UK youth team fight hard, but lose to Israel

The BGA UK Youth team lost 1-4 to Israel on Sat, 13 Dec 2014, in the European Youth Go Team Championship which sees us currently in 10th place overall out of the 13 teams, with 2 rounds left to play.

We were heavily outranked on boards 1, 4 and 5 against Israel, although Tom, Anthony and Hilary acquitted themselves well in the face of grading differences of between 10 and 16 stones.

It was good to see the two U12 players playing a solid game, protecting their groups so there were no major dead groups at the end. Charlotte had a quick win and Dylan had his opponent on the ropes for much of the game. His opponent narrowed the gap, and Dylan resigned, thinking he was about to lose a group of stones. In fact, with a little thought, he could have saved them and would have won the game by about 8 points.
There is a lesson in here about taking time after a perceived error, to think about the whole board and to take time to put oneself back into a winning frame of mind before playing another move.

We have two more rounds to play, the first being Czechia vs. United Kingdom on Saturday, January 17th, 2015.

Alison Bexfield
BGA UK Youth Squad Manager