The online youth event for July, held on the afternoon of Sunday 4th July on OGS, was the finals of the 2020-2021 UK Go Challenge. 32 young players battled over six rounds on 13x13 boards. This time the winner was Chen Qin from Nottingham who was also top girl. Second equal were Scott Cobbold and Alexander Timperi, both from London, on sos tie-break from Daniel Yang from Birmingham and Jan Kudla from Edinburgh. Results

The age group categories were determined by a knockout system. There were prize vouchers and certificates for winners.

After cancelling the 2020 Durham Go Tournament, we were keen to run a tournament this year, reports Andrew Ambrose-Thurman, and the only way to do this safely was to take it online.

We weren't expecting huge numbers, but were quite pleased with the numbers a few days before. Then someone helpfully - without us knowing - advertised it with a banner on OGS, and numbers went up by 50% overnight. On the morning of the tournament we had 90 people registered, of whom 70 actually played (around 50 per round, with some people only playing certain rounds due to their timezone). We'd expected most of the entrants to be from the UK, but people played from 20 countries - including places as far afield as America, China, Russia, Finland and Syria. Some of the players were staying up late at night to finish their games, while others were getting up at 4am to play. We even had some people who registered thinking this was their local tournament in Durham, North Carolina.

For the final game of the season our team had to play another mid-table team, Turkey. With Des Cann dropping out of the match at short notice, captain Sandy Taylor stepped in and led the team to a three-one victory. Daniel Hu and Alison Bexfield were the other winners. This left the team in fifth position in the B-League after Germany beat top team Netherlands to stay in fourth. Italy was the runner up and Finland was third.

League Page with game records

Daniel Hu wrote of his game against Kaan Malçok: I played solid shapes for a moyo game. My opponent made a few too many weak groups and though I spent a long time wondering if I was able to kill their big group that invaded my area, I decided it didn't work due to a shortage of liberties on the lower side. Still, I could attack by using some driving tesujis.

The team from London did very well in the prototype European Youth Team League which featured teams from the UK and Germany. Games were played on OGS and each fixture had a round of handicap games followed by a round of even games, all on 13x13. London had beaten Cheadle Hulme A and Düsseldorf to meet Frankfurt in the final on 15th May.

In the match the first round ended 2-1 to the Germans, and the second round had the same score, meaning Frankfurt were winners 4-2. For London, Scott Cobbold won his handicap game and Gene Wong won his even game. Lea Wong narrowly lost both her games.

Event Details

The minutes of the recent 2021 AGM are now available to members, and can be found in the members area of the website at

www.britgo.org/history/accounts

ADDENDUM: Please notify any errors or omissions to secretary@britgo.org

The minutes of the recent 2021 AGM are now available to members, and can be found in the members area of the website at

www.britgo.org/history/accounts

The spring 2021 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read in the Members' Area, with printed copies being sent out later in the month.

For the second match in a row in the B-League, Alison Bexfield was the team's star player, with the only win. Finland thus won the match three games to one. Germany won their match which moved the team down to fifth position, with just one match to go.

League Page with game records

Alex Kent wrote of his game against Javier-Aleksi Savolainen: I lost my game by resignation. The opening had an interesting bit of symmetry on the bottom side which meant it was miai to lean on the each of our 3-4 stones. I gave my opponent too much scope to lean on (and potentially separate) the top side, so I fell a bit behind. My assessment was that I was nearly alive in the centre so my opponent's wall wasn't worth as much, but this proved to be inaccurate! I should probably have tried to treat my central stones more lightly.

A reminder that the AGM will this year be held on ZOOM on Friday 7th May at 20:00.

Any proxy votes must be set up in advance by sending an e-mail to secretary@britgo.org, arriving no later than the end of Wednesday 5th May, containing your name and address, who will be your proxy, and if you wish (this is optional) how you want them to vote.

The ZOOM meeting link has been added to the member's area of the website at https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews - you will need to be logged in to the site to access it.

The deadline for nominations has now passed, however as explained below nominations for Council will still be accepted at the AGM. Officers nominated unopposed, and hence appointed for another year are:

President - Toby Manning
Treasurer - Richard Wheeldon
Secretary - Colin Williams

Nominated to be Council Members are:

Andrew Ambrose-Thurman, Gerry Gavigan, Matt Marsh, Peter Rootham-Smith

As there is still one Council vacancy, according to our constitution extra nominations for Council members can be accepted at the AGM itself. Any such nomination will need two supporters.

Details of the ZOOM meeting will be posted to the member’s area of the website, and circulated by a news item such as this a day or so before the event.