On the last day of play at the World Mind Sports Games the finals and play-offs were staggered so you could watch more than one on Pandanet and EuroGoTV and so that some of the winners could catch evening flights.

The first event to end was the Pair Go. Already Chinese Taipei had stopped Russia from taking the third place, but a very interesting and hard-fought battle ensued to see if Japan could stop their other pair from getting the gold. Eventually the game ended up tied on the board with Japan winning by komi.

Gold : Japan Maya Osawa/Riki Nakasone

Silver: Chinese Taipei Lin Hsiao /Hung Hsin Wei

Bronze: Chinese Taipei Lu Yu-Hua /Lai Yu Cheng

In the Youth, Zhoa Jia Rui from Hong Kong was forced to settle for fourth place, meaning Chinese Taipei would win all three medals again.

In the Youth, Tian Ren Chen won a third game by beating a French 3d. Henry Clay lost to a Brazilian 1d to end on 2 wins. Vanessa Wong lost to a Japanese 6d to end on 2 wins and 23rd place.

Three players form Chinese Taipei and one from Hong Kong qualified for the semi-finals. Tsai Cheng-Wei beat Hong Kong's Zhao Jia Rui and Kuo Nai-Fu beat Hsu Hao-Hung.

In the Pair Go, Martha McGill and Matthew Crosby lost to the pair from Macau to end 7th in Group A with 2 wins. In their 5th round game Alison and Simon Bexfield were due to play the Brazilian pair, but ended up playing and beating a reserve pair from Austria/Germany after the Brazilians withdrew because of illness. This gave Alison and Simon 2 wins and 8th place in Group B.

In first semi-final, Russia's Natalia Kovaleva and Dmitriy Surin lost to Lin Hsiao-Tung and Hung Hsin-Wei of Chinese Taipei. In the other Japan's Osawa Maya and Nakasone Riki beat Lu Yu-Hua and Lai Yu-Cheng from Chinese Taipei.

With one round left to go Chinese Taipei were dominating the top of both the Youth and The Pair Go tournaments.

In the Pairs, Martha McGill and Matthew Crosby picked up a second win beating a Romanian pair, whilst Alison and Simon Bexfield remained on 1 win.

In the Youth, all the UK players moved on to 2 wins, despite Henry and Tian Ren having to play each other (Henry won) and Vanessa getting tough opponents (she lost to a 5d from Macau and beat a 5d from Hong Kong).

The 42 player Youth Tournament and the 20 team Pair Go Tournament got underway at the WMSG in Lille.

In the Youth, the UK players (Vanessa Wong, Henry Clay and Tian Ren Chen) all won one game out of two on the first day.

In A Group of the Pairs, Martha McGill and Matthew Crosby lost their first game against Americans and won their second against a Dutch pair. In the B Group, Alison and Simon Bexfield lost their first game to a Dutch pair and won their second against Italians.

Lai, Hung and Kuo of Chinese Taipei 1 won the gold medal in the Team Tournament. In the semi-finals they beat Singapore 3-0 and then in the final won 2-1 against Chinese Taipei 2. Chinese Taipei 2 (Lo, Tsai and Hsu) had beaten Russia 2-1 in their semi-final and had to be content with the silver medal. Singapore won the bronze medal beating Russia 2-1 in the play-off for third.

The two UK teams ended 6th and 12th in their respective groups at the World Mind Sports Games.

UK 1 ended with three wins in the 14-team B Group to get a very good 6th position. On the second day of the event they lost 3-0 to Chinese Taipei 1, lost 2-1 to Japan 1 and beat Australia 2-1.

UK 2 beat Romania 2 in round 3, lost to Macau in round 4 and beat Italy 2 in round 5, all matched 3-0, to end 12th in the 16-team A Group.

The teams that qualified for the knock-out stage were Chinese Taipei 1 (the only unbeaten team) and Russia in B Group and Chinese Taipei 2 and Singapore in A Group (on tie-break from Austria and Czech Republic).

Team UK 1 won both their first matches in the WMSG Team Tournament. They beat Ireland 2-1 in the first round (Matthew Cocke lost to Ian Davis by 1.5 points) and in the second round Chong, Vanessa and Matthew beat the Netherlands 1 team 3-0. The UK 2 team lost both their matches 0-3, the first against Canada and the other against USA 1.

Lai won the Men's Individual and Lin won the Women's Individual tournaments to take double gold.

Unfortunately Vanessa Wong lost her semi-final against Osawa and then lost to Sarah Yu of Canada by 1.5 points to miss out on a great opportunity. Sadly, very late in the latter game she answered a smallish ko threat rather than living in her opponent's corner, which cost her about 10 points and a Bronze medal.

Congratulations to her.

Vanessa Wong won both her games on the third day of the WMSG Women's Individual to qualify for the knock-out stage with 4 wins. Osawa Maya of Japan lost her fifth game to Sarah Yu of Canada, so both those players qualified on four wins too. The fourth player into the knock-out was Lin Hsiao-Tung of Chinese Taipei, also with 4 wins. The other UK Players, Anna Griffiths and Natasha Regan, both ended on 3 wins.

In the Men's Individual the four qualifiers were all from Chinese Taipei: Lai and Lo on 5 wins and Kuo and Hung on 4 wins. Top UK player was Chong Han in 20th place with 3 wins. Henry Manners also won 3, Andrew Simons 2 and Paul Tabor 1 win.

The female members of Team GB were all on two wins after three rounds of the Women's Individual at the World Mind Sports Games. Unfortunately Vanessa Wong did not win her third game, against Osawa Maya of Japan, so ended the day in fourth place not first or second.

In the Men's, Chong Han won a second game to end the second day in 11th place of the Men's Individual. Henry Manners also had two wins.

Results