UK Tournament Report

After a year's break, the Bar-Low tournament returned, thanks to organiser Jonathan Green at a new comfortable venue - The Young Chelsea Bridge Club, home of the West London Go Club. It was held as usual alongside the Candidates' Tournament.

Thanks to an anonymous donor, the entry fees were cheap, 17 players taking advantage of this. The generous prizes meant that more than half of the competitors made at least their entry fee back, as well as everyone taking home some sweet treats.

Alison Bexfield (1k, Letchworth) was the winner, having secured victory before the last round started. Roger Huyshe (5k, Manchester), Roger Daniel (7k, London) and Lueming Yang (23k, Oxford) also all did well, winning four games out of five.

Results

The fiftieth British Go Congress was held in Cambridge. The location was the very modern Centre for Mathematical Sciences which lies on its own campus near to Churchill College (which provided accommodation).

The event started on the Friday afternoon with a teaching session with tutors Toby Manning and Matthew Macfadyen. In the evening the Lightning Tournament was run on an extended round-robin system, after which the top two players played a final. Richard Mullens (6k) valiantly took second place to Xunrui Zhao (2d London).

After two days of play in the Open the prize winners were:
British Open Winner: Qinmeng Zhang (7d)
6 wins: George Han (5k)

The Bridge Club room at the Gosling Stadium was again the venue for the Welwyn Garden City Tournament. This year skies were blue and the sun was out cheering everyone along.

Winning the tournament with 3/3 was Gong Cheng, a Chinese 2d from London. Also winning three were Alan Thornton (2k St Albans) and Alexander Hsieh (15k Cambridge Junior). As there were lots of prizes left over, all those of the 18 entrants who won two and were at the prizegiving got a prize as well.

Results

The first-ever South Manchester tournament was held on Sunday 19th March 2017. Despite the drizzle, much fun was had by all. Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) kindly allowed use of their dining hall for the day, and nine of their students enjoyed free tournament entry.

There were two non-playing organisers on hand all day: Mike Winslow (Head of Physics) welcomed attendees and presented prizes, while Martin Harvey of Manchester Go Club ran impromptu teaching lessons for some non-players. To accommodate several 10-15-year-olds, two separate tournaments were run on the same day. The Main tourney was a 3-round affair, while the Fast tourney consisted of 6 rounds.

In the Main tourney, run by Helen Harvey, Manchester Go club provided half the 20 players, and greedily ensured that none of the three prizes awarded left Manchester!

On the afternoon of the Trigantius Tournament in Cambridge, the Trigantius Novices' was run in one of the other rooms of the University Staff Club.

This year there were fifteen players in the tournament, twelve juniors, two parents of junior players, and one organiser of a school Chess and Go club. Twelve of the fifteen are pictured. They played five rounds on 13x13 boards, working well as grades were in the range 20k to 40k.

The crucial match to decide the winner was between two of the adult players, Pierre Oliviere from Harpenden and Mark Walters from Cambridge. In the end Pierre won by a single point.

The top junior players, in joint third place with three wins, were David Baldwin from Letchworth, and Sam Beck, Waylon Gao and Yize Gao, from the local junior club.

A total of 45 players braved the chill to play in the 41st Trigantius tournament on 4th March this year. It was held as the last couple of years at the Cambridge University Social Club in the centre of the city.

Tournament winner was Daniel Hu (3d Central London) who beat local 4d Andrew Simons in the final. Daniel was duly presented with the Trigantius trophy, which he gets to look after for a year.

Other players gaining prizes for three wins were Edmund Smith (6k Cambridge) and Toby Manning (1k Leicester).

After a day plagued with computer troubles, organiser Geoff Kaniuk wrote: "A group of us managed to find a bar providing beverage and food for a well deserved evening meal."

Results

The 2016 British Championship was decided on 19th February 2017 when the third game in the match between Junnan Jiang and Charles Hibbert was played at the Young Chelsea Bridge Club in West London. The game was relayed on KGS, with Matthew Macfadyen giving live online commentary. After a late start, the game lasted until the evening and when the counting was done Junnan Jiang had won by 20.5 points, thus becoming the new British Champion. Congratulations to him and to Charles for making it a good match.

More details of the British Championship and game records

Alistair Wall (1d Wanstead) was the winner at this year's Cheshire Tournament, held as usual at the Community Centre in Frodsham alongside the weekend Chess tournament. This time there was a record entry of 45 Go players, helped by a large contingent from Cheadle Hulme School and the revival of Liverpool Go Club. Also players travelled from as far as London, Swindon and Cambridge for the event.

As well as Alistair, the players winning all three games were Helen Harvey (4k Manchester), Joseff Thomas (6k Central London) and, all from Cheadle Hulme School, Lily Danson and Jack Nolan (both 14k), Lizzy Pollitt (24k) and Megan Upton (27k).

Martin Harvey, as CHS school trainer, kept the youngsters amused with some teaching and also ran a 13x13 event with 16 entrants. This was won by Liverpool's Nathan Boswell (12k) with 5/5, with Andrew Russell (3k Birmingham) and Peter Allen (4k Liverpool) winning the second prizes for 3/5.

Results

Andrew Simons won the Maidenhead-Hitachi Tournament for a second year running. The long final game, shown in the first picture, against Finland's Jesse Savo (4d) suddenly ended in overtime with an "oops" from his opponent, meaning Jesse took second place ahead of Alistair Wall.

Youngsters Roella Smith (7k Cambridge) and Lueming Yang (26k Oxford), pictured right with his prize basket ball, won all their games and Steve Bailey (7k Arundel) ended with 2.5. Both they and those on two wins went away with prizes, thanks to the generous sponsorship of Hitachi, who also provided the buffet lunch.

The 43rd London Open was held at its usual venue of ISH International Students House (ISH) in London. This year we had the kind support of Google DeepMind for the event, as well as the London clubs and BGA.

112 players took part in the Open, with others joining in the side events. There was a very strong top group with visiting and local Chinese players and some Korean players including Korean professional Hajin Lee, now known as Haylee Maas since her marriage.