Announcing This Year's UK Youth Go Team

I am pleased to announce our UK Youth Go Team for this year's European Youth Go Team Championship is as follows:

U20 players
Jacob Zhang 3dan
Jayden Yui-Him Ng 1 dan

U16 players
Sam Barnett 2k
Edmund Smith 3k
Scott Cobbold 3k

U12 players
Daniel Chun Yang 1d
Ryan Zhang 2k
George Han 3k
Lea Wong 5k
Yanyi Xiong 9k
Alexander Timperi 10k

This youth team tournament is played over four rounds with five boards in each match of which one must be U20, two U16 and two U12. Despite losing two of our strongest players from last year (Yueran Wang and Bill Shen) to the pressures of sixth form exams, this is still our strongest team yet. The grade boundaries for the U16 and U12 selection have both moved up. I have left three possible team spaces where I can add new players to the team during the duration of the tournament in case we have missed any promising players who have improved signifciantly during lockdown. Our new members making their debut in the team are Jacon (U20), Sam (U16) and Lea (U12). Special mention also to Ryan who has improved by an impressive ten grades since last year.

When selecting a team for each match from the squad, I usually try to estimate what strength our opponents are likely to field and then try to match our team so that we have the best chance of winning the match whilst also not setting very uneven games. If I can, I also try to give as many players in the team a chance to play as possible. How much this is possible this year will depend on how well we do in the early rounds. The strength of the teams varies greatly as can be see on the EGF team page.

Our first match this year is against France which will be played over next week finishing with three games on Saturday. France is one of the stronger teams and so, of those available, I have chosen our strongest team for this match. So we will be fielding: Jacob, Daniel, Sam, George and Lea. We wish the team all the best for this match.

Alison Bexfield