Half the Players at MSO are Juniors

The Mind Sports Olympiad returned to being a physical event and was held at the usual venue of the JW3, a community centre on London's Finchley Road. Remarkably this year half of the 26 players in the MSO Go Open (19x19) tournament were juniors and as well most of the adults were Chinese students. A view of part of the playing room is above.

As usual the top 16 players battled for the medals (shown left) and this time prize money of £80, £40 and £20. By the last round it was Yaoling Yang and Zeyu Qiu who had won three and so they had to play for the Gold medal. As expected Yaoling took the Gold, with Zeyu having to be content with the Silver. Jun Su took the Bronze by tie-break from Changhao Huang. Also winning three was Alain Cheung who took the Junior Gold; both Scott Cobbold and Alvina Kwok won two to take Junior Silver and Junior Bronze respectively. Best player in the below-bar group was Andrew Volovich (7k) who remarkably won all four games and Oliver Bardsley (10k) won three. Results

Changhao Huang's disappointment at missing a medal in the Open was softened by him winning the Gold in the ten-player MSO Go 13x13 tournament the previous evening. He beat Joanne Leung in round four, with Joanne then taking Silver. Colin Williams beat Peikai Xue in the last round and took the Bronze by the MSO tie-break system. The Junior medals went to Caleb Monk, Edmund Smith and Andrew Volovich, all on two wins. A game from this event is shown below. Results