The Candidates' was held over the May Bank Holiday weekend at ISH in London. 22 players took part. The best players were Andrew Kay (6 wins), Felix Wang (5 wins), Desmond Cann, Andrew Simons, David Ward, Alex Selby, Nick Krempel, Chong Han and Francis Roads (4 wins). Most of these will hopefully be playing the Challengers' League on the bank holiday weekend in June since there are eight places available as Matthew Macfadyen is not defending his title.

Results

The rules for 2013 have been revised by the BGA Council in May 2012. They will apply to the 2013 and all subsequent championships (until amended), and supersede all previous versions, although informally the changes are mostly effective for 2012.

The statement regarding the rules changes is as follows:

• Notification for events by letter is no longer required and is now optional for the Organizer (by letter or email to the address on our membership list)
• Announcement for events is to be on the website and in the BGJ (not in the Newsletter)
• Emphasis is now made that it is the responsibility of qualifiers to send in their entries (not the Organizer to ensure that they do)

In March 2013 Council clarified that if the Champion plays in the Candidates, then he/she cedes their automatic place in the Challengers League.

It appears that there has been some serious mis-communications and Matthew Macfadyen, who had been invited to play, turned down the invitation some time ago.

Unfortunately we only discovered this yesterday after seeing the list of players entered.

Francis Roads had been told that he had been nominated as our representative in the event that Matthew wasn't going to play, since he was 2nd in the points list, so we've apologised to him already. However, there is insufficient time before the event (8 days) for Francis to re-arrange his life, get a visa etc, even if he were to be permitted to play, since we've passed the IGF deadline for submission of names (15th March).

The 2012 AGM was held at the University of Durham Students Union on 21st April 2012.

Full minutes will be available in due course, but the main points were:

• Maria Tabor is elected to Council, following Jenny Radcliffe's retirement
• Phil Beck is elected as Auditor to replace Alison Bexfield who retires after 9 years. [Paul Barnard is appointed as Membership Secretary to replace Phil Beck.]
• The accounts for 2010 and 2011 were approved
• New subscriptions rates were approved as follows:
  • Standard £24
  • Family £32
  • Concessions £15
  • European £28
  • Rest of World £32
  The State Retirement Age concession was replaced by one for those receiving the Pension Credit.
• The proposed location for the 2013 British Go Congress is Stevenage

There was a pleasingly high turnout for the 2012 British Go Congress, held again in Durham for the first time since 1996.

On the Friday evening, 30 players gathered in the magnificence of Durham School's dining hall, for the British Lightning. This year held as a five-round handicap Swiss tournament, the last round saw two former Durham players battling it out to win: Andrew Kay (4d, now of South London) was ultimately victorious over Alex Kent (2d, now in Bristol). Results

On Saturday morning 63 players congregated in the more prosaic concrete environment of the Students' Union for the British Open itself. After three rounds of Go, the BGA held its AGM; no doubt reports will be provided by officials, so the important thing to note from the tournament perspective are that the meeting was so unexpectedly short that San Marco's restaurant, booked for a meal for 30 players to follow the AGM, wasn't yet ready when we arrived!

Our winning ways came to an end this month with a 2-2 draw against Slovakia.

On board 1 Chong Han was in for a tough game against Pavol Lisy 6d, under-20 European Youth Champion in 2011. Chong had some nice attacks, but Pavol defended well and Chong didn't manage to use the attacks to reduce Pavol's left or top side moyos, leaving him short of points. The ending was rather unfortunate with Chong resigning when a group died after filling dame.

Des Cann played his favourite high-Chinese opening again, but at a crucial moment invested another move in growing the moyo instead of helping his weak group which died. Maros Kral then killed another group and although Des made his big moyo into territory it wasn't enough and he resigned.

Andrew Simons' game against Marian Hrdina started fairly peacefully and featured a textbook invasion at the top right, but was then plunged into fighting with several trades.

The spring London International Team Tournament was very closely contested this year with Nippon (3 team wins and 8 individual wins) pipping Cambridge (3 team wins and 7 individual wins) in second and China (2 team wins but 8 individual wins) in third. This was a particularly surprising result as China won their first six games whilst Cambridge only managed 2!

In the handicap division South London Go Club won with 4 team wins and 10 individual wins, beating Twickenham with 4 team wins and 9 individual wins into second.

In the Open division only Felix Wang managed to win all 4 games, whilst in the Handicap division Rippei Hayashi, Gerry Gavigan, Colin Maclennan, Dan Peace and Paul Langley all won 4 games and extra prizes.

Overall 36 players in 12 teams took part and two divisions took part.

Results

The Wanstead team of Francis Roads, Adan Mordcovich, Richard Leedham-Green and Roger Daniel only lost one game to win the Thames Valley Team Tournament. Second was the home team, West Surrey, with Bracknell third and Lottie's Lovers from Swindon fourth.

Results

Paul Tabor, 1d, was the surprise winner at Arundel, when he beat tournament favourite Andrew Kay in the second round and then beat Tony Atkins (who had previously beaten Jon Diamond) in the final. Jonathan Reece, 2k Oxford, won the 9x9 side event and Jil Segerman (in a team with Roger Daniel) won the inventions quiz. 22 players took part.

Results

Andrew Kay, 4d South London, was the best of the 22 players at the second Welwyn Garden City Tournament. Also winning three games were Ludan Fang, 4k London, and Jon Robson, 10k Swindon. Prizes were presented by Barbara Kime from the local Bridge club, whose room was used for the tournament.

Results