UK Tournament Report

Cambridge A won all four matches, including beating unbeaten hosts Nippon A in the final round, to win the the autumn edition of the London International Teams. In the Handicap Division it was the South London Go Club team that won all their matches, and only lost one game, to win for the third time in a row. Cambridge B was second.

Players winning all four games were Shinichi Nao, Alex Rix, Jonathan Turner, Patrick Batty, David Cantrell and Nick Fry.

Results

The East Midlands was again held at the Space Centre in Leicester and as usual players were able to visit the exhibition between rounds. Unfortunately the Leicester marathon was on, which caught out one player who had to miss the first round. Running out the winner this year was Jon Diamond; he beat Warwick's Bruno Poltronieri in the last round. Also winning three wins were Edward Blockley (5k Worcester), Matthew Adron (7k Sheffield) and Stephen Bashforth (13k Leicester). The Northampton club team was pleased when two of their players went home unbeaten: Laura Streamer (10k) and Ross Kane (19k). 39 players took part including a goodly number in the lower kyu grades.

Results

The erstwhile Shrewsbury Tournament was moved to a country location this year, the little village of Hinstock, just south of Market Drayton. The Memorial Hall proved to be a spacious and pleasant venue, and it should be even better next year when the extension has been completed.

Matthew Cocke, 5d Epsom, was the only one of the 32 players at Swindon to win three games. He beat Alex Kent, 2d Durham, in the last round.

Results

After a second exciting game - taking 6hr20mins, mostly of Nick Krempel's thinking - Andrew Kay has prevailed for a second game in the British Go Championship Title Match and emerges as the 2012 British Go Champion. Many congratulations to him, and to Nick on coming in second for a second year running.

We owe our thanks to Epsom Go Club who lent kit for this second title match, and Nick Krempel whose equipment was used in the first game; to Maria Tabor and me for refereeing/relaying, and to Francis Roads, Nick Wedd and Alex Rix for offering to referee if needed.

Toby Manning, 2d, won the Cornish Open by beating Tony Atkins in the final. David Cantrell, 6k, from London won 3/3. The previous day there was a teaching session run by Ian Marsh, Toby Manning and Tony Atkins, and in the afternoon there was the handicap tournament won by Peter Harold-Barry, 5k, from St Albans. He beat local player Paul Massey, 1k, in the final. 20 players in all took part.

Open Results and Lightning Handicap Results

2011 winner Richard Moulds, 3k from Manchester, was again the winner in 2012, winning all 3 games. There were 20 players in total at the one day tournament in sunny, dry Stockport. Other winners, also with 3 wins, were Brian Timmins, 9k from Shrewsbury, and Kathleen Timmins, 14k from Shrewsbury.

Results

For those that weren't able to observe the 1st round of the Title Match on KGS 8th September - between Nick Krempel and Andrew Kay:

Congratulations to Andrew Kay for winning the 1st round of the 3 round Title Match.

Andrew Kay took black in Nigiri, and ended up wining the game by Resignation after a dramatic fight for a collection of white stones - this was played over a 5 hour game, with approximately 120 moves played.

A live audio review took place on KGS by Alexander Dinerchtein (breakfast), and there will be an SGF review for the game + photos that will be published on the BGA site as soon as they are sent out to us (after tomorrow).

At the 16th MSO in London the Go gold medals went to Francis Roads and Felix Wang.

In the 13x13 event eight players from 3d to 10k played over five rounds. Francis Roads won his first four games and, despite stumbling in the last game against Michael Dixon (10k), was the winner. Taking the silver was Spain's Paco de la Banda (3d) who also won 4 but lost to Francis. Matthew Hathrell (3k) took bronze only losing to the top 2.

The MSO Open had 16 players from 4d to 15k including a family of Germans who had arranged their holiday around the event. Clear winner with 4 wins was Felix Wang, 4d, who had won the event previously in 2009. Silver went to the best of the players on 3 wins Adan Mordcovich (1d) who lost to the winner, but had beaten Francis Roads who got the bronze. Just losing out on the tie-break for third were Alsitair Wall and Bruno Poltronieri.

Results MSO 13x13

34 players gathered in the Sports Pavilion at the OU, overlooking the cricket pitch, which saw a mixture of sunshine and showers during the day.

Overall winner was Andrew Simons (3d Cambridge), who beat Phil Beck in the final game. Also on three wins were Oscar Selby (18k Epsom), Gary Gibson (7k Wanstead) and Fred Holroyd (7k Milton Keynes).

Wanstead got an impressive 7/9 in the team competition, but were then disqualified because they all left before prize-giving; so the winning team was the Tricky Tesuji's (Natasha Regan, Oscar Selby and Peter Collins) with 6/9.

Most importantly, in the Milton Keynes Go side event, the prize for most wins went to Oscar Selby with a very impressive 6/11. The prize for highest percentage went to Tim Hunt for 3/5, only just ahead of Chas Walton who had 4/7.

Results