1st UCL Tournament a Big Success

The inaugural UCL Tournament was held in G07-08 Chadwick Building on the University College London (UCL) main campus in Bloomsbury, reports Zonglun Li on behalf of UCL Go (Weiqi, Baduk) Society. We were flattered by the great enthusiasm from the Go community in and out of the country. Due to the capacity limit, we had to close the entry five days before the tournament date with deep reluctance and we are sorry for those who were dissuaded by the notice on the website. Having said that, we were relieved that we eventually managed to offer all 81 players on site a spot to compete and didn’t have to wave bye to any of them.

The first round started one hour late due to the registration backlog, but the tournament unfolded smoothly afterwards. The bar was set at 5d and there were nine players in the top group, resulting in a fierce competition for the top prizes. The overall first prize went to Yiyang Ding (5d KCL), followed by runners-up Chun Fang (6d Edinburgh) and Yaoling Yang (6d Bristol). The best UCL player prize was awarded to Yicheng Xiao (6d). Lucretiu Calota (4d St Albans) won the below-the-bar first prize, followed by Peikai Xue (4d UCL) and Yanming Zhang (4d UCL). The prizes for the best single-digit-kyu, double-digit-kyu, junior and three-win were also awarded to their respective winners. Those on three were Youdao Lu (1d UCL), Artur Gascon (1k Spain), Simon Thornewill (3k Stevenage), Natalie Hung (4k No Club), Alvin Choy (5k No Club), Caleb Monk (6k London), Jonah Burnstone-Cresswell (7k No Club), Marek Labos (8k London City), Theodor Calota (9k St Albans), Ayca Ceren Baylan (14k UCL), Blake Shamoon (17k No Club) and Lev Proleev (19k London Go Centre). Results

The tournament would have not been this successful if without the support from the Go family in the UK. As the main organisers, Frederic Schlattner and Zonglun Li, would like to take this opportunity to thank Mike Sun and Peikai Xue for their tremendous commitment to the club development since its foundation. A grateful thank-you also goes to Ayca Ceren Baylan, Seongho Son, Daniel Tan, Terry Williams, Matt Xi (in alphabetic order) and other unsung UCL heroes for their help that made the tournament happen. In the meantime, we also received enormous support from people outside UCL. Joanne Leung kindly offered to be the head referee of the tournament and helped around before and throughout the tournament. The equipment provided by Gerry Gavigan (LGC) was also part and parcel to the event and we are grateful that he lent us for free. Besides, we also want to thank the assistance from Geoff Kaniuk and Colin Williams with the entry form, software, etc. Last but not least, we acknowledge Go Magic, SmartGo and Awesome Baduk for sponsoring the tournament.

Many participants told us they enjoyed the tournament and we look forward to another encounter next year and hopefully more players can join us.