Congratulations to Martha McGill on becoming the 200th player to be awarded a dan certificate by the BGA!

Congratulations also to Dylan Carter for becoming the 201st.

See our Dans list for a full list of all dan players with certificates awarded by us.

David Lee has become Scottish Champion for the third year running, beating Matt Crosby in the final. The games were played on KGS on the 7th and 21st November.

In the semi-finals, David defeated Boris Mitrovic while Matt defeated Martha McGill.

43 players took part in the Coventry Tournament at Warwick University. Winner was Andrew Simons (3d) who beat Siu Fung Cheung (4d) from Bournemouth in the final. In third was Francis Roads (1d Wanstead) on 3/3. Also winning all three were James Brownrigg (5k Chester), Thomas Streamer (7k Northampton), Oscar Selby (14 kyu Epsom) and Paul Heeney (18k).

Results

From the 16th-18th November, fourteen of the UK's strongest players gathered together for a training event at Kirsty Healey and Matthew Macfadyen's house in Barford, Warwickshire. The format was similar to previous years, with the participants being split into two groups according to rating. One group played games while the other had their games reviewed. Later there was a chance to mix, with a match taking place between the two groups on Saturday evening.

Fantastic teaching was provided by the indefatigable Guo Juan, who gave four lectures and reviewed some fifty-six games over the course of the weekend. Kirsty and Nick Wedd proved excellent chefs, with meals being eaten on-site so as not to spend any time away from the Go boards.

Many thanks to Kirsty, Matthew and Nick for hosting, cooking and giving lifts (in various combinations). Of course, thanks are also due to Guo Juan: her teaching was inspiring as ever.

Despite the first appearance by Vanessa Wong on top board for our team our poor start to the season continues and we're now in the Relegation Zone for the first time.

We had another loss to the Swiss, with Bei Ge managing our solitary win by a substantial margin. Vanessa had much technical trouble starting her game (getting to grips with Pandanet for the first time can be tricky), with her playing White when it should have been Black, and lost by resignation.

A veil should be drawn over the other two games...

Full season results

Matthew Cocke won a three way tie at the Three Peaks. Andrew Simons and Richard Hunter were the two losing out by SOS when three top players ended on four wins. Also on 4 wins were Roger Huyshe (3k), Mike Cumpsty (3k), Dave Crabtree (8k) and Brian Timmins (9k). 42 players took part in the event, held as previously at the Commodore Inn in Grange-over-Sands.

Results

Our second match of the season was against Denmark and ended in a 2-2 draw.

On board 1 Chong Han's game soon plunged into a fight when he pushed into the centre, presumably expecting his opponent to block before connecting on the edge, but Jannik Rasmussen resisted and disconnected the groups. The ensuing fight spread across the board and although all the groups survived Chong didn't have enough territory and resigned.

Jon Diamond also lost on board 2 against Uffe Rasmussen. He meant to play 131 at 132, but something happened in the client software when he played his move. He thought it was played (with 2 presses), but apparently it didn't take in some fashion and then played at a different point.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 31st October, a match took place on KGS between a team of French and a team of British youth players. The French fielded a team of eight. The British team originally consisted of four players, each set to play two games: Henry Clay (1k), Melchior Chui (12k), Peran Truscott (13k) and Oscar Selby (14k).

In the event, Peran's computer and KGS took against each other, meaning that he was not able to join us. Heavy snow also made for a rocky start, delaying the French players (who were travelling from a youth camp to a college in Grenoble for the match). The French finally defeated the elements, and to avoid disappointing two of their players, Oscar Selby went above and beyond the call of duty. He played both boards three and four, for a total of four consecutive games - and he still managed to finish before anybody else!

Round one was played even, and round two at handicap -1.

Toby Manning was our representative at the Korean Prime Minister's Cup this year. On day the first day he easily defeated the Korean "ghost", followed this with by a narrow loss (9.5 points) to Thailand and managed a close victory (1.5 points) against Denmark. On the second day he lost to New Zealand (by 1 liberty) and to Vietnam (4 1/2 points), and beat Norway, ending up with 3 out of 6.

James Hutchinson of Belfast, but playing for Ireland, also got 3 out of 6, beating Cyprus, Ecuador and Chile, and losing to France, Lithuania and Colombia.

The competition was won by Korea.

Results

Richard Hunter was the winner of this year's Wessex Tournament. He beat Sandy Taylor in the last round to collect the trophy and one of the bottles of wine donated by Bob Hitchens. Also winning three and being similarly rewarded were Dylan Carter and young Oscar Selby.

Results