The eight-player Challengers' League has got underway at the London Go Centre. The players, selected at the Candidates' Tournament earlier in the month, are playing an all-play-all to find the two challengers to play the British title match later in the year. After the first day it was Sam Aitken and Charles Hibbert who were on two wins. On one win were Alex Rix, Andrew Simons (who lost to Charles), Boris Mitrovic and Sam Bithell. Alistair Wall and Tim Hunt were yet to score. The epic game of round 2 was Boris Mitrovic against Sam Bithell which lasted for an hour and a quarter of overtime and saw Sam (1k) beating Boris (2d). The League continues until Tuesday.

Alongside the League, the London Go Centre was organising its Not the London Open Tournament with 22 players. On the Saturday evening they showed the documentary movie "The Surrounding Game" which follows the quest for the first American Go professional.

In the ninth and last round of the season, the UK (second) beat Sweden three games to one. This left the British total at an impressive seven wins and two draws. Assuming Germany did not draw or lose to Turkey (they won four-nil), the team's next game will be a best-of-five play-off against Italy, the second-bottom team in the A League, to try for promotion on 29th May. This would have been Serbia, but the appeal against the claim of computer-assistance was in Italy's favour and their forfeits will be cancelled, moving Serbia down to bottom.

Andrew Simons wrote: For a change I finished in under two hours, winning by resignation against Martin Li 4d. The opening was Alpha/Leela Zero inspired (I've recently been studying with the Lizzie interface, highly recommended!), with a kiai-filled tenuki fest in which I ignored a double approach on my 4-4 to press and surround his group.

North-West schoolchildren lacked a local Go event for their Summer term, and thus a new Manchester Summer tournament came into fruition. This was kindly enabled by a generous offer by managers of the use of the top floor (not for the first time) of the Bank of East Asia in Chinatown. We have a local connection with them, with local club player Peter Yim being a longstanding BEA customer. Big thanks go also to Peter, for facilitating use of the venue.

On a hot, Summer's day would you ... (is there a song, there?) appreciate that great use was made of the expansive balcony space, between rounds.

On a warm Saturday, 20 players defied the clamour to watch the Royal Wedding and FA Cup Final by playing Go at the Bridge Centre in Welwyn Garden City's Gosling Stadium. Prizes were presented by Sheila Gabriel, deputy chair of the Bridge Club, as shown in the picture.

The overall winner was Min Yang (3d) from Oxford, who included Lucretiu Calota (4d) in his list of conquered. Also winning three games were Edmund Smith (5k) (Kiev-inspired?) from Cambridge, Aorja Harris (12k) from Letchworth, and Theodor Calota (16k) from St Albans.

Results

Gong Cheng (3d London City) won the Bracknell Tournament, beating Min Yang (3d Oxford) in the final (as seen in the photo). Others of the 29 players taking part in the event, held as usual at Woosehill community Centre in Wokingham, who won all three games were Neil Cleverly (10k Bournemouth) and Lueming Yang (16k Oxford). The Team prize was won by the youngsters of "I like lunch" and Paul Barnard was the winner of the puzzle competition. Organiser Ian Marsh claimed to be the winner in the 13x13 side event as nobody played in it.

Results

Across the May Day bank holiday weekend, the London Go Centre was host to the first round of the competition to see who gets to be British Go Champion, but more importantly on the Sunday we held the 21st Bar Low tournament, reports Gerry Gavigan.

For new readers, the tournament is an opportunity for kyu players to enjoy a competition they stand a chance of winning and to start an EGF rating. For the Bar Low, successfully meeting its objectives can be judged by the number of newcomers and the number of double digit kyu (DDK) players who enter. This year we had 29 entries ranging from 1 kyu to 24 kyu and 16 were DDK, with six newcomers.

It is a five-round class C tournament, with 25 minutes main time and Canadian overtime.

The Candidates' Tournament took place at the London Go Centre, with 18 players taking part in the usual six round Swiss-style tournament over the three days of the bank holiday weekend. Sam Aitken and Boris Mitrovic headed the field with five wins each. They are promoted through to Challengers' League, along with Andrew Simons, Charles Hibbert, Alex Rix, Alistair Wall and Tim Hunt, who won four, and Sam Bithell, who topped the list on three.

Note that eight players are promoted through to Challengers' League this year since Daniel Hu, who was in Japan at the time for the World Amateur, has elected not to defend his title and take up his place in the League.

Chan Yi-Tien of Chinese Taipei was unbeaten to win the 39th World Amateur Go Championships held at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo. Kim Sangcheon of Korea was second with seven wins. The next group all had six wins: Wang of China, Frejlak of Poland, Murakami of Japan, Kuronen of Finland, Dusan Mitic of Serbia and Islas of Mexico.

The UK's representative, British Champion Daniel Hu, ended on four wins and in 26th place of 61. In the last four rounds he beat Frank Hestvik from Norway, lost to Juri Kuronen, beat Willem Pomstra of the Netherlands and lost to Wichrich Karuehawanit of Thailand.

Ireland's Michael Thai ended with three wins in 48th. In the final rounds he beat Azerbaijan, lost to Portugal and Brazil, but beat Chile.

Results Ranka Reports, including interviews

After a few years in other countries, the World Amateur Go Championships has returned to Japan. The 39th edition has the restaurant review website Gurunami as its sponsor and is being held at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo. 61 players from around the world are taking part.

As expected after four rounds it is the big four that are unbeaten: Japan, China, Korea and Chinese Taipei. Several of the top European players are on three wins.

The UK's representative is British Champion Daniel Hu. After four out of eight rounds he has two wins and is in 26th place. He lost to Dmitry Surin of Russia, beat Jose Islas of Mexico and Stjepan Mestrovic of Croatia, and lost to Stanislaw Frejlak of Poland. He next plays the player from Norway.

Ireland's Michael Thai is on one win, having beaten Theodor Nedev of Bulgaria, but lost to the players from Denmark, Indonesia and Croatia.

The Spring 2018 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.