UK News

We've issued the following Press Release today (27th January 2016):

A computer program developed by Google DeepMind (AlphaGo) to play the Oriental game of Go has beaten the three-times European Go Champion and Chinese professional Fan Hui (shown on the right in the photo, courtesy of Google DeepMind). This is the first time that a Go-professional has lost such a match, and not only that, by a clean sweep in all 5 games. This signifies a major step forward in one of the great challenges in the development of artificial intelligence - that of game-playing.

These findings were reported in a peer-reviewed study published in the scientific journal Nature: Silver D. et al. Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search.

An interesting article from <re/code> by Mark Bergen:

"Go Is the Game Machines Can’t Beat. Google’s Artificial Intelligence Whiz Hints That His Will."

"When the world’s smartest researchers train computers to become smarter, they like to use games. Go, the two-player board game born in China more than two millennia ago, remains the nut that machines still can’t crack.

Enter Google’s nerds. Demis Hassabis, the artificial intelligence savant behind Google DeepMind, hinted in a video interview that his secretive team has cracked Go."

Read the whole article here: http://recode.net/2015/11/20/go-is-the-game-machines-cant-beat-googles-artificial-intelligence-whiz-hints-that-his-will/

Reading Go Club player Alexei Likhtman, 44, died yesterday whilst in the USA.

Alexei, a Physics professor at Reading University, was in Baltimore for a conference. On Sunday 11th October he was exploring the Appalachian Trail in Maryland and was taking photographs at a beauty spot called Annapolis Rock. It seems he was jumping from rock to rock with a camera and tripod when at about 10:45 he tripped and fell 50 feet. Despite the efforts of other hikers and paramedics he died at the scene.

Alexei had moved to the UK from Moscow and had been at Leeds University from 1999 to 2007, before moving to Reading. He was a keen member of Reading Go Club when not travelling and had played at Bracknell and Maidenhead Tournaments. He last played a tournament at 9k, though he was still improving quickly.

Leo sadly passed away peacefully yesterday, 28th July, with her husband David by her side.

As she would have wanted, the Isle of Man Go Festival will go ahead as planned as a commemoration of all the work that she did to make it such a success over the last 24 years.

Celia Marshall

We are very sorry to report the death of Brian Timmins. The day after attending the Barmouth tournament he went into hospital for a scheduled operation, which although successful led to other problems and he died on 2nd July.

Not only was Brian a regular tournament attendee with his wife Kathleen, both here and in the European Congress, but he put in a very large amount of effort supporting British Go for which he was awarded Life Membership. Brian was already the membership secretary in 1988 when he stepped up to take on the editorship of the BGJ and as the website states "for a while fulfilled both responsibilities with unparalleled conscientiousness".

Bob Hitchens reports:

I heard at the weekend of the death of Neil Stein.

I realise that members probably do not know Neil, but some players who were around in the 1960s will.

He was a founder member of the BGA and helped create the BGA’s first bank balance of any size when he recognised the possibility of compensation from University College London for cancelling our booking for the first European Congress to be held in Britain. That opened up a lot of possibilities for the BGA.

When I came on the scene he was the strongest British Go player at 1 kyu. John Barrs was 1 dan with perhaps an honorary element in it, but Stein had the beating of him.

Photos by Tom Coulthard, Alice Ambrose-Thurman and Chizu Kobayashi

On Saturday 11th October Durham Go Club ran a teaching event at Durham Oriental Museum, as part of their Festival of Japan - celebrating the teaching of Japanese at the University of Durham. The Japanese Embassy kindly sponsored Chizu Kobayashi-san, a 5d Japanese professional, to come to Durham to assist with this.

Kobayashi-san taught a range of people, from some of our stronger club dan players to complete beginners. We had around 20 club members turn out for the event to teach members of the public - most of whom had never come across Go before.

As part of its Festival of Japan, Durham Oriental Museum are running a Go teaching event with Durham Go Club on Saturday 11th October 1pm-5pm. The Japanese Embassy have organised for 5d pro Chizu Kobayashi to come, and the event is free and open to all.

There should be teaching appropriate for a wide range of strengths, from complete beginners upwards, including members of the public. Anyone who would like to come to Durham for the event - whether to learn or to help teach - will be more than welcome.

More details are at https://www.dur.ac.uk/oriental.museum/whatson/details/?id=21600

Latest Details now available!

Update from three weeks before the week.