UK Youth Team Beats [Italy+Austria+Switzerland]

On Saturday 7th January 2017, the UK youth team beat a combined team from Italy, Austria and Switzerland by 4 boards to 1. This was the second of the three rounds in the European Youth Go Team Championship 2016/17. Please follow that link for names of the complete UK youth team squad.

  Post-match comments (see below for comments prior to the games): 

Although on paper it should have been an easy match for us, actually the opposing team contained some rapidly improving juniors, which showed how out of date grades can be amongst keen juniors.

Josh Gorman was first to finish on board 3 with an easy win - soon followed by Edmund Smith on board 5, and our newcomer George Han on board 4 - also with comfortable wins.

Our top two boards had a tougher time. Zaki, playing up an age group on board 1 was fighting a close game, but a dying group unfortunately brought it to a premature end.
On board 2, Yueran Wang was up against a player who was 6 kyu when the team was registered in October, but was now playing at 1 kyu, so it promised to be a tightly fought match.
Yueran played a very calm game, however, to win by a comfortable 17.5 points.

Well done to all who played. We have one remaining fixture in this tournament - 3rd round: Saturday 28th January 2017.

  Alison Bexfield, Team Captain 

  Pre-match comments:  

The UK youth go team will be playing a 5-board match against the combined team of Italy, Austria and Switzerland. The match will be on KGS, and it kicks off at 2pm.

Our team for this match comprises (in Board No. order):

1. Zaki Betesh (promoted to the Under 20 board)
2. Yueran Wang (U16)
3. Josh Gorman (U16)
4. George Han (U12)
5. Edmund Smith (U12)

The very young George is making his debut for the team. Currently playing at 5 kyu, he is certainly a player to watch in coming years. We wish all our players the best of luck.

  Alison Bexfield, Team Captain