UK Tournament Report

Charles Hibbert took an early lead on day one of the Challengers' League. In the first game he beat the British Champion, Andrew Simons, who complained he has got into a habit of losing the first game in an event. Then in the second game Charles beat the top graded player, Junnan Jiang, when a group died in overtime.

Also winning their first two games were Alex Rix, who beat Alistair Wall and then Bruno Poltronieri by 1.5 points, and Des Cann, who beat Tim Hunt and Alistair Wall (the latter through an interesting tesuji).

The other results were Junnan beating Bruno in the first round and Andrew beating Tim in the second.

The event continues until Tuesday at the Young Chelsea Bridge Club, the home of the West London Go Club. The top two players earn places in the title match.

Alistair Wall (2d Wanstead) won all his games to win the 38th Bracknell, the first time he has won the event. He beat Christian Scarff, Jim Clare and last year's winner Des Cann. Also winning all three were Eric Hall (5k Swindon) and John Cassidy (8k Belgium). Among the 26 players taking part were Bei Ge's two very young daughters, playing their first game not among the family. Bournemouth won the team prize.

As usual there was the fun selection of side events set by organiser Ian Marsh. The 13x13 was easy to judge as nobody entered and the Go puzzle competition was won by Peter Collins, the only player brave enough to enter. The caption competition was won by Neil Cleverly, Paul Barnard was best at paper folding and Tony Atkins made the best jumping frog.

Results

Junnan Jiang (5d Oxford) won the Candidates' Tournament in Letchworth with a perfect six wins. Second with five wins was Bruno Poltronieri (4d Cambridge). Winning four were both players from Central London Go Club: Alex Rix (3d) and Charles Hibbert (3d). Belfast's James Hutchinson (2d) and Milton Keynes' Tim Hunt (2d) topped the group on three wins. These six can join defending champion Andrew Simons and Des Cann, who missed the Challengers' League last year for the World Amateur, in this year's Challengers' League in London at the end of May.

Results

24 players attended the sixth Welwyn Garden City tournament on 23rd April, a bright spring day, at the Welwyn Garden City Bridge Centre in Gosling Sports Park. The winner was Song Han (2d), who won the deciding third round against Alistair Wall, the previous winner. Also winning all three games were Richard Mullens (6k) from London City Go club and Sergio Rubio (9k) from Spain. Francis Roads won the 13x13 side tournament and a prize for best young player went to Charlotte Bexfield from Letchworth. Some players adjourned afterwards to a local Chinese restaurant.

Results

Photos available on Facebook

The British Go Congress was held over three days the first weekend in April at the Royal Victoria Hotel in Sheffield. Andrew Kay started the event with a teaching session on Friday afternoon, followed by a well attended presentation by Lucas Baker from Google DeepMind who explained a bit about the recent successes of AlphaGo and showed us its 9 dan diploma (pictured).

In the evening, 26 players took part in the British Lightning tournament which was eventually won by Andrew Kay followed by Alison Bexfield as the runner up.

On Saturday and Sunday the British Open tournament took place with a good attendance of 84 players, including a large contingent from Cheadle Hulme School who brought 15 of their pupils.

With thirty-three players attending the fourth Isle of Skye Tournament, numbers are holding up, as did the weather.

Friday evening attracted a number of players for a 9 x 9 board league, which was won by Francis Roads (1k Wanstead).

The main tournament produced a new champion. Alistair Wall (2d Wanstead) won the bottle of Talisker whisky with 5 wins out of 6. The runner up, also with 5 wins out of 6, was Ulf Olsson (3d) visiting from Gothenburg.

Also in the prizes with 5 wins were, Edward Blockley (5k) and Greg Cox (10k Dundee). 4 wins were recorded by Stanislav Traykov, Donald Macleod, Roger Daniel, Alasdair Clarke, John Collins and John Macdonald.

Results

A number of players took the opportunity to extend their visit for a few days and explore the island.

The next tournament is planned for March 2018 - pace yourself Alistair :)

A total of 54 players turned up at the Cambridge University Social Club for the Trigantius Tournament on a good spring day. The main tournament was won by Jitka Bartova (3d) narrowly beating in the last round her friend Ngoc-Trang Cao (3d), both from the Leamington stable. Bruno Poltronieri (3d Cambridge) gained third place on SOS from Andrew Simons (4d Cambridge).

Apart from the winner, prizes were awarded for those on 3 wins: Jonathan Green (5k Leamington), David Crabtree (7k Manchester), Edmund Smith (8k Milton School). They also awarded encouragement prizes: best 1k Alan Thornton (St Albans), best 9k Richard Scholefield (Milton Keynes) and best 16k Wenzhou Mei (Milton School).

Results

Puzzle Prizes were sponsored by Threedy 3d Printers.

The delayed deciding third game of the 2015 British Championship was played on Sunday 14th February 2016 at Andrew Kay's mother's house (who provided curry at lunchtime).

Up to 100 fans watched the live relay on KGS in the British room by "BGAadmin" from 10:00.

After 299 moves it was found that Andrew Simons, playing black, was 15.5 ahead.

Andrew Simons is therefore the champion for the first time.

Game Three Relay

Lucas Baker (2d London), shown on the left left playing Baron Allday, won all his games to win the Cheshire Tournament. The event was held as normal at the Community Centre in Frodsham and alongside the Frodsham Chess Congress.

Others of the 30 players also winning all three games were three of the large team from Cheadle Hulme School: Daniel Atkinson (26k), Jack Nolan (18k) and Jason Brown (16k). In addition the runner-up, Tony Atkins (1k Reading), received a prize and Joel Barrett (20k Manchester) was awarded a prize for winning two games and being told the wrong handicap in his other.

Winners in the self-paired 13x13 side event were youth players Yusuf Ahmed for 12/19, Daniel Atkinson for 9/11 and Matthew Benton for 7/9.

Andrew Simons (shown right playing Des Cann) won all his games to win the Maidenhead-Hitachi Tournament, held as normal at the Hitachi Europe HQ, thanks to Hitachi.

Also winning three games were Roger Huyshe (3k Shropshire), Malcolm Hagan (5k Winchester), Stephen Bailey (7k Arundel) and Robert Scantlebury (9k Sheffield). Paul Barnard (2k Swindon) won 2.5. All players on two wins won a prize each too, with Hitachi maintaining their generous Go-support with a fine array of prizes.

Best teams were Arundel (Steve, Malcolm, Pauline and Casey) on 9/12 and "No Go" (Roella, Edmund, Charlotte and Zaki) on 8/12. The 13x13 prizes went to Edmund Smith (8k Milton School) with 3/4 and Lily Danson (15k Cheadle Hulme School) with 4/7.

Results