Foreign Tournament Report

The 7th round of the B-League on 7th February saw the UK playing top-of-table team Poland. Andrew Simons played his game a week early to fit in with the schedule of his opponent, the European pro Mateusz Surma. On the night the rest of the team did well, with wins for Daniel Hu and Toby Jon Diamond, meaning the UK was the first team to take a point off the leaders with a draw. Both Italy and Austria won, total 12 points each (one behind Poland), and the UK were in fourth place with 10 points.

Andrew Simons wrote: Last week I unsurprisingly lost against Mateusz Surma, the new European pro. The opening was reasonable enough, with a big wall and counter-counter-pincer joseki, and to avoid him sacrificing on a small scale I made some attachment, which he resisted, resulting in a trade that I'd seen in pro games before. I got what I thought was a vital point turn in the centre and then pushed out, rather than connecting on dame.

The UK team drew with a much stronger Netherlands team which had three 6d on it. With an all 3d UK team this was a very good result, despite ending 2-2.

Charlie Hibbert wrote: Hmm, I lost to Gilles van Eeden. I've been on a bit of a losing streak as of late. As is common when older players play black against me, I get forced into a calm game. I actually felt I was doing pretty evenly (both had lots of territory, he had more but I had potential) until I over-egged a moyo trying to catch up on cash, and my opponent exploited the weakness very well. After that I was scrubbing around trying to find something for a bit, before resigning.

Des Cann wrote: I lost by 22.5 to Peter Brouwer. I was happy with the start of the game, but it was probably balanced. The game got interesting when I felt he played too many moves capturing a corner, whilst I built a strong moyo with one of his groups in the middle of it.

The UK team beat Sweden 3-1 despite them playing a reserve on board 3 who was out of team order, which delayed the announcement of the official result.

Daniel Hu wrote: Happy to win, especially against Sweden. I made a moyo despite not liking them, but white just took too much territory. My opponent, Weiying Sorin, did a weird invasion early on and I think I punished it reasonably as it had to live quite small. Next, I protected for a huge corner, but my opponent making two one-space jumps into the centre was bigger than expected in this sort of moyo game. Still, I made good side territory, and simplified the game towards my preferred territory style. I played a somewhat doubtful double hane in the centre to solidify more side territory, but my opponent ridiculously tenukied aiming to reduce 8 points in sente in my big corner. That seemed much smaller than the centre control, and she didn’t even dare to take those 8 points. From then I was quite confident.

It looked like the UK had beaten Croatia 4-0 in their fourth round fixture, but it ended up 3-1 moving the UK back near the top of the B-League.

Andrew Simons wrote: I stood in for Bruno against Zoran Mutabžija (who was European Champion many decades ago but playing at 2d now) and won by a comfy 27.5 in the end, although there were a few nervous moments. He started with a diagonal opening and in a pincer counter-pincer running fight I spent a long time reading out a press expecting him to push and cut but he just crawled on the third line! Then he made some bizarre attach and crosscut sacrificing his pincer group and I got thick but then played two perhaps slow moves and he developed quickly on the rest of the board.

The UK team lost their round three match in the Pandanet B League by losing to Denmark 1-3.

Andrew Simons was on board one against Uffe Rasmussen. He wrote:

I lost in a spectacularly stupid way. The game started with a reasonable fuseki, but when he extended high on the top side, I didn't feel like making a shimari, so invaded. He played an inappropriate pretty shape move in the resulting fight, but, as I had the ladder to the left, I captured a stone for a good result. His ladder breaker wasn't so amazing and I played a pleasant honte to net the ladder stone. After a standard joseki and trading some solid moves, I played a checking extension which he ignored to grab a load of points. I then invaded to take his base and he tenukied again to grab another corner. The problem was it wasn't so easy to kill the resulting heavy wall, nor to make profit from attacking.

The UK team kept their unbeaten record in the Pandanet B League by beating Turkey 3-1.

Chris Bryant was first to finish; he said: Got off to a good opening, tried to build up a big moyo and was allowed to do so. My opponent got a group cut off, which I then harassed to turn that moyo mostly into territory, and it was a very comfortable game from there.

Jon Diamond played a very entertaining game and said: Got off not too badly, but then he pressed a bit too much and I counter-cut creating a weak group of his in the centre, but with one of mine not quite having 2 eyes and another floating a bit, I needed to be careful. (His corner has group looks OK and he has to leave his weak group to try and capture my other one. No go there, but he squeezes out along the side and lives in my corner - damn.

OK, now need to surround his one eyed group in the centre - I’m not sure I can kill it, but will make a big territory anyway.

We were drawn against Belgium in our first match of the new season of the Pandanet Go European Team Championship B League. We won the match 3-1.

Chris Bryant said: My game went pretty smoothly - played unorthodox fuseki to make my opponent uncomfortable and built up a massive centre. Made a couple of silly reading mistakes but kept enough to win by 1.5.

Des Cann wrote: Not happy with my game. Played a bit vague in the early middle game and soon found myself forced to defend where I was attacking. Never recovered.

Daniel Hu wrote: My opponent played some solid joseki. I didn’t bother to invade. Then a few more of that most basic 4-4 joseki. He entered my side, but I just made good shape and didn’t bother to attack, and he built up his side. I was behind before the endgame, which already started at move 89, but he let me get the largest move (115) and I repeatedly gained those 1-2 points as he got into byo-yomi early. I won by 4.5 and still had 5 minutes left.

The 60th European Go Congress ran from 23rd July to 6th August in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was held at the Hotel Azimut, a couple of kilometres south of the historic centre of the city. 456 players took part in round one, including seven Europeans with pro status and six players from Britain.

Winner of the Main Tournament was Kim Young-Sam 7d. It was a very narrow result as four players had 8 points by the end of round 10. Ilya Shikshin 1p was second place with merely 1 SOS point fewer than Kim. Third was Chan Yitien 7d with the same SOS as Ilya, but 2 fewer SODOS points. A very close and exciting finish!

Ilya Shikshin had earlier in the fortnight become the European Champion by beating Israel's Ali Jabarin 1p in the championship final. Ali was also fourth in the Open. Kim Young-Sam also won the Weekend Tournament and the Pair Go with Manja Marz.

See all tournament results

The top four teams of the A-League of the Pandanet Go European Team Championship came together to play the over-the-board finals at the European Go Congress in St Petersburg, Russia, on Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd July.

The first round saw a win for Russia against France (3-1) and Ukraine beating Romania (4-0). Round two saw a win for Russia over Romania (3-1) and a draw for France and Ukraine. The final round featured the crucial match between Russia and Ukraine. This ended in Ukraine's favour (3-1) to give them the title for the first time. It looked like Romania-France would be a draw, but the clock that had caused a loss on time was found on appeal to be faulty thus France won it (3-1).

So 1st Ukraine (5 points), 2nd Russia (4 points), 3rd France (3 points) and 4th Romania (0 points).

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Andrew Simons (4d) ended in 21st place of 56 for the UK at the 37th World Amateur Go Championship, held in Wuxi, China, from 5th - 8th June.

In the first round he lost to Csaba Mero (6d) of Hungary, then beat Supravat Pal (1k) of India. Jet-lag and a malfunctioning alarm clock meant he overslept and forfeited his third game against Santiago Espinosa-Uribe (4d) of Colombia, but he then beat Gabriel Hissao Makio (1d) of Brazil. Next he lost to Jürgen Suntinger (3d) of Austria before beating John Gibson (5k) of Ireland (who finished on 2 wins, beating India and the Chinese ghost), Leon Rios (1d) of Peru and Emil Garcia (5d) of Mexico.