (Under 16),...
16-Dec: London MindSports Centre moves a step forward Yesterday, 15th December 2020, we purchased the ex-Salvation Army citadel in Ravenscourt Park, to turn it into the London MindSports Centre, for £1.7M. The purchase was made by a company set up for the specific purpose of purchasing and owning the building, MindSports Property Limited (MPL). I, Toby Manning, am a Director of this company. The T Mark Hall Foundation is investing £400,000 in MPL (£100,000 of which is done via the London Go Centre) and the remaining investment is from Bridge players associated with the Young Chelsea Bridge Club (YCBC). We...

05-May: Against Finland again Alison only winner

For the second match in a row in the B-League, Alison Bexfield was the team's star player, with the only win. Finland thus won the match three games to one. Germany won their match which moved the team down to fifth position, with just one match to go.

League Page with game records

Alex Kent wrote of his game against Javier-Aleksi Savolainen: I lost my game by resignation. The opening had an interesting bit of symmetry on the bottom side which meant it was miai to lean on the each of our 3-4 stones. I gave my opponent too much scope to lean on (and potentially separate) the top side, so I fell a bit behind. My assessment was that I was nearly alive in the centre so my opponent...

04-May: 2021 AGM - Meeting details

A reminder that the AGM will this year be held on ZOOM on Friday 7th May at 20:00.

Any proxy votes must be set up in advance by sending an e-mail to secretary@britgo.org, arriving no later than the end of Wednesday 5th May, containing your name and address, who will be your proxy, and if you wish (this is optional) how you want them to vote.

The ZOOM meeting link has been added to the member's area of the website at https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews - you will need to be logged in to the site to access it.

30-Apr: BGA AGM - Officer & Council Nominations

The deadline for nominations has now passed, however as explained below nominations for Council will still be accepted at the AGM. Officers nominated unopposed, and hence appointed for another year are:

President - Toby Manning
Treasurer - Richard Wheeldon
Secretary - Colin Williams

Nominated to be Council Members are:

Andrew Ambrose-Thurman, Gerry Gavigan, Matt Marsh, Peter Rootham-Smith

As there is still one Council vacancy, according to our constitution extra nominations for Council members can be accepted at the AGM itself. Any such nomination will need two supporters.

Details of the ZOOM meeting will be posted to the member’s area of the website, and circulated by a news item such...

26-Apr: Reports added as supporting papers for the AGM

The President's, Secretary's, and Membership Secretary's reports have been added as supporting documents for the AGM. They can be found with the other documents on www.britgo.org/history/councilnews

The Treasurer's and Auditor's reports are covered within the Annual Accounts.

21-Apr: All Winners from China in Online Youth Event

The first CCTV World Youth Amateur Online Weiqi Tournament was in two sections, the first being for youth teams. Jayden Ng, Scott Cobbold and Caleb Monk played the seven qualifying rounds over each weekend from late October to mid-December on the Chinese server Yike. They beat Colombia, lost to China, France and close matches against Croatia and Hungary. They then beat Argentina and Slovakia to end thirteenth out of 22. The teams making the knockout stage were both China teams, Singapore, Russia, France, Ukraine, Malaysia and Canada. The teams from Germany, Thailand, USA and Hungary finished just above the UK. The semis saw the two China teams face off and Singapore take on and beat Russia.

In the 26-player junior individual...

16-Apr: AGM Documents - and a call for new Council Members

A number of further papers have been added to the AGM documents list, mostly relating to the motions on the agenda. They are quite short, and It would be very helpful if you could read them prior to the AGM. The documents list is just below the agenda on https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews (you need to be logged in as a member)

Also added is a short paper asking you to consider standing for a place on the BGA Council. We have a number of Council members not standing again this year, so this year in particular we are looking for other BGA members to come forwards and assist with the running of the BGA. Any of the current Council members would be very happy to answer any questions you might have about what being in the...

16-Apr: Alison Props Up Team Against Germany

Germany had been struggling in this year's B-League, but the grades of the team they fielded against the UK suggested this match was likely to go their way. Four interesting games ensued and the top three boards were won by Germany. However Alison Bexfield was the team's star player, with a very entertaining game giving her the only UK win of the evening. The loss meant the team slipped to fourth position with two matches to go.

League Page with game records

Daniel Hu wrote of his game: I lost by resign to Benjamin Teuber after losing a large group at the end. The game was mostly good for my opponent, but within +/- 5 points. This was after I backed down from an early fight,...

11-Apr: BGA 2020 Accounts now available

The 2020 BGA Accounts have been made available in the member's area of the website, and as a supporting document for the AGM Agenda at https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews

11-Apr: Hong Kong Win Final Game Against UK Youth

The final game of the match, that started on KGS on 7th November, was held on Saturday 10th April. Played using the Supergo format (last team standing) the match came down to the final players, of the fifteen on each team, playing a head-to-head.

