Foreign Tournament Report

Lai, Hung and Kuo of Chinese Taipei 1 won the gold medal in the Team Tournament. In the semi-finals they beat Singapore 3-0 and then in the final won 2-1 against Chinese Taipei 2. Chinese Taipei 2 (Lo, Tsai and Hsu) had beaten Russia 2-1 in their semi-final and had to be content with the silver medal. Singapore won the bronze medal beating Russia 2-1 in the play-off for third.

The two UK teams ended 6th and 12th in their respective groups at the World Mind Sports Games.

UK 1 ended with three wins in the 14-team B Group to get a very good 6th position. On the second day of the event they lost 3-0 to Chinese Taipei 1, lost 2-1 to Japan 1 and beat Australia 2-1.

UK 2 beat Romania 2 in round 3, lost to Macau in round 4 and beat Italy 2 in round 5, all matched 3-0, to end 12th in the 16-team A Group.

The teams that qualified for the knock-out stage were Chinese Taipei 1 (the only unbeaten team) and Russia in B Group and Chinese Taipei 2 and Singapore in A Group (on tie-break from Austria and Czech Republic).

Team UK 1 won both their first matches in the WMSG Team Tournament. They beat Ireland 2-1 in the first round (Matthew Cocke lost to Ian Davis by 1.5 points) and in the second round Chong, Vanessa and Matthew beat the Netherlands 1 team 3-0. The UK 2 team lost both their matches 0-3, the first against Canada and the other against USA 1.

Lai won the Men's Individual and Lin won the Women's Individual tournaments to take double gold.

Unfortunately Vanessa Wong lost her semi-final against Osawa and then lost to Sarah Yu of Canada by 1.5 points to miss out on a great opportunity. Sadly, very late in the latter game she answered a smallish ko threat rather than living in her opponent's corner, which cost her about 10 points and a Bronze medal.

Congratulations to her.

Vanessa Wong won both her games on the third day of the WMSG Women's Individual to qualify for the knock-out stage with 4 wins. Osawa Maya of Japan lost her fifth game to Sarah Yu of Canada, so both those players qualified on four wins too. The fourth player into the knock-out was Lin Hsiao-Tung of Chinese Taipei, also with 4 wins. The other UK Players, Anna Griffiths and Natasha Regan, both ended on 3 wins.

In the Men's Individual the four qualifiers were all from Chinese Taipei: Lai and Lo on 5 wins and Kuo and Hung on 4 wins. Top UK player was Chong Han in 20th place with 3 wins. Henry Manners also won 3, Andrew Simons 2 and Paul Tabor 1 win.

The female members of Team GB were all on two wins after three rounds of the Women's Individual at the World Mind Sports Games. Unfortunately Vanessa Wong did not win her third game, against Osawa Maya of Japan, so ended the day in fourth place not first or second.

In the Men's, Chong Han won a second game to end the second day in 11th place of the Men's Individual. Henry Manners also had two wins.

Results

Our picture library for the WMSG 2012 is now available.

The British team did well in the first round of the Men and Women events at the World Mind Sports Games.

All three women and three of the four men won. Chong Han and Vanessa Wong are the top team players with a chance of medals. Only Andrew Simons lost his game by 7.5 against a Brazilian 3d.

Natasha Regan and Matt Cocke finished a very creditable 7th out of 24 in the European Pair Go Championship, held in Lyon, France, 2nd-3rd June 2012. They won 3 of their 6 games.

It was won with a flawless record by the Professional Russian Pair, Svetlana Shikshina and Alexandr Dinerchtein.

Results

We won our final match of the season against Denmark 3-1, meaning we will finish in 4th or 5th place, depending on the results of the other games in the final round; better than last year when we finished 7th. Watch http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/ for final details.

In round 9 Chong Han won on board 1 against Kasper Hornbæk, getting the better side of the deal in a fighting game of many trades and winning by resignation.

Des Cann beat Thomas Heshe with a nice counter attack in which what Thomas must have thought was one of Des's weak groups, ending up killing one of Thomas'. The game continued for a while but Des defended solidly and won by resignation once it was clear all his groups were safe.

Andrew Simons got off to reasonable start in his moyo game, and although Uffe Rasmussen's invading group broke out he secured a large territory.