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.

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 BBC2 Newsnight programme on 18th February 2010 used a Go board provided through an enquiry on the Gotalk discussion group as a backdrop to a piece on US-China relations. Reporter Robert Peston (seen below) played stones on the board, which had some illegal positions, as an animation technique and used the game, calling it Wei Qi, as a metaphor for some aspects of the USA-China relationship.

The 2009 Youth Grand Prix has now finished, with Matthew Hathrell coming first, Roella Smith second, and Michael Webster third. Well done to those three, and to everyone else who earned points. Full standings for the year can be seen here. Matthew and Michael will both be too old to play this coming year, so we will have at least two new prize winners in 2010. Good luck to everyone in their tournaments this year.

Clive Hendrie died on 28th January 2010 at 6 pm in the Windsor hospice of Thames Hospicecare. Clive had been battling cancer for over a year, and despite treatment and operations was taken worse just after the New Year. Uncle Clive, as he is known to Bracknell Go Club (because of his two nieces), will be sadly missed by those who knew and played against him.

Oxford Student Go Society

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Please visit their new website https://www.ougosoc.co.uk.

London Open TT 31/12/99-03/01/00

99 players took part in the 26th Open, the Millennium edition. The four players to make the knockout stage were Victor Chow (6 dan South Africa), Zhongyong Zhang (5 dan China), Valentin Urziceanu (4 dan Romania) and Yoshiyuki Uemura (4 dan France). Zhang beat Chow and then Urziceanu to win the tournament. Second was Urziceanu, and third Victor Chow. On 7/8 were Konrad Scheffler (2 kyu UK) and Gustav Rober (15 kyu UK). On 6 wins were Philip Marshall (6 kyu Isle Of Man), Natasha Regan (9 kyu UK), Matthew Selby (10 kyu UK), Steffen Wolff (10 kyu D), Mathias Bahr (1 dan D) and Kei Shinada (4 kyu Belgium), winners receiving a wooden go stone. All on 5/8 were presented with a certificate. Best 1 kyu was Per Erik Martin (Sweeden).

1996 results

23rd London Open 29/12/96 - 01/01/97

150 players attended the 23rd London Open sponsored again by Hitachi. 92 players were from the UK and of the rest there were 11 French and 19 Germans (most of the latter winning prizes). As last year the GP points were awarded after 6 rounds when the top four players were selected to play knockout. The 10 GP placings went to Guo Juan, Lee Hyuk, Zhang, Danek, S.J.Kim, Macfadyen, Goddard, S. Bae, Cocke and von Arnim. In the semi-finals Guo beat Zhang and Lee beat Danek. In an exciting half-point final game Guo Juan won to claim the 1000 pound prize with a perfect 8/8. Lee was second, Matthew Macfadyen scraped up to third and equal fourth were Danek, Bae and von Arnim. Shutai Zhang was unplaced losing to Lee, Guo twice and Danek in round 8.

London Open TT 31/12/98-03/01/99

The 25th Open was again sponsored by HITACHI and attended by 150 players at the usual venue the Highbury Round House community centre. This year two lady professionals were present: Liu Yajie from China and Nam Chihyoung from Korea. The top group of players was quite strong this year. After six rounds the European GP points were awarded to Lee Hyuk (15), Guo Juan (12), F. von Arnim (10), V. Chow (8), J. Finke and M. Cocke (5.5), E. Nijhuis (4), S. Zhang (3), M. Macfadyen (2), and J. Rickard (1).

Lee, Guo, Zhang and von Arnim made the cut. Guo beat her earlier vanquisher Lee in an exciting final so top five places went to: 1 Guo, 2 Lee, 3 Felix von Arnim, 4 Emil Nijhuis, 5 Vincent Chow.

Tournament News