British representative Bruno Poltronieri 4d secured an excellent 7th place finish at the 46th World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC), held in Mungyeong, South Korea from 6-13 September.

Competing against representatives from 52 nations over eight rounds, Bruno finished with an impressive 6–2 record. His campaign featured victories over 5 dan players from France and Ukraine, only losing games to a 5 dan from Poland and a 6 dan from Singapore. This result marks the first top 10 finish at WAGC by a British player in 34 years—since Matthew Macfadyen’s 5th place in 1992.

The Spring 2026 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read in the Members' Area, with printed copies being sent out to those that receive them.

After finishing second in League B (behind the Netherlands) the UK team had to play a promotion match against the team second bottom in League A. At one point it was expected this would be Hungary, but Israel ended in the ninth slot on tie-break. Italy was bottom and automatically relegated. Israel fielded a strong team and only Damen Woo, playing on board one, managed to win for the UK, so the match was lost 1-4 and the UK remain in League B next season.

League Page with game records

In the last round of the Pandanet Go European Team Championship the UK managed to beat Finland and hold onto the second place in the B League. Unfortunately Michael Chang forgot that his game was an early start and it was forfeited to Olli Ervelä. However the other three UK players won by resignation to take the match 3-1. This means the UK will have to play Israel in a play-off to gain promotion to the A League.

The Candidates' and Aspirants' tournaments were once again held over the Early May Bank Holiday weekend, this time in two bright, spacious rooms at the University of Warwick, kindly arranged by the university's Go society.

The British Go Congress returned to Cambridge this year, hosted in the spacious School Hall of the Stephen Perse Foundation Senior School. 66 players competed in the British Open, with a further 7 joining for the Lightning only, making this one of the largest Congresses in recent years.

The eighth match of the B-League season, on 14th April, was against our old friends and league rivals Ireland. Gavin Rooney was expected to play board three for Ireland, but in the end James Hutchinson had to move up a board with John Courtney playing board 4, Karl Irwin and Philippe Renaut on boards 1 and 2. The UK team fielded its strongest team to try and cement our second place; this tactic worked as Damon Woo, Michael Cheung, Bruno Poltronieri and Jake Game all won by resignation.

The Winter 2025-2026 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read in the Members' Area, with printed copies being sent out to those that receive them.

The top seven places at the Trigantius all went to Chinese players, five of them starting above the 5-dan bar. With none of these on three wins, Yuanzhen Li, an MSc student at University College London, won with two wins and best SoS tiebreak. He is pictured below with the trophy.