Our picture library for the WMSG 2012 is now available.

The British team did well in the first round of the Men and Women events at the World Mind Sports Games.

All three women and three of the four men won. Chong Han and Vanessa Wong are the top team players with a chance of medals. Only Andrew Simons lost his game by 7.5 against a Brazilian 3d.

Jon is a retired IT professional living in East Sussex and learnt to play Go at school at the tender age of 14, becoming 1 dan and British Champion in 1965. He was Champion for 11 of the next 12 years, ending up by being promoted to 6 dan, but retiring to spend more time with his family (as they say) in 1977. In retirement he did represent the UK at the first World Amateur in 1979 and has been part of the UK team from the start of the Pandanet European Go team Championship.

As well as being on the BGA Council for many years in the 1970’s Jon founded the Go club at Cambridge University, started the British Go Journal and was editor for several years. More recently he produced the now obsolete BGA CD. (Barry Chandler insists he was co-editor of BGJ 146, focussing on the World Mind Sports Games - Jon isn't so sure...).

A quick update to the state of affairs with the Shodan Challenge for this year:

Firstly, the league website is not finished yet unfortunately. This will be finished as soon as is possible for people to begin playing and submitting games.

Secondly, there have not been many entries (around a dozen).

34 players gathered in the Sports Pavilion at the OU, overlooking the cricket pitch, which saw a mixture of sunshine and showers during the day.

Overall winner was Andrew Simons (3d Cambridge), who beat Phil Beck in the final game. Also on three wins were Oscar Selby (18k Epsom), Gary Gibson (7k Wanstead) and Fred Holroyd (7k Milton Keynes).

Wanstead got an impressive 7/9 in the team competition, but were then disqualified because they all left before prize-giving; so the winning team was the Tricky Tesuji's (Natasha Regan, Oscar Selby and Peter Collins) with 6/9.

Most importantly, in the Milton Keynes Go side event, the prize for most wins went to Oscar Selby with a very impressive 6/11. The prize for highest percentage went to Tim Hunt for 3/5, only just ahead of Chas Walton who had 4/7.

Results

The Finals of the UK Go Challenge were held on Sunday 24th June in Cambridge. 22 young players took part, both those who had not played in a heat and those that had. It was won by Satoru Oshima from Brighton who is 1 dan, yet only 8 years old. Roella Smith was second and Peran Truscott was third.

Results

Thirty-six players turned out for the Welsh Open, held at Barmouth for the 20th year. Richard Hunter (3d Bristol) won with 5 out of 5. Other prizewinners with 4 out 5 were Toby Manning (tournament runner-up), Edward Blockley (5k Worcester), Huw Mort (10k York) and Colin Maclennan (10k Twickenham).

The tournament was fortunate to be visited by two Korean lady professionals; Juyeon Ko (8p) and Sohyun Park (3p). Ms. Ko gave a lecture before the start of the tournament on dealing with non-joseki moves, and the two gave a simultaneous display against 17 players on Saturday evening, winning all their games and spending time afterwards with each player to discuss critical moments.

Results

Andrew Kay (5d South London) retained his title by winning this year's Durham Tournament. Reduced to one day, because of hosting the British earlier in the year, the event attracted 19 players from as far away as Edinburgh and southern England. Second on tie-break from Matthew Crosby (3d Edinburgh) was Boris Mitrovic (1k Edinburgh) who went away with the prize of a month's subscription to Dinerchtein's Insei League. Unattached player John Green (4k) won all three games and Martha McGill (1k Edinburgh) was rewarded for not losing any games (she had one win and two jigos). The event finished an hour early and gave plenty of time to allow players to stand in the rain and watch the Olympic torch arrive in the city, before going on to an Italian restaurant. The weekend was completed by a barbecue on the Sunday.

Results

Natasha Regan and Matthew Cocke retained the British Pair Go Champions title for a third year. They won the top group of the 22nd Pair Go Championships beating Jenny Radcliffe and Francis Roads, the organiser, in the final. Winning the fighting spirit prize were Jackie Chai and John Johnstone.

In the handicap group there were 6 pairs including several children and a 5d Korean lady. Winners were Helen and Martin Harvey, playing in the handicap section as Helen was still recovering from injury. They beat the youngsters Rebecca Margetts and Oscar Selby in the final, proving that 26 stone handicaps can be overcome. The handicap fighting spirit prize was won by Yvonne and Paul Margetts.

Sam McCarthy and John Collins won both the best dressed couple prize and the chemistry quiz.

Results

Congratulations to Andrew Kay on his success at the Challengers League and his promotion to 5 dan.

Also to Felix Wang for his promotion to 4 dan.