UK News

On Saturday 21st July the first game of the British Championship, between Andrew Simons and Sam Aitken, took place. After more than 6 hours of play, Andrew Simons won by 2.5 points after Sam failed to successfully invade a large corner of Andrew's.

The title match is best-of-three.

Matthew Macfadyen gave a commentary on KGS. Both the raw game record, and the version with Matthew's commentary, are available here.

A commentary by Andrew Simons is available here.

We have heard from Alex Eve that David Woodnutt died at home of bowel cancer on Saturday 6th May 2017, aged 69.

Alex writes: “In 1969 he was the first person for five years who I could play Go with who I hadn't taught. He had learnt Go from the New Scientist article in early sixties. He founded the Sussex University Go Club in 1969. I next met him in Buckingham, around which we both lived a long while, and renewed friendship.” He later moved to Kington in Herefordshire.

David was on the BGA Council from 1991 to 1995 and was the journal editor from issue 119 to 132 (2000-2003). He became shodan in 1992 and reached two dan in 1999. He also enjoyed Pair Go, shown here playing with his wife Alison in 1995.

Alison is of course very sad after her loss and our thoughts go out to her at this time.

Stacey Grand Prix 2016-2017

Alistair Wall won for the third year running:

1. Alistair Wall 36
2. Toby Manning 24
3. Andrew Simons 18

Youth Grand Prix 2016

The following get cash prizes thanks to John Rickard's family:

1. Edmund Smith 1024
2. Zaki Betesh 640
3. George Han 621

Double Digit Kyu 2016

Prizes for the two sections go to:

10k-19k Alan Stokes 438 20k+ Joel Barrett 444

Jon Diamond writes: "I received a Facebook message on Sunday from Tony's sister saying that Tony had been found dead in his flat in Sheffield the previous day (28th January)."

"Tony was a long time Go player, who learnt in Cambridge more than 50 years ago. I last saw him last year at the British Open in Sheffield, where he’d been living for a number of years, but sadly he wasn’t playing. He had also only been to the Sheffield Club a few times recently."

"I have no other information about his death or funeral arrangements."

You can read about his career as one of our top players.

British Go Journal 177, including a report on the European Go Congress and the first British Championship game record, is now available online to members at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj177

The T Mark Hall Foundation, which was set up to administer a large legacy from T Mark Hall, is pleased to support "Sugar and Dice", a Liverpool Games café and location of the new Liverpool Go Club.

The organisers/owners of the café were looking for £12,000 via crowdfunding to improve the premises with LED (instead of fluorescent tube) lighting, better kitchen equipment, etc. and they achieved their target on September 25. The Foundation contributed £1,800.

Sugar and Dice will be offering Liverpool Go Club and British Go Association members free gaming sessions for playing Go at Sugar and Dice for 3 months from their opening; please see their web-site (www.sugaranddice.co.uk) for more details.

British Go Journal 176, including a short story by author Bill Brakes, is now available online to members at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj176

British Go Journal 175, including a report on the AlphaGo v Lee Sedol match, is now available online to members at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj175

At the AGM on 2nd April in Sheffield, Jon Diamond retired as President after 7 years and Roger Huyshe (pictured) was elected unanimously to replace him.

Jonathan Chin and Toby Manning were re-elected as Secretary and Treasurer respectively.

Brian Brunswick also retired after 10 years as a Council member, as did Donald Campbell; John Collins, Jonathan Green, Matt Marsh and Andrew Russell were elected to Council.

It was reported at the AGM that the membership had increased in the last year to 441, the first time we'd seen an increase for a number of years. The AlphaGo match didn't seem to have a significant impact on membership yet.

British Go Journal 174, including the full report on the AlphaGo v Fan Hui match is now available online to members at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj174

We're still getting additional media coverage of this match - see http://www.britgo.org/history/media for the latest.