UK Tournament Report

As well as winning the British Lightning Cornel Burzo, 6d Romania, won all six games to win the British Open. He was two points clear of division 2 winner and runner up Robert Rehm, 5d Netherlands, division 2 runner up Bei Ge, 5d UK, and division 3 winner Felix Wang, 4d UK, and division 3 runner up Andrew Kay, 4d UK. Francisco Divers also did very well winning all six games. The trophies and prizes were all awarded based on divisions by grade.

Div 4 Francisco Divers, 1d UK
Div 5 Michael Charles, 1k UK, Runner-up Roger Huyshe, 3k UK
Div 6 Martin Harvey, 4k UK, Runner-up Wojciech Szychowiak, 5k PL
Div 7 Jan Willemson, 6k EE
Div 8 Gerry Gavigan, 12k UK, Runner-up Mikhail Mramorov, 13k RU

61 people took part.

Also receiving a trophy was event organiser Toby Manning who collected the Terry Stacey Trophy.

Results Photos

48 players sat down in eight groups to play the British Lightning. This was the first event at the combined BGC and EYGC weekend at Bognor Regis.

The winners of the groups went on to the knock-out stage: Paul Barnard, Cornel Burzo, Francisco Divers, Anton Kriese, Andrei Mramorov, Des Cann, Jonas Welticke and Richard Hunter. Cornel then went on to beat Francisco to reach the final against Jonas, who had beaten Andrei. The final was decided on the clock (and on the board) in favour of Cornel, the Romanian 6d.

Results Photos

Mark Elliot (1d Manchester) won the Cheshire Tournament. This was his first tournament for 30 years and a good test of whether his grade from the 1980s was still accurate. He beat Helen Harvey (1k Manchester) in the final of the 8-player top group. Two players of the 12-player handicap group ended on four wins. Based on CUSS tie-break (and he had also beaten the other player), the winner was the Cheshire Tournament's founder, Brian Timmins (8k Shropshire). Brian's comment on receiving his prize was "Not bad for a 78-year-old". The player in second, by the broken tie, was Ron Bell (5k Borders).

Results

Toby Manning (2d Leicester) won the Maidenhead Tournament with a surprise win over Andrew Simons (4d Cambridge) in the last round. Also winning all three games to claim two prizes were: Francis Roads (1d Wanstead), Paul Barnard (1k Swindon), Adam Heslop (4k Edinburgh), Malcolm Walker (7k No Club), Daniel Peace (9k Oxford), Colin Lee (11k North London) and Charlotte Bexfield (16k Letchworth). All those on two wins were rewarded with one prize.

Results

Also winning prizes were Charlotte Bexfield and Johannes Siven for 4/6 in the 13x13 side event. The box of chocolates for the best team was shared by members of three teams: Paratus, Arundel and Maidenhead, each with 6 out of 12.

The 4d from Nottingham, Yuanbo Zhang, came out top of the list of 109 players at the 40th London Open. His only loss was in round 6 to Benjamin Drean-Guenaizia, 5d, from France. Benjamin had already lost in round 1 to Andre Stadtler, 3d Germany, but lost on SOS tie-break to Yuanbo. Pierre Paga, 4d France, won 5 games to come third on tie-break from the UK's Andrew Simons, 4d.

A new UK player called Tethys, 17k, won 6 games out of six and all on 5 wins won prizes too: Doerte Rueten-Budde, 8k Germany, Patrick Pitters, 1k Germany, Francisco Divers, 1k London, and Stephan Kunne, 1d Germany. All on 4 wins received a certificate. Results

Also getting prizes were the Finnish winner and runner up in the Lightning: Mikko Siukola, 4d, and Janne Nikula, 1d.

Two teams representing Oxford and Cambridge came together at the venue of the London Open for a two round match. This was at the invitation of WBaduk who sponsored the match and broadcast the games on Korean Go Server with the aid of BGA game recorders. Players represented both the current students and alumni.

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Matthew Macfadyen
Tony Lou Yuxiang
Junnun Jiang
Andrew Simons
Alex Rix
Chris Bryant

18 players made it to this year’s Edinburgh Christmas Open, the lowest entry for many years, with none from “furth” of the border.

David Lee (3 dan Dundee) won all his games and was champion for a second year running. He was joined on 4 wins by Rob Payne (7k Edinburgh) and Joseff Thomas (17k Glasgow). The remaining prize went to the furthest travelling player on 3 wins, which was Carel Goodheir (9k Skye). Other players with 3 wins were Boris Mitrovic (2d Edinburgh) and Greg Cox (10k Dundee).

Results

The South London teaching day and tournament went ahead today with 24 students and 3 teachers - Andrew Kay, Tim Hunt, and Francis Roads, to whom we are very grateful that they gave up their time for us. Students were split into groups of similar strength and spent some time with each of the teachers in the morning.

In the afternoon was a three round tournament. Students were again split into groups, each of which played a Swiss-style tournament with handicap equal to grade difference.

Bruno Poltronieri, 3d, organised a successful Coventry Tournament again, a very successful one for him in that he was the winner. Second was Andrew Kay, 4d, and third Yuanbo Zhang, 3d. Winning all three games were Manchester's Chris Kirkham, 4k, and local student Joseph Ireland, 8k. 37 players took part.

Results

Andrew Kay won the first game by resignation and the second game on time to retain the British Championship, winning 2-0 verses Andrew Simons.

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