First Harpenden Won by Chao Zhang

When the Welwyn Garden City Tournament found that the sports centre housing their Bridge Club venue was closing, the organiser, John Collins, had to move the event to the Sunday and to the new venue of the Harpenden Arms, in the High Street of the nearby town. This is also the venue of the new Harpenden Go Club, so it was in fact a good way to promote that too.

It was a bright sunny spring morning, good for travelling by road, but unfortunately a power failure on the railway meant no Thameslink trains at all from London that morning. This lead to a lower than expected attendance of 28, with several withdrawals, but several of the local juniors amongst the number.

No one won all three games, but the overall winner was Chao Zhang (6d London) who is shown in the picture taking the main prize from co-organiser Pierre Oliviere. There were 14 other winners of two games and the remaining prizes were given to those amongst them who had not gone home by the time of the prize-giving. A consolation prize was also given to Portugal's Ines Menezes (12K St Albans) who lost all her games (in one case because she had unfortunately not set the warning bleep on the digital clock).

Results