UK Tournament Report

The Bank of East Asia (BEA) generously provided the central Manchester venue for the 2014 Northern. The tournament-winner was Ngoc-Trang Cao (1d), from France, enjoying a purple patch after her win in Belfast just a few days beforehand. The runner-up was also female, Ewa Mos (1d) from Poland who lives here and is a regular attendee at Manchester Go Club. 'Girl Power' thus ruled the roost, with three male players losing out on SOS.

Also winning prizes were Tony Pitchford (10k Chester) for 2.5 wins, and the organiser and club secretary Chris Kirkham (3k Manchester) for 3 wins.

The reduced entry fee probably was a major cause for the increase in numbers to 34, and substantial sponsorship of the prize fund by Sam Properties led to seven of these players being dans - a significantly better proportion than in recent Northerns.

The Belfast Tournament moved back to its usual end of summer slot, but stayed at its usual venue of the Belfast Boat Club. 14 players took part, but some of the locals were not able to play in every round.

The winner was Ngoc-Trang Cao (1d France), who some people would have seen at some English tournaments earlier in the year. She won all her games, beating the organiser, James Hutchinson (1d), in the final round. Piotr Gawron (6k Poland), James Aitken (13k Belfast) and Sheena Walsh (16k Dublin) won three games out of five.

Results Photos

London player Aja Huang (5d), originally from Taiwan, won all three Go Gold medals at the 2014 MSO.

On the Sunday morning he won all four of his games in the seven-player 9x9 tournament. Chris Bryant won the Silver medal for three wins and a Bronze went to each of Francis Roads and Martyn Hamer who were tied in third on two wins. Results

On the Sunday afternoon Aja won all four of his games in the eight-player 13x13 tournament. Paul Smith won the Silver medal for three wins and a Bronze went to Chris Bryant on tie break from Francis Roads and Ben Lloyd on two wins. Results

The main 19x19 tournament was held on a very wet Bank Holiday Monday; it attracted 12 players.

The promised sunshine took a long time to arrive, but 25 players enjoyed themselves at the Milton Keynes tournament overlooking the Open University cricket pitch. The overall winner was Alistair Wall, who beat French player Ngoc-Trang Cao (Nyoshi) in the final. The only other player on thee wins was young Spike Shamoon (20k London City).

St Albans (Alistair Wall as guest member, Peter Harold-Barry and Alan Thornton) won the team prize, and Tim Hunt was the best of ten in the Milton Keynes Go side event with 5 wins out of 6. Paul Barnard was awarded a special prize for taking all the sets away with him back to Swindon.

Results

23 Go players and their friends descended on Barmouth in mid-Wales for the Welsh Open last weekend. In a gloriously sunny weekend, the 5 round tournament was won narrowly (on tie break) by Alastair Wall from Toby Manning, both of whom had 4/5.

The players all thanked Tony and Sue Pitchford, who between them had run the tournament for many years, and who were handing over to Martin and Helen Harvey.

Results

This year the Durham Tournament was held in the Pemberton Rooms on Palace Green, between the historic Cathedral and Castle. There were 25 entrants ranging from 28k to 4d, including eight who had never played in a tournament before, and with the youngest player being 8 years old. On the Saturday night there was an all-you-can-eat Go BBQ, which had almost 30 people eating, drinking, and playing Go - some until gone midnight.

Durham alumnus Alex Kent (3d) won the Go Tournament, winning a Goat Ornament, and a 6 month subscription to Baduk TV English, kindly donated by Go Game Guru, retaining the title he won in 2013. Lightning and Small Board side events were won by Silas Maughan and Jonathan Teddy McManus. Prizes were also given for 4 or more wins, including James Milne, who won all 6 of his games.

Results

The Challengers' League was held again at ISH in London over the bank holiday weekend, but this time it started a day later, on the Saturday, and ran to the Tuesday. Eight of the top players from the Candidates' Tournament, who were both available and managed to confirm their attendance, took part under the watchful eye of Jenny Radcliffe.

Reigning British Champion Andrew Kay won all his seven games to win the League. Alex Kent won five games, losing to Andrew and also to Harry Fearnley, to become the other player in the forthcoming title match. Third were Des Cann and Boris Mitrovic with 4 wins, fifth were Harry Fearnley and Alistair Wall with 3, Alex Rix was seventh with 2 and Kiyohiko Tanaka was eighth.

Results

In advance of the Commonwealth Games, a total of 25 players came to Glasgow for the 2014 Scottish Open, the same number as the previous year.

This year’s Scottish Open champion was David Lee (3d Dundee) on a perfect 6 wins. Bob Scantlebury (8k Sheffield) claimed 5 wins, and 4 wins were recorded by Joseff Thomas (10k Glasgow), Carel Goodheir (9k Skye) and runner-up Francis Roads (1d Wanstead).

A big difference this year was the generous sponsorship from the local branch of the Confucius Institute, which meant that fourteen players (all those on 3 wins or above) were able to select a book from the BGA bookstall.

The British Pair Go Championship settled into a new home for the 24th edition, as the old venue had closed down. The event was held in the Red Lion in Hatfield, less than five minutes walk from both the station and the historic old town area. This is now also the venue for the Welwyn Garden City Tournament.

Due to the busy calendar and some illness, there were only 10 pairs taking part and so they were split into six for the open section and four for the handicap section. Winning the top section and returning to the champions position were Natasha Regan and Matthew Cocke and winning the handicap section were Jil Segerman and Patrick Ridley.

The Fighting Spirit prizes went to Edwina Lee and Charles Leedham-Green and to Roella and Edmund Smith.

Alex Rix (3d London) won the Bracknell Tournament. He beat Chris Bryant (1d St Albans) in the last round to claim the Clive Hendrie Trophy for a year. The number of players was down at 24, but nearly everyone got closely matched games due to a gap between 1k and 5k, and exactly 8 players 1k and above. Best of the 5k players was Steve Bailey (Arundel) who won all 3, but close behind was Eric Hall, also 5k (Swindon), who won two with a second round jigo. Daniel Peace (8k Oxford) also won three games.

The team prize was won by "SwinMaid" on a close decision from St Albans. Bruce Tinton (11k South London) won the problem solving contest, playing at his first tournament. The caption contest was won by popular acclaim by Shawn Hearn's "And this move is the Incy Wincy Spider Pincer."

Results