Toby Manning, 2d, won the Cornish Open by beating Tony Atkins in the final. David Cantrell, 6k, from London won 3/3. The previous day there was a teaching session run by Ian Marsh, Toby Manning and Tony Atkins, and in the afternoon there was the handicap tournament won by Peter Harold-Barry, 5k, from St Albans. He beat local player Paul Massey, 1k, in the final. 20 players in all took part.

Open Results and Lightning Handicap Results

2011 winner Richard Moulds, 3k from Manchester, was again the winner in 2012, winning all 3 games. There were 20 players in total at the one day tournament in sunny, dry Stockport. Other winners, also with 3 wins, were Brian Timmins, 9k from Shrewsbury, and Kathleen Timmins, 14k from Shrewsbury.

Results

Congratulations to Vanessa on her latest win, in Brno, Czech Republic!

Alison Bexfield reports that Vanessa won all five of her games and will now receive a place at the 2nd SportAccord World Mind Games in Beijing in December. It was a "great venue beside a lake."

Second was Rita Pocsai from Hungary and third was Natalia Kovaleva from Russia.

Alison finished with 2 wins from the 5 games.

Results (off-site)

For those that weren't able to observe the 1st round of the Title Match on KGS 8th September - between Nick Krempel and Andrew Kay:

Congratulations to Andrew Kay for winning the 1st round of the 3 round Title Match.

Andrew Kay took black in Nigiri, and ended up wining the game by Resignation after a dramatic fight for a collection of white stones - this was played over a 5 hour game, with approximately 120 moves played.

A live audio review took place on KGS by Alexander Dinerchtein (breakfast), and there will be an SGF review for the game + photos that will be published on the BGA site as soon as they are sent out to us (after tomorrow).

Next year's European Go Congress is to be held in Poland.

The BGA has been allocated 4 discount vouchers (100€, 50€, 2 x 25€) to be awarded to people who may wish to attend but are in a position of financial hardship.

However, if you are awarded a voucher, you need to enter the Congress by December 15 this year.

If you believe you qualify, and wish to apply for a voucher, please contact Toby Manning. All applications will be treated in confidence.

More information about the EGC is here.

Vanessa Wong has been awarded a 6 dan certificate by the BGA, following her excellent performance at the second World Mind Sports Games in Lille.

This summarises the major discussions and actions from the BGA Council meeting 14th July 2012 and preceding discussions:

At the 16th MSO in London the Go gold medals went to Francis Roads and Felix Wang.

In the 13x13 event eight players from 3d to 10k played over five rounds. Francis Roads won his first four games and, despite stumbling in the last game against Michael Dixon (10k), was the winner. Taking the silver was Spain's Paco de la Banda (3d) who also won 4 but lost to Francis. Matthew Hathrell (3k) took bronze only losing to the top 2.

The MSO Open had 16 players from 4d to 15k including a family of Germans who had arranged their holiday around the event. Clear winner with 4 wins was Felix Wang, 4d, who had won the event previously in 2009. Silver went to the best of the players on 3 wins Adan Mordcovich (1d) who lost to the winner, but had beaten Francis Roads who got the bronze. Just losing out on the tie-break for third were Alsitair Wall and Bruno Poltronieri.

Results MSO 13x13

19th August 2012 in the Online Daily Telegraph:

It is billed as the Olympics of the mind. As the world's athletes flew home from Britain last week, competitors of a different kind were gathering just across the English Channel for an international contest of their own: the World Mind Sports Games. William Langley reports from Lille on the mental battle being waged by bridge, chess and Go players from 70 nations.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9484579/Olympics-of-the-mind-Furrowed-brows-and-frenzied-thinking.html

Congratulation to Vanessa Wong on her becoming No. 1 in the UK ratings, replacing Bei Ge who overtook long-time top player Matthew Macfadyen who had a bad tournament at the London Open 2011.

Just a small caution: only the Team event of the three WMSG events Vanessa took part it has so far been included in the rating list...