Foreign Tournament Report

Jon Diamond did his duty as President of the BGA by winning his game in the UK's first match in the B League of the new Pandanet Go European Team Championship. Unfortunately Matthew Macfadyen, Will Brooks and Jonathan Chin lost their games, so that the UK lost the match 3-1 to Poland.

BGA Euroteams page

Ian Davis took a very high 25th place for Ireland at the 5th KPMC. He won 4 games (against Kazakhstan, Portugal, Brazil and Norway) and lost 3 (against Denmark, Slovakia and Sweden). Piers Shepperson ended 45th for the UK having won 3 (against Panama, Malaysia and Luxembourg), but losing 4 (to Spain, Poland, Columbia and Netherlands).

Vanessa Wong narrowly failed to win the European Women's Go championship, held in Lyon, France. Vanessa ended in the top group of five players on four wins, but was squeezed into second place on tie-break behind Germany's Pei Zhao. Alison Bexfield was 6th and Natasha Regan was 11th in the field of 20 players.

Results

Will Brooks, the student from Cambridge, was equal third in the European Student Go Championship in Darmstadt, Germany. He only lost to the top rated player Benjamin Teuber and to the eventual winner Matthias Terwey. 22 students from 8 countries took part.

Results

The European Team Tournament was held following on from the Leksand Tournament. The Netherlands were the winning team with 8 points and 15 wins. Second was Serbia also with 8 points but 14 wins. Usual winners, Russia, were third. Six teams took part.

World Youth Goe Championships were held this year the tournament on Penghu Island in Taiwan. Chinese, Korean and home players dominated the event, with China winning the under-12 and Korea the under-16 titles.

Anson Ng, representing the UK, won 2 games in the under-12 and Vanessa Wong won 2 in the under-16. Top european player was Lukas Podepera from Czechia who won 3 games out of 4.

The 54th European Go Congress, sponsored by Zhuyeqing Tea, was held in various school buildings in Tampere, Finland. The fortnight started with the last days of a record heat wave.

The WAGC returned to China after more than 25 years. 60 countries took part, less than before as several European countries could not afford the airfare without sponsors.

The event was held in the new Tian Yuan Tower in Hangzhou, specially built to support Go activities.

After six rounds the only unbeaten player was Song Hong-Suk of Korea; he remained unbeaten. Wang Chen of China was second, only losing to the winner. Czechia's Ondrej Silt and Hungary's Pal Balogh ended in the group with six wins, which also contained North Korea, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Japan and Singapore.

T Mark Hall, playing for the UK, was 41st beating Malaysia, Switzerland and Slovenia.

John Gibson of Ireland was 52nd beating Peru and Turkey.

Full Results

The Paris Tournament was the finale of the Pandanet Go European Cup for 2009-2010.

Over 200 players took part.

Winner with 6/6 was Dai Junfu. Second was Csaba Mero and third Hwang In-Seong, both on 5/6.

Only UK player was Yohei Negi who won 3/6.

Results

Pal Balogh scored enough points to overtake long time leader Ondrej Silt to win the PGEC ranking.

Congratulations to the UK representatives Anson Ng and Vanessa Wong!

This event took place in the ancient town of Sibiu in Romania. 48 under-16s and 75 under-12s took part. The lowering of the age limit at the WYGC meant the 13 under-18 players who were not under-16 played in their own section and not for any official title.

Winner in the under-12 was Anson Ng (1k) representing the UK, who won 5 games out of 6. The next places were taken by players with 4 wins: Alexandru Pitrop (4k Romania), Silvestru State (6k Romania), Oliver Wolf (1k Germany) and Stepan Popov (1d Russia).

Winner under-16 was Poland's Mateusz Surma (4d), also winning 5/6. The UK's Vanessa Wong (4d) was second, Jurij Mykhaljuk (2d Ukraine) was third and Lukas Podpera (4d Czechia) was fourth, all on 4 wins.

Romania's Mihai Valentin Serban (4d) won all six games to win the under-18 section, ahead of Roman Ruzhanskyj (1d Ukraine).

To complete the Go festival, 40 adults played their own tournament.