Youth Go News 33 - February 2024

Editor, Toby Manning.

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NEWS

Grand Prix

The Youth Grand Prix for 2023 ended as usual with the London Open. At this Ryan Zhang increased his points tally to 1351, taking first place. Caleb Monk also scored enough points to over take Clinton Yu's 1197 to end second with 1228. Alvina Kwok (990) and Andrew Volovich (931) just missed out on the cash prizes (these are donated in memory of John Rickard).

Clinton Yu won the second tier of the DDK Grand Prix with 965 points. Third overall and taking the top tier prize was Rachael Chik on 398.

Hong Kong Match

This match continued with Gene Wong and Scott Cobbold each winning 4 games. At time of writing we are tied 12-12 with Scott due to play the deciding game on 17 February.

European Youth Go Team Competition

In this competition the UK youth team narrowly lost to France by two boards to three in the second round of the European Youth Go Team Competition. Our U12 boards, Ryan Zhang and Yanyi Xiong, both picked up wins. Ryan's game was particularly exciting culminating in a half point win, whilst Yanyi again performing strongly against a higher rated player to gain a 7.5 point win. Our two U16 boards, Alvina Kwok and Daniel Yang, fought hard but were not able to defeat their slightly stronger opponents. On top board Scott Cobbold had an exciting game against Linh Vu Tu, a 4 dan, but ultimately had to resign. This left the UK third behind Ukraine and France.

The UK youth squad won their third round match 3-2 against Romania. Our two U12 players, Yanyi and Blake, both took a win. Our board three, Alvina, also put in a strong performance to take our third win and the match. Our top two boards, Scott and Alain, were unable to overcome their opponents, although Scott fought hard to lose by only 8.5 points.

In the fourth round we lost to Austria 3-2. Michael and Audrey produced victories on Boards 1 and 2, but Aidan, Lukasz and Emily were unable to capitalise on this good performance.

The final result was that Ukraine, being unbeaten, won the Competition, with Germany second and Poland third; the UK team came fourth.

Euro City Youth Go League 2023/24

There were 8 UK teams in the three leagues and games were played on playstrategy.org on alternate Tuesday evenings. After the leagues the top players played knock-out to determine the winner. The EGF reported:

The top division final between London and Wuppertal was very close. In the handicap games, the London players were white on all three boards and only Alain Cheung won his game, Ryan Sun and Yilin Su got 2 points for Wuppertal. In the even games, Shizhao Li managed to avenge his defeat against Alain, but the other two games went to London and so the final score was 3-3. London won on tiebreak because they won more of the even games. This is exactly what happened in the previous edition of the league, so Wuppertal are very unlucky to lose this way twice in a row. Well done to the London team of Alain Cheung, Scott Cobbold and Gene Wong - and their captain Chiu Wong.

Pandanet Youth Go European Team Championships

The PYGETC is a new league starting in February 2024. Although outwardly similar to the European Youth Go Team Competition, there are a number of significant differences:

• All team members must have British nationality
• Boards 1 - 3 must be under 18
• Board 4 must be female (under 18)
• Board 5 must be under 12.

Alison Bexfield has again agreed to be team manager and is putting