Go in Britain 2021

Summary

2021 was a year of waiting for the situation to improve so physical events could start again, which they did, to a limited extent, in the autumn. However some successful tournaments were held online in the meantime, including a BGA Online Congress. Highlight of the year was the London Go Centre opening again, now as part of the new London MindSports Centre in West London.

Tournaments

The first online event of the year was a fortnight-long BGA Online Congress starting at the end of February. Haohan Wu of Germany won the Open with a perfect six wins. Next placed of the 227 competitors were Hiroki Kanno of Hong Kong and Zherui Xu of Cambridge. In the Small Board Handicap Matthew Frye (Czechia) beat Jan Balas (UK) in the final. The Rengo was won by Sylvain Ravera and Marta Miksa, and there was also a Youth Tournament won by Sawaree Phanthasen (Thailand).

Durham also took their event online with 69 players and the winner was Leo Kai Mei (UK) on tie-break from Mani Sanford (US).

The Mind Sports Olympiad stayed online in August. Hiroki Kanno remarkably took gold in the 9x9, the 13x13 and the Open. Noteworthy was junior player Sam Barnett taking silver in the 40-player Open.

To celebrate the return to on-the-board events, the delayed British Go Congress was held at a hotel in Leicester in September. Gong Cheng won the Lightning and Yaoling Yang of Bristol was the winner of the British Open. 33 players took part.

Other on-the-board events in the autumn were the Wessex won by Yaoling Yang, T Mark Hall Rapid also won by Yaoling Yang, Bar Low won by Scott Cobbold and Coventry won by Alistair Wall. The T Mark Hall Rapid and the Bar Low were the first events held at the new London Go Centre. In Ireland a tournament was held in Dublin at the end of October (won by Xinqun Lu) and the Ulster Open was won by Tom Coulthard.

The London Go Centre was able to run the London Open at its normal end of year slot, but with a reduced number of players. Best of the 37 players was Yaoling Yang who was unbeaten.

Youth Events

Activities for junior players continued at a high level in 2021. As well as the Online Congress tournament, there was a 13x13 handicap in February won by Alexander Timperi, an April Handicap won by Derek Duan, a May tournament won by Claire Chen and a June tournament won by Sam Barnett. The UK Go Challenge Finals were also online in July, won by Chen Qin. The last online tournament was the Youth Squad selection tournament in October won by Alain Cheung.

It was again possible to run the Youth Camp in August, with Scott Cobbold winning the tournament thereat, and the British Youth Go Championships was run in Leicester in November, also won by Scott Cobbold. The Youth Grand Prix for the year was won by Andrew Volovich (with 1322 points); he also won the Double Digit Kyu Grand Prix.

Online our youth team ended the 2020-2021 European Youth Go Team Championship by beating Turkey and Ukraine to end a remarkable second behind Russia. They started the 2021-2022 season by losing to France but beating Hungary.

The SuperGo match against Hong Kong was lost on the last game and then a league with Chinese players started, with our Sam Barnett and their Li Yuze both ending with ten points. The trial edition of the European Youth Team League saw London losing the final to Frankfurt, but in the first Euro City Youth League London 1 got revenge by beating Wuppertal to take the title.

International

The Korea Prime Minster Cup was played online with Dylan Carter representing the UK, whilst the World Amateur was a hybrid event, with our player, Alex Kent, playing online rather than in Vladivostok. The UK hosted the European Women’s online too, rather than in London, with Dina Burdakova of Russia winning.

Our team in the Pandanet Go European Team Championship ended 2020-2021 by losing to Netherlands, Croatia, Germany and Finland, beating Turkey and drawing with Italy to end in fifth place. Staying in the B-League for 2021-2022, the team had a poor start ending the year just above bottom place.