"New" Venue Popular for Welsh Open

On 24-25 June, the switch back to Barmouth's Dragon Theatre proved popular with the 30 attendees, who took advantage of a rare whole-weekend tournament on the BGA calendar. The theatre was the tournament's very first venue in the seaside town, back in 1993. It felt good for the event to be supporting a fine, renovated community amenity, for this 29th edition.

The weather was mixed, but there were chances to climb the cliffs for views of the town, its wide bay and the start of Snowdonia national park's scenic mountainous region.

It was great to see old faces and new, with strong support - e.g. players from Lancaster (4), Chester (4), Bristol (3), Manchester (3), Letchworth (2), Wanstead (2) and the daring dozen representing their clubs alone.

Wanstead boasted the £50 winner for the weekend, in Alistair Wall - one of 4 Dan players and victorious also in 2014 - who was presented with the Brian Timmins Plaque award. Richard Hunter (2012) and Alison Bexfield (2018) await their 2nd win! Alistair and Toby Manning (Leicester) both won 5 of their 6 games, but Toby settled for 2nd prize, on the SOS and Sosos tie-breaks. Beating Alistair, but in 3rd place, was Carl Roll (1k, Nottingham).

The prize for 5 wins out of 6 went to Bjorn Eurenius (4k, Lancaster). Nobody won 4.5 games,

Pleasingly, nobody failed to win a game - not even the 'youngest (8) and weakest (18k)', Clinton Yu (Manchester). We look forward to welcoming many of the 30 at the same venue in 2024, but a week later, so 29+30 June.

The organisers - Martin & Helen Harvey - thanked various people - including Pat & Isobel Ridley for transporting the Go equipment there & back.

Photos: Alistair Wall, Toby Manning and Bjorn Eurenius with co-organiser Martin Harvey.

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