BGA Newsletter 285 December 2021

FROM THE EDITOR

Contributions are always welcome, both from our members and others. We ask that they be Go-related and "newsy". The place for debate and general discussion is the BGA open mailing list Gotalk. However, an introduction to a new topic is fine in the Newsletter. A brief introduction to Gotalk, with a link for joining, is on the BGA page Go on the Internet.

Instructions for Contributors: Please use plain text not file-attachments. Keep it fairly brief, and give web-links and contact details. It's good to include pictures. If they are on the internet, send me the URL, otherwise attach the picture files to your email. Send your contribution to newsletter@britgo.org to arrive by the first day of the month.

Jil Segerman

NEWS

The full set of recent news items, including further details of some of the items shown here, are on our News Pages.

Pandanet Go European Team Championship 2021/2022

In this, the 12th season of a team competition sponsored by Pandanet (IGS) and played on-line, the UK drew the second match, against Turkey - details here. Next match is against Switzerland on 14th December.

British Championship Title Match

On Saturday 27 November at a private address in Cambridge, Daniel Hu and Bruno Poltronieri played off for the 2021 British Championship. The match was broadcast on KGS from 10:30. The game ended with Daniel ahead by 7.5 points to become British Champion for the second time, the previous time being in 2017 - details here.

British Youth Go Championships

This year the British Youth Go Championship returned to be played over the board and was held in Leicester, on 20th November. 40 youngsters turned up with grades from beginner through to 1kyu, though at least one player had a Hong Kong dan grade.

As usual the players battled over five rounds. Clear winner turned out to be Scott Cobbold from London, who won all five games including beating London's Gene Wong in the final. He is shown here (left) playing Sam Barnett. Alvina Kwok, one of the new players, was the Top Girl.

Section Winners (runners-up) are: U18: Robbie James (-), U16: Scott Cobbold (Sam Barnett), U14: Alvina Kwok (Lea Wong), U12: Gene Wong (Daniel Yang), U10: Lukasz Kudla (Emily Gan), U8: Rachel Chik (Yiliang Liu)

ADMIN

AGM 2022

In the November Council meeting, the following were agreed:
* For 2022, and into the future, the BGA AGM will continue to be held online via ZOOM.
* As a result the AGM will be held separately to the British Congress.
The reason for this was primarily to provide the maximum possible access to the AGM for all our members, not just those who are able to attend the Congress in a particular year. A useful side-effect will be to free up valuable time during the Congress, during which we hope to run some other form of Go-related event to add value to attending the Congress.

Tentatively the 2022 AGM is planned for May, with the final date to be agreed.

EVENTS COMING SOON

Guidance due to the risk of infection with Covid-19 continues. Anyone thinking of planning a face-to-face event should think carefully about whether social distancing and related guidance in their part of the UK can be fully met. Tournament organisers will be responsible for safety and legal compliance with such guidance. For further details of events see https://britgo.org/tournaments.

December: London Open

Later

March 2022: Confucius Dublin, (provisional); Trigantius, Cambridge
April 2022: British Congress (provisional)
June 2022: Cheltenham (provisional); Welsh Open
July 2022: European Go Congress Romania