In the European Youth Go Team Championship, our UK youth team won 4-1 against Ukraine.

George Han played his game early and beat Mariia Chernova by 6.5. On the day of the match, Daniel Chun Yang lost to Vsevolod Ovsiienko but Jacob Zhang beat Valerii Krushelnytskyi, both by resignation against higher-graded dan players. Lea Wong won her game against Bohuslav Onyshchuk by 24.5 to ensure the match was won. Sam Barnett rounded off the match on the following Tuesday by beating Olesia Malko by 23.5.

This meant the UK took second place overall, the first time we had been in the top three. Russia beat Czechia in the last round and, as predicted, took first place (having won the event for six of its seven-year history). Romania beat Hungary and took third place.

Team manager Alison Bexfield said: "I am really pleased that all of our team were able to play in at least one of our four matches.

A late change on each team meant it was going to be close against Croatia in the fifth match of the season. In the end the UK lost three games to one, with Des Cann taking the only win. At the top of the B-League Italy drew and Netherlands won to equal Italy on match points. The UK stayed third, just ahead of Finland on board points tie-break.

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Alex Kent wrote: I lost by 2.5 points to Matej Zakanj (komi was applied retroactively as it was set incorrectly). The opening seemed very balanced - I played a slightly dodgy sequence in the lower left corner but this ended up working in the board position. We ended up with a situation where we each had a large framework in addition to some smaller territories. We traded moves for a while prodding each other's moyos before I messed up a bit and sacrificed a number of stones which I probably could have done more with.

The Winter 2020-21 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.

The UK lost three games to one in their fourth match of the season. A strong Netherlands team meant this result was likely and only Daniel Hu, on board one, managed a win. As Italy beat Turkey they moved top of the B-League, whilst the UK slipped to third behind Netherlands on board points tie-break.

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Daniel Hu wrote about the longest game of the evening: I won by resignation playing white against Geert Groenen. We started off with a 3-3 MYT flying dagger joseki, that I knew the variations for, knowing I had a severe cut. I think it's meant to be a good result for me. However, my opponent worked hard to attack that cutting group and I prematurely counterattacked seeing my opponent's shape was so bad on the right. I was just unable to capture the cutting stones and so my own group was attacked with Black profiting by capturing most of the lower side.

Alison Bexfield writes:

In the European Youth Go Team Championship, our UK youth team won 5-0 against Turkey.

Having narrowly lost to Romania in round 2 we were facing a relatively inexperienced team from Turkey. This gave us the chance to offer a game to those members in the squad who had not played in the first two rounds.

Even though on paper we comfortably outranked our opponents on every board, the lack of over the board rated games during lockdown means that the stated grades do not always reflect reality for rapidly improving young players and so we could not be complacent.

However, our team of Jayden Ng (Under 20), Edmund Smith (Under 16), Lea Wong (Under 16 - actually under 12, but was playing up), Yanyi Xiong and Alexander Timperi (both Under 12) all played solidly to deliver a 5-0 win for the UK.

There is one round remaining in the tournament.

In the third round of the B-League for 2020-2021 the UK played and beat Switzerland. There was a big gap in time between Jon Diamond's win and that of Daniel Hu, with that last game lasting not much short of three hours when the opponent's cuckoo clock reminded him it was bed time and he resigned. This kept the UK team in top position, with Italy beating Finland to move up to second place, a point behind UK.

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Daniel Hu wrote: I won by resignation against John Walch. This was the last game to finish, with plenty of tiring calculations.

My opponent made a mistake in the upper left 3-3 invasion fight, losing 2 cutting stones early on after which the game was easier for me. He set up several weak groups over the board which all managed to live (though I kept wondering if the upper right was a ko, but didn't try it as I felt I was ahead). There were many kos into the endgame.

The 2020 British Youth Go Championship (BYGC) featured 36 competitors, aged from 7 to 17. It was held over six rounds in the BGA Youth Group on OGS. The youth champions title stayed at Cheadle Hulme School, as did the Castledine Trophy for the best team, when Sam Barnett won all six games to take the title. Edinburgh's James Gillespie's Primary School was the top junior school. Section winners (runners-up) and other notable results are shown below. Results

U18: Jayden Ng (Yuji Chen)
U16: Scott Cobbold (Edmund Smith)
U14: Sam Barnett (Oliver Bardsley)
U12: Daniel Yang (Isabella Qiu)
U10: Alexander Timperi (Andrew Volovich)
U8: Ryan Zhang (Lukasz Kudla)

Youth Champion: Sam Barnett (Ryan Zhang, Jayden Ng/Scott Cobbold)
Top Open Section Player: Yuji Chen (Isabella Qiu).

Winners of five games: Rohan Neelala, Julia Volovich, Odysseas Jones-Roumeliotis, Caleb Monk.

Alison writes: I am playing in the World Amateur Women's Go Championship. There are 33 players from 33 countries taking part. The top seeds from China, Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) do not need to play preliminary rounds. All other countries have been put in four geographical groups to play knock out preliminary rounds. I am in the European group and there are four places available in the preliminary rounds from 15 countries.

The tournament is played with fast time limits (even for me). It comprise no basic time but byoyomi of ten lots of 30 seconds. So not much scope for lengthy thinking on any single move.

It is also being played on the wbaduk server. It was a good thing I did some practice on this in advance of the match. It is actually quite nice to play on, but working out how to join it in the first place and then how to set a game with the right settings was quite difficult.

My first opponent was Viktoriia Symonenko from the Ukraine.

In the second match of the new season in the B-League, the UK played and beat Sweden by three games to one. It was a long evening for the spectators as the top board was scheduled one hour after the others and that game lasted three hours.

Previous league leaders Germany lost four-nil to Italy (including two no-shows) and so the UK moved up to first place, the only team to win both matches so far.

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Daniel Hu wrote: I had a toughish game against Charlie Åkerblom, spending too much time thinking in the opening and not with a great result. I tried playing a bit more solidly with my shape. My opponent made a largish moyo but I got out with weak group one into the centre in sente and invaded with a ladder breaker. My opponent capped, letting me pull out the ladder stone and attack the weaknesses on both sides.

The Autumn 2020 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.