UK Tournament Report

Andrew Simons won the slightly delayed 2011 British Small Board Championship to hold on to his title won in 2010, by beating Tim Hunt, despite losing to him in their first game. Unfortunately though Andrew still has not received the trophy as the delay in passing it on last time was repeated when the organiser brought the wrong trophy along. Nevertheless all else was organised well, including the cooking by Paul Smith's family. Youth prize winner was Melchior Chui who won all 8 games. Best Junior was Anthony Ghica with 6/8, and best under-8 player was Edmund Smith. Other junior prizes went to Peran Truscott and David Robson. Also winning prizes were Andrea Smith and Stanislaw Klajn.

Results

Xinyi Lu, former organiser, was remembered at the 2012 Maidenhead Tournament. The tournament was honoured by the presence of both Xinyi's parents and several family friends. 49 players took part in the tournament and it was fitting that it was a Chinese player, Chu Lu 5d, who was the winner. She beat Bei Ge in the final. Also winning three were Mike Charles, 2k, and Dave Storkey, 8k.

The London Open kicked off with more than 100 players from 23 countries in round one and more than 120 players in total. On hand to do teaching was Korean Professional Miss Ko Juyeong. On the second evening the 16 team Pair Go was won by Ko Juyeong and Chong Han.

After 5 rounds Korean 7d Young-Sam Kim was unbeaten, close behind were Yunlong Liu 3d from China and British players Chong Han 5d and Andrew Kay 4d.

In the end nobody could beat Young-Sam Kim who took the first place. Five players ended on five wins in the next positions: Lingjun Miao (4d China), Yunlong Liu (3d China), Chong Han (5d, UK), Andrew Kay (4d UK) and Ching-Nung Lin (6d Taiwan). The second-third and fourth-fifth places were tied. Winning six games were Rafael Mello (11k Durham), Carl Roll (7k Nottingham) and Martha McGill (2k Edinburgh). All players with five wins got a prize selected from the prize table and all with four wins got a certificate.

The third season of the online team league and the first season of the online Individual League concluded on 17th December 2011.

After some adjustments, awarding draws in unplayed games, the winners of the online team league, taking the GoGoD shield, were Central London Go Club A.

Winning Division 2 and promotion to division 1 were St Albans Go Club team.

Winning Division 3 and promotion to division 2 were the Chester A team.

Winning Division 4 and promotion to division 3 were the South London team.

The individual league prizes in the first online league were named the "Xinyi Lu prizes" in honour of Xinyi Lu, who tragically died in October 2011.

Winning Division 1 was Andrew Simons from Cambridge.

Winning Division 2 - and what would have been promotion to division 1 - was Xinyi Lu from the Central London Go Club.

Winning Division 3 and promotion to division 2 was John Collins from the St Albans Go Club.

Coming bottom of their respective divisions and relegate

No weather problems this year, unlike in in 2010 which delayed that edition until February. Yunlong Liu (3d Stirling) was the best of the 24 players attending, with Boris Mitrovic (1k Edinburgh) the runner-up on 3 wins.

Ten years after previously winning, Malcolm Hagan won the West Surrey Handicap Tournament. This was probably the last ever such event, with only the support of 13 players meaning it is not worth continuing. Malcolm (7k Winchester) beat Roger Daniel (6k London) in the final to win all 4 games. Also winning 3 were Ed Blockley (5k Worcester) and Colin Maclennan (10k Twickenham). Pauline Bailey (16k West Surrey) won the 13x13 competition with 8 wins, Tony Atkins won the lunch time Pits and Sue Paterson won the competition for writing 26-word passages where each word starts with a different letter.

Results

Andrew Kay stopped Matthew Macfadyen's run of three titles in a row at the Coventry Tournament at the University of Warwick. Andrew beat Matthew in their third-round game to allow Andrew to increase his current titles to five. Matthew Macfadyen got the prize for second and Chu Lu, from the University club, was third. Other players getting prizes for winning all three were David Killen (5k Cheltenham), James Brownrigg (6k Chester), Brent Cutts (9k Nottingham) and Reg Sayer (13k Stafford). Local University club members Anees Ahee (18k) and Ross Woodruff (25k) also won all three games. 47 players took part.

Results

Andrew Kay stopped Matthew Cocke's run of three titles in a row at the Three Peaks Tournament in Grange-Over-Sands. Andrew beat Matthew in their fourth-round game to allow Andrew to increase his current titles to four. Andrew Simons also won four wins to come third, only losing to Matthew. Other players winning four out of five were Chris Kirkham (4k Manchester), Ron Bell (4k Borders), Adrian Abrahams (10k Lancaster) and Eggert Fruchtenicht (13k Lancaster). Tony Pitchford was given a sepcial prize for helping out on day 1 when organiser Bob Bagot was not there. 38 players took part.

Results

The rockets of the National Space Centre were appropriate for November 5th, but luckily none were fired during the East Midlands Go Tournament. Chong Han (5 dan) from Loughborough was the winner beating Francis Roads, Jon Diamond and Tony Atkins along the way. Two other of the 40 players won all three games, namely Chris Bryant (9 kyu) from St Albans club and Paul Reade (14 kyu) from Leamington. Francis Roads and Alistair Wall were awarded plaques for supporting the small small-board side tournament.

Results

Yunlong Liu, 3d, a temporary student in Scotland, won the 42nd Wessex Tournament in Bath. He beat the defending champion Andrew Kay by 2 points in the final. The only other player of the 30 participants to win all 3 games was Dylan Carter, 2k, from Cardiff.

Results