Junior + ALL news

The "Supergo" match on KGS between twelve British youth players and a team of twelve Chinese youth players continued throughout July and into August. After the strong runs of some of our early players, the Chinese last player Li Yuze won six games in a row to set up a final against our last player, Jayden Ng (British Youth Go Champion). After an exciting game, Jayden won by 11.5 to complete the match in our favour. Our congratulations go to all who took part and our thanks to the youngsters from the The Li Ang Go Collection Team for playing us.

On Sunday 5 July, 30 young Go players gathered online for our first online training tournament for the UK Youth Go Squad, reports Alison Bexfield. Any player who had reached 20k or better was invited (that we were aware of) and it was pleasing to see how many of the players had improved over recent months since we last saw them play.

The tournament was played over three rounds during the afternoon on OGS, where we were able to have a private invitation-only group.

The fact that the strength of our youth players has increased over recent years was evidenced by the fact that 8 of our 30 players were graded 3kyu or stronger (with three of this group in the U12 age group) .

Jacob Zhang is our strongest player and won all three games to lead the top group, although a very rapidly improved Ryan Zhang, now playing at 2k, gave him a good game.

The meetings on OGS for youth players and parents are continuing every Sunday from 4pm to 6pm. There are junior players from 25-kyu up to 2-kyu and about half a dozen parents joining in as well. New members are very welcome, please contact Paul Smith (paul361smith at gmail.com) for details of how to join.

On 1 June some of our youth players from this group joined in the Dutch youth group on OGS organised by Dave de Vos. We won 6 out of 8 games played against the Dutch junior players (and Alexander Hsieh won a handicap game against Dave), but this wasn't a competition. The point was just mostly to play with some different players and have fun. If there are any other groups on OGS (for example any UK club groups) who we could have a joint meeting with please let Paul know.

On 7 June we started a "Supergo" match on KGS between twelve British youth players and a team of twelve youth players organised by Go teacher Li Ang in China.

Part 2 of 2, of a report on the 25th European Youth Go Championship.

Full names of the people above may be found in a section below. Also, for any photo, you can both hover your mouse over it to see more details, and click on it to see an enlarged version of the photo. You will find all the photos here - and more - on the BGA's photo page for the event.

What are EYGCs?

The EYGC (European Youth Go Championship) is a youth competition, played face-to-face, in a different country each year.

The UK youth team played Czechia in their fourth and final match of the 2019/20 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC) over the week up to 15th February.

Alison Bexfield, team captain, writes:

On paper we were fielding a team close in strength to those of our opponents, Czechia, with the grades slightly in our favour.

Board 2 was played earlier in the week and Scott Cobbold played well to win by 7.5 points in an evenly matched game. Board 3 played on the Friday and Alexander Hsieh had another closely fought game to lose by 7.5. Since this was a game we had expected to win, this raised the tension for the final three boards. So we went into today 1-1 needing to win two games to win the match.

Alexander Timperi was the first to finish on board 4.

The UK youth team played Romania in their third round match of the 2019/20 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC) over the weekend of 18th and 19th January.

Alison Bexfield, team captain, writes:

Romania are a strong team so we fielded our strongest players this round. The match was split over two days, Saturday and Sunday at various times.

First on board 1 Yueran was up against a very strong player (a 6 dan). He put up a really good fight with the online score estimate suggesting he was holding his own for much of the game but in the end the result went according to grade.

On board 3 our up and coming player Scott was playing a 2 dan. Scott has improved rapidly since the autumn when he was playing at 6 kyu as his results in the London Open showed, putting him around 2 kyu. The game was exciting to watch being really close right to the end when Scott just clinched it by 3.5 points.

Alison Bexfield, team captain, writes:

The UK youth team played the Netherlands today in their second round match of the 2019/20 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC). It was good to see a team from the Netherlands playing this year for the first time.

When choosing the team for each match I try to pick a team which has good winning chances, but also where the grade differences between players are likely to be close so that our players can develop their match play. The Netherlands team is much weaker in strength than our first round opponents (Russia), so we were able to play a different set of players from our squad of fifteen than the previous round. On paper going into the match we had the edge on four boards by one or two grades, with one board being a grade difference the other way.

A late substitution on board 5 for the Netherlands, due to sickness, gave Yanyi an easy game on board 5.

Cheadle Hulme School (shown left) proved they are the top British school for Go by both having the largest team at the British Youth Go Championships and by winning the Castledine Trophy. The top three of their 19-strong team won the team matches to get the trophy, beating Sir John Lawes School from Harpenden (3-0) and James Gillespie's High School from Edinburgh (2-1) (who beat SJL 2-1). The Best Junior School was Harpenden Academy, beating James Gillespie's Primary School (2-1).

The UK youth team fought valiantly against top seeds Russia A team in the first round of the 2019/20 European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC), but in the end the match went according to grade and the Russian team won 5-0.

We always knew it was going to be a difficult match, as all the Russian A team are dan players. So we fielded our strongest players from the squad. Even so, only one game was within one grade of the Russian team on paper. Incidentally, this was the strongest team the UK youth team has fielded since this competition began.

Four of our players were experienced members of the team, but we welcomed Bill playing on Board 2 playing in his first team match for the UK.

Despite floods disrupting travel, especially in the N-W, this year's Doki Doki Festival went ahead as planned, in Manchester. Thanks go to all the organisers, helped considerably by members of the friendly Japan Society North West (JSNW).

The annual fun event, with all imaginable Japan-themed activities, stalls and competitions, attracted its usual huge (4,000 over 2 days) and largely youthful attendance. For each such occasion, the organisers invite us back (we're the British Go Association - BGA), to give free Go demos to the public. As ever, we quickly accepted.