The previous weekend the UK's last player, Jayden Ng, had beaten five-game winner Ka Yau Chau. Hong Kong's last player of the team, put together by Liana Ao 4p, was Webber Tse. In a difficult game, Jayden fought bravely against the 5d, but lost a big group and another in time trouble before finally running out of time. This made Hong Kong the winners 15-14.

Match Details with game records and YouTube links.

08-Apr: BGA 2021 AGM Agenda

The agenda for the BGA AGM, to be held on Zoom at 20:00 on Friday 7th May, is now available in the Members' Area at www.britgo.org/history/councilnews.

More papers are likely to be added in the coming days.

Colin Williams, Secretary.

22-Mar: BGA Launches YouTube Channel

The BGA now has its own YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbbc2yTdNeRDWScNzyihiXw containing initially some of Mateusz Surma's recent lectures and game reviews.

This follows on from the success of the London Go Centre channel.

10-Mar: Team Draw Exciting Match Against Italy

It was an exciting match against Italy with some interesting games and the added excitement of Jon Diamond's game breaking just at the crucial point in a fight. In the end it ended honours even which left us third in the B-League just ahead of Finland, both on 7 points. At the top Netherlands beat Sweden to go a point clear of Italy with 10 points.

League Page with game records

Daniel Hu wrote of his game against Matias Pankoke: I was first to finish this time, in less than 2 hours, a surprisingly relaxing game. My opponent tenukied in the upper left which may be slightly questionable. A standard joseki ensued on the lower side, where he should get 2nd line territory on both...

03-Mar: BGA AGM

The 2021 AGM will be held, like last year, as a virtual meeting using ZOOM.

It will be on Friday 7th May, at 20:00. Meeting link details will be posted to the members area of the website nearer the date.

Anyone wishing to submit a motion for the meeting please e-mail it to secretary@britgo.org by Friday 2nd April, with the names of both supporting members.

17-Feb: UK Youth Beat Ukraine to End Second!

In the European Youth Go Team Championship, our UK youth team won 4-1 against Ukraine.

George Han played his game early and beat Mariia Chernova by 6.5. On the day of the match, Daniel Chun Yang lost to Vsevolod Ovsiienko but Jacob Zhang beat Valerii Krushelnytskyi, both by resignation against higher-graded dan players. Lea Wong won her game against Bohuslav Onyshchuk by 24.5 to ensure the match was won. Sam Barnett rounded off the match on the following Tuesday by beating Olesia Malko by 23.5.

This meant the UK took second place overall, the first time we had been in the top three. Russia beat Czechia in the last round and, as predicted, took first place (having won...

10-Feb: Team loses to Croatia

A late change on each team meant it was going to be close against Croatia in the fifth match of the season. In the end the UK lost three games to one, with Des Cann taking the only win. At the top of the B-League Italy drew and Netherlands won to equal Italy on match points. The UK stayed third, just ahead of Finland on board points tie-break.

League Page with game records

Alex Kent wrote: I lost by 2.5 points to Matej Zakanj (komi was applied retroactively as it was set incorrectly). The opening seemed very balanced - I played a slightly dodgy sequence in the lower left corner but this ended up working in the board position. We ended up with a situation where we each had a...

04-Feb: BGJ 194 Now Available in Members' Area

The Winter 2020-21 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.

17-Jan: UK Youth Gobble Up Turkey

Alison Bexfield writes:

In the European Youth Go Team Championship, our UK youth team won 5-0 against Turkey.

Having narrowly lost to Romania in round 2 we were facing a relatively inexperienced team from Turkey. This gave us the chance to offer a game to those members in the squad who had not played in the first two rounds.

Even though on paper we comfortably outranked our opponents on every board, the lack of over the board rated games during lockdown means that the stated grades do not always reflect reality for rapidly improving young players and so we could not be complacent.

However, our team of Jayden Ng (Under 20), Edmund Smith (Under 16),...

16-Dec: London MindSports Centre moves a step forward

Yesterday, 15th December 2020, we purchased the ex-Salvation Army citadel in Ravenscourt Park, to turn it into the London MindSports Centre, for £1.7M.

The purchase was made by a company set up for the specific purpose of purchasing and owning the building, MindSports Property Limited (MPL). I, Toby Manning, am a Director of this company. The T Mark Hall Foundation is investing £400,000 in MPL (£100,000 of which is done via the London Go Centre) and the remaining investment is from Bridge players associated with the Young Chelsea Bridge Club (YCBC). We...

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