This weekend has seen the biggest Durham Go Tournament ever, with 54 people gathering at St John's College, Durham for two days and a lot of Go.

Since it was the biggest Durham tournament ever, having a mere one winner seemed paltry, so in the absence of meaningful tie-breaks, the tournament was won jointly by Matt Reid, Yohei Negi and Matt Crosby, all on five wins.

The tournament was enlivened on the first day with regular reports from Andrew Kay, who had been expected to arrive in Durham on Friday evening, but had chosen to hitch-hike, and spent much of Saturday on the road, finally getting to Durham about 9pm, by which time three rounds were over and 35 players had eaten in a Chinese buffet.

British Pair Go Championships

This year the Pair Go Championships, the 20th, were held again at the Foxcombe Lodge Hotel, Boars Hill near Oxford, thanks to new proprietor Gary Adams. Last year's winners Kirsty Healey and Matthew Macfadyen lost in round two to Alison and Simon Bexfield, but Alison and Simon lost the final. The winners were Natasha Regan and Matthew Cocke, who took the championship for the first time in five years. In the 10-pair handicap group, the winners for the second year running were young Kelda Smith and her father Paul Smith, from Cambridge. The best dressed pair competition again featured top-hatted winners: Sarah Wright and Alistair Turnbull won with reigning world best dressed champions, Kirsty Healey and Matthew Macfadyen, taking second spot. Paul and Kelda Smith also won the RE quiz with 20 points.

42 players took part in the Bracknell Tournament held again at the community centre in Woosehill, Wokingham. Winner was Felix Wang who beat previous winner Jon Diamond in the last round. Felix became the first holder of the new trophy given in memory of former organiser Clive Hendrie Also winning three were Helen Harvey (3 kyu Manchester), Elinor Brooks (8 kyu Swindon) and Malcolm Law (10 kyu Brighton). Neil Cleverly won the caption contest and Jim Clare won the Go Puzzle competition again. Michael Harrington (17 kyu Bracknell) won the 13x13 and the team prize was won by Swindon. Gerry Mills got a special prize for supporting the event with the bookshop over many years.

Results

A very successful weekend for some 18 of the strongest British Go players was held at the Village Hall and Kirsty and Matthew Macfadyen's house in Barford.

The Icelandic Volcanic plume that on the Thursday disrupted our travel plans for Guo Juan, who lives in Amsterdam, and created some panic for the organisers.

However, a PC, projector, camera, microphone and other stuff were sorted out, and she did the whole weekend remotely using the Internet with Skype for the voice channel. It actually worked very well and the technology was in some ways better than using a demonstration board face-to-face.

Several lecture sessions were held, many games reviewed and a 9 a side rengo game took place after dinner, with Guo knocking out players who played moves below their playing level.

Carol Goodheir reports that BBC Alba did a news report on the Isle of Skye Tournament, in Scottish Gaelic, lasting just over two minutes.

It is available on YouTube. Any Manx or Irish Gaelic speakers might be able to follow it too, to some extent for sure.

Congratulations to Matthew Macfadyen for scoring the most Stacey Points in the year up to the Congress. He scored 38 points for top-group tournament wins. This was four more than last year's winner, Yohei Negi, who came second.

Full details

The BGA AGM was held on the evening of Saturday 10th April 2010 at Teviot Row House in Edinburgh.

The newly elected officers and Council members are:

President: Jon Diamond, Treasurer: Simon Mader, Secretary: Jonathan Chin, Auditor: Alison Bexfield.

Council Members: Edwin Brady, Brian Brunswick, John Collins, Geoff Kaniuk, Toby Manning.

Congratulations to all those elected.

Additionally, the three proposals on membership rates, student membership and the levy policy were approved. More details on these will follow soon.

Edwin Brady (Ex-Secretary)

The Paris Tournament was the finale of the Pandanet Go European Cup for 2009-2010.

Over 200 players took part.

Winner with 6/6 was Dai Junfu. Second was Csaba Mero and third Hwang In-Seong, both on 5/6.

Only UK player was Yohei Negi who won 3/6.

Results

Pal Balogh scored enough points to overtake long time leader Ondrej Silt to win the PGEC ranking.

Congratulations to the UK representatives Anson Ng and Vanessa Wong!

This event took place in the ancient town of Sibiu in Romania. 48 under-16s and 75 under-12s took part. The lowering of the age limit at the WYGC meant the 13 under-18 players who were not under-16 played in their own section and not for any official title.

Winner in the under-12 was Anson Ng (1k) representing the UK, who won 5 games out of 6. The next places were taken by players with 4 wins: Alexandru Pitrop (4k Romania), Silvestru State (6k Romania), Oliver Wolf (1k Germany) and Stepan Popov (1d Russia).

Winner under-16 was Poland's Mateusz Surma (4d), also winning 5/6. The UK's Vanessa Wong (4d) was second, Jurij Mykhaljuk (2d Ukraine) was third and Lukas Podpera (4d Czechia) was fourth, all on 4 wins.

Romania's Mihai Valentin Serban (4d) won all six games to win the under-18 section, ahead of Roman Ruzhanskyj (1d Ukraine).

To complete the Go festival, 40 adults played their own tournament.

The 21st Irish Open was held as usual in the Teachers' Club in Dublin and again was part of the Pandanet Go European Cup. There attendance was 41, the strongest being the winner Ondrej Silt (6 dan Czechia). Second was Wei Wang from UCC; third and fourth were members of the large Dutch contingent Willem-Koen Pomstra and Willem Mallon.

Results

The Irish Rapid handicap tournament on the Friday evening ended in a four-way tie. After braking it the winner was Edwin Brady from St Andrews. Second was Justyna Klezcar, third was Willem-Koen Pomstra and fourth Bernd Sambale.

Results