UK Tournament Report

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.

The 43rd London Open has got underway at its usual venue of ISH in London. This year we have the kind support of Google DeepMind for the event, as well as the London clubs and BGA.

Over a 100 players are taking part, with rounds 1 and 2 being battled on the first day, 28th December. There is a very strong top group with some visiting Chinese players and Korean professional Hajin Lee, now known as Haylee Maas since her marriage.

Some other strong players will be providing analysis, such as our own Andrew Kay and visiting pro Catalin Taranu.

A total of 20 players gathered at St Columba’s by the Castle in Edinburgh, for the Christmas Go tournament. As expected, the winner was Stephen Hu (AGA 6d, xhu98 on Youtube) who was visiting Scotland that weekend. Second on 3 wins was Jakub Ziomko (1d Aberdeen). Three other players recorded 3 wins: Ron Bell (5k Borders), Roger Daniel (6 kyu London) and Robin McLean (11 kyu Edinburgh). Roger and Robin had both skipped the final game, so could claim 100% records.

photos from Stephen and from Boris - Check out the biscuits made by young Samuel Payne (son of Rob).

Results

The second game of the 2016 British Go Championship best-of-three title match was played on Saturday 3rd December, at the Young Chelsea Bridge Club in West London. With Charles Hibbert one game up, Junnan Jiang had to win to stay in the match.

The game was relayed on OGS, thanks to Jonathan Green, but the start was nearly an hour later than its 11:00 advertised start. It was also video streamed. The game continued after a shorter than usual lunch break (the time limits are three hours each), and got into a very exciting fight. Despite Junnan being in overtime he kept a clear head and forced the resignation at about 17:30

This tied the match and the third game would have to be arranged.

British Championship page with game records.

The annual Coventry Tournament remained at its usual venue of the Science Concourse of the University of Warwick, but a new team of students was in charge. The club president, Sylvester Cardorelle, said that the tournament was a success and he had a great time organising it alongside his team: Rajiv Daxini (Secretary) and Shuwen Kang (Treasurer).

Proving himself to be the best of the 30 players was Philip Leung (3d) from the local club, who previously won the event in 2014, and second was Sam Aitken (4d) who only lost to the winner in round two. Michael Kyle (8k) from Manchester was the only other player to win all three games.

Results

Due to late arrangement, an unfortunate clash with the Coventry tournament and general timing for many players, attendance was particularly low, resulting in just two teams of three at this year's (autumn) edition of the London International Teams. Nonetheless it was an interesting, close run event, held at the Young Chelsea Bridge Club at Goldhawk Road.

The highlight for organiser Jonathan Turner was a nameless player's tragi-comic oversight that a group was dead from late mid-game right up to counting, resulting in a rather surprised look as their opponent started removing the stones.

The Three Peaks returned to Ingleton, near to where it started at the Marton Arms. The venue this time was the Wheatsheaf in the High Street, with its own B+B rooms, but still the beautiful Yorkshire countryside was not far away.

There were thirty players taking part this time, with Eric Yangran Zhang (4d Manchester) winning the event by winning all his games. He is shown receiving the Goban trophy from organiser Bob Bagot. Other prize-winners with 4 out of 5 were James Richards (3k Edinburgh), Bob Scantlebury (8k Sheffield), Ai Guan (8k Lancaster), Alan Stokes (10k Manchester) and Pat Ridley (11k Chester). The Team Prize was won by Chester's Pat Ridley, Tony Pitchford and Dave Horan.

The results were delayed in publication because of a computer problem.