Ai Guan

Ai discovered Go in 2014 while revising for exams during her second year of university. Some weeks prior, a friend had challenged her to a game of Go, a long, drawn-out affair as neither knew what "territory" meant. So during a "small study break", Ai decided to look up the rules. One thing led to another, and by the end of the exam season, she had watched all of Hikaru no Go, played a few hundred games against the Igowin bot and created an active KGS account (more "small breaks", of course).

After university, Ai moved to Lancaster to do a PhD. Keen to find a social commitment, one of the first things Ai did was to seek out the Lancaster Go Club, where she gradually improved thanks to regular games against Adrian Abrahams and Bob Bagot. Over the next few years, she became a regular haunt of the Lancaster, Manchester and Preston Go clubs—and caught the tournament bug along the way!

Ai joined the BGA Board as Tournament Coordinator in May 2024, and co-organizes the annual Lancaster tournament. She currently lives in Birmingham.

Email Ai at: tournament-chair@britgo.org