UK Tournament Report

Congratulations to Andrew Kay who defeated Alex Kent today to retain the British Championship by three games to nil.

A copy of the game is available, with comments from Matthew Macfadyen 6d.

Thanks to Nick Wedd for hosting, and to all others involved.

Toby Manning

Game Three Relay raw record including unmoderated comments.
Game Three Review with comments by Matthew Macfadyen 6d.

After a year gap Matthew Cocke regained the Three Peaks title. He won all five games, at the event at the Commodore Inn in Grange-over-Sands, to take the title for the fifth time. Winning four games were Roger Huyshe (4k Shropshire) and David Cantrell (6k South London). 31 players, including organiser Bob Bagot, took part.

A new venture this year was a team event with a small engraved toast rack as the prize. This was kindly donated by Graham Blackmore (one of the regulars). The first winners were a team from Shropshire -The Wollerton Wanderers - Brian Timmins, Kath Timmins and Roger Huyshe.

Results

Organiser Alison Bexfield wished that all the 26 players at the first Letchworth Rapid Play had fun, and the thirty minute time limits saw most games ending in fun battles and not reaching their natural end. The venue was the Central Methodist Church in Letchworth Garden City which allowed the main group of players to be in the hall, but also a group of junior novices to be able to play 13x13 games in a side room.

Prizes were awarded by sections. The Open section winner was Tim Hunt (2d Milton Keynes) with six wins. Major Section (3k-9k) was won by Ben Ellis (3k Milton Keynes) randomly picked from the group on two wins by his daughter Sophie. Minor Section (10k-20k) winner was John Collins (10k St Albans).

The 45th Wessex Tournament was held at St Mark’s Community Centre once again, as usual taking place on the day the clocks go back. 34 players competed for trophies.

Tongzhou Cai, a 3-dan student from Glasgow, travelled furthest and took victory as overall winner. Other winners were Martin Harvey (5k) and Dick Norton (8k), both from Manchester. Saving face for the southerners was Peter Collins (2k, Bristol). All these four won three games.

Thanks go to the organisers, including Ian Sharpe and David King.

Results

There were 12 players in this year's tournament, held in Robinson College in Cambridge. As usual there were some excellent cakes.

The overall winner was determined by even games with double elimination. Most other games were handicap games. Games played with handicaps are shown in red. A couple of games in the first round were affected by dodgy clocks, but thankfully nobody complained too much and the problem was then sorted with the help of Andrew's phone.

Paul Smith (pictured) was the organiser, and also winner for the second time. He celebrated by going to watch the American singer-songwriter Dean Friedman performing in St Ives.

The junior winner was Melchior Chui.

Jon Diamond seems to only win the East Midlands in even years, so having won in 2010 and 2012, he was back as champion in 2014. He was one of several BGA council members in the Leicester area for the weekend, as there was a council meeting on the Sunday.

The only other player on three wins was Edwina Lee (Maidenhead).

32 players took part.

As the main organiser fell ill, the full results were delayed.

Results

Game 2 of the best of five title match for the British Championship was played on Sunday 12th October in Milton Keynes, the day after game 1.

Current champion Andrew Kay played white against Alex Kent and won by resignation at about 15:30 to give him a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five match.

The game was again broadcast in the British Room of KGS (gokgs.com) by BGAadmin.

Photos

Details of British Go Championship

Game 1 of the best of five title match for the British Championship was played on Saturday 11th October in Milton Keynes. Current champion Andrew Kay from Birmingham played black against Alex Kent from Chepstow, starting at 10:00 with a break for lunch (at a ramen restaurant).

The game was broadcast in the British Room of KGS (gokgs.com). Andrew won by resignation at about 15:30

Photos

Details of British Go Championship

The autumn edition of the London International Teams stayed at the Melton Mowbray pub and again on a Saturday, but this time the teams had five players.

A North London Go Club player raised a team of players from around London to defend the title. They managed to win all three matches, by three boards to two, to retain the trophy.

The other three teams each won a match and the order on games won was second Wanstead, third Nippon and fourth SLGC from South London.

As usual all players won a prize but those especially noted for winning all three games were Aja Huang (6d), Shunsuke Sakairi (3d) and Roger Daniel (5k).

Jitka Bartova (1d) was visiting the UK from Prague for a weekend with her friend Ngoc-Trang Cao who is a current member of Leamington Club. Luckily John Green could give them both a lift to the Swindon Tournament, so Jitka could promote the 2015 European Go Congress in Liberec and also win the tournament, to make a perfect weekend away.

Simon Shiu had stopped Ngoc-Trang from winning another event in round one, but Simon lost to Jitka in round two. This lead to a final-round clash with Bristol's Richard Hunter (2d), the only other top player on two wins. The game was the last to finish and ended equal on the board, but Jitka held the white stones to win by the komi. Her win, plus two wins by her friend and two wins by her driver, meant that Leamington was the best club.