After a three year break of holding the title, Alex Kent won the Wessex title at the annual tournament at St Mark's Community Centre in Bath by beating Alistair Wall in the last round. Alex is pictured right, being congratulated by organiser Ian Sharpe, before receiving the trophy.

The drawmaster, David King, was pleased at an increase in numbers to 38 players and there were enough doughnuts to go round. Of those players, those winning a trophy and cash prize for three wins were Alan Thornton (1k St Albans), Helen Harvey (3k Manchester), young George Han (5k) and Malcolm Walker (6k).

Results

The UK team kept their unbeaten record in the Pandanet B League by beating Turkey 3-1.

Chris Bryant was first to finish; he said: Got off to a good opening, tried to build up a big moyo and was allowed to do so. My opponent got a group cut off, which I then harassed to turn that moyo mostly into territory, and it was a very comfortable game from there.

Jon Diamond played a very entertaining game and said: Got off not too badly, but then he pressed a bit too much and I counter-cut creating a weak group of his in the centre, but with one of mine not quite having 2 eyes and another floating a bit, I needed to be careful. (His corner has group looks OK and he has to leave his weak group to try and capture my other one. No go there, but he squeezes out along the side and lives in my corner - damn.

OK, now need to surround his one eyed group in the centre - I’m not sure I can kill it, but will make a big territory anyway.

The second Sheffield Go Tournament, though not as well attended as the first, was still very successful, which meant they could again make modest cash prizes to the winner and runner-up. The winner was Xinyi ‘Sugar’ Liu (3d); she is pictured receiving first prize from organiser Bob Scantlebury. The runner up was Alistair Wall (2d). On three wins were youth players Edmund Smith (7k) and Daniel Gascoyne (17k), and also Michael Kyle (9k) and David Wildgoose (10k). Two youth players were also awarded prizes for two wins, namely Tom Bradbury (14k) and Lily Danson (15k). Matthew Jackson (37k) won a special prize for entering his first ever tournament, and Zaki Betesh (4k) won the Fighting Spirit prize.

The T Mark Hall Foundation, which was set up to administer a large legacy from T Mark Hall, is pleased to support "Sugar and Dice", a Liverpool Games café and location of the new Liverpool Go Club.

The organisers/owners of the café were looking for £12,000 via crowdfunding to improve the premises with LED (instead of fluorescent tube) lighting, better kitchen equipment, etc. and they achieved their target on September 25. The Foundation contributed £1,800.

Sugar and Dice will be offering Liverpool Go Club and British Go Association members free gaming sessions for playing Go at Sugar and Dice for 3 months from their opening; please see their web-site (www.sugaranddice.co.uk) for more details.

The Swindon tournament was back after a one-year break, with different premises and alternative day (Saturday). The new venue was the Swindon Conservative Club, situated in the old town, with its own free parking. Nearby is the town's museum, which provided an interesting distraction for some.

The winner was Alistair Wall (2d Wanstead), who beat Ngoc-Trang Cao in the final. Prizes were given for three wins to George Han (18k No Club) and for 2½ wins to Paul Barnard (2k Swindon).

We were drawn against Belgium in our first match of the new season of the Pandanet Go European Team Championship B League. We won the match 3-1.

Chris Bryant said: My game went pretty smoothly - played unorthodox fuseki to make my opponent uncomfortable and built up a massive centre. Made a couple of silly reading mistakes but kept enough to win by 1.5.

Des Cann wrote: Not happy with my game. Played a bit vague in the early middle game and soon found myself forced to defend where I was attacking. Never recovered.

Daniel Hu wrote: My opponent played some solid joseki. I didn’t bother to invade. Then a few more of that most basic 4-4 joseki. He entered my side, but I just made good shape and didn’t bother to attack, and he built up his side. I was behind before the endgame, which already started at move 89, but he let me get the largest move (115) and I repeatedly gained those 1-2 points as he got into byo-yomi early. I won by 4.5 and still had 5 minutes left.

The Cornwall Tournaments were held, as last year, in The Lugger on Penzance's seafront. This time the weather was good enough to sit outside between games, as long as you did not mind the odd sea breeze. The Saturday started with the traditional teaching session led by Toby Manning and Tony Atkins, on subjects such as the middle game and basic life-and-death shapes.

The afternoon of the Saturday was the Cornish Lightning Handicap Tournament, with neatly 16 players taking part. The player who came out unbeaten, despite the grade-difference-plus-two handicap, was Tony Atkins (1k Reading). He beat Peter Collins (4k Bristol) in the final.

Results

18 players took part in the Cornish Open on the Sunday.

The Northern - held annually since 1975 - stepped back to its educational roots this year, with a new venue at Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) in Cheshire. The very attractive and spacious venue attracted 37 competitors (23% up on last year). Most encouragingly, 11 competitors were youngsters.

The winner was Xinyi "Sugar" Liu; she is a 3 dan from China studying in Manchester. She won a cash prize and the Red Rose Trophy, seen receiving it from organiser Chris Kirkham (with CHS' Head of Physics - Mike Winslow behind).

Baoliang Zhang, 1 kyu from Manchester, was runner-up.

The 20th Mind Sports Olympiad was held, like the previous two editions, at the JW3 centre in London's NW3 district. As usual hundreds of games enthusiasts came together to compete for medals in many different games, both ancient and modern, unusual and traditional, including Go. This year the Go prize money was increased, thanks to support of the MSO by Google DeepMind and other sponsors. This meant big increases in turnout for the Go events, and it was also good to see that about half the players were women and children. The two small-board Go events were played on Sunday 28th August, and the Open on Bank Holiday Monday, 29th August.

The 9x9 had a pleasing 17 players. Michael Webster was unbeaten to take the gold and the sixty pound first prize.

Fortunately Southern trains were working properly so the Londoners arrived without mishap, and, despite a few withdrawals for illness and the like, 20 players made it to Sussex for the 2016 Arundel Tournament. Any non-playing partners who came along could enjoy some of the cultural activities of the Arundel Festival which was on, whilst their other halves sweated over the Go board.

The tournament was won by the London Open winner Sai Sun, 5d, who had flown in from Beijing a few days earlier and is pictured with the Arundel Trophy. The runner up was Romania's Lucretiu Calota, 4d, from St Albans club. Other prizewinners were Jil Segerman with 3 wins, and Peter Collins, Malcolm Hagan and Steve Bailey who all won their first two games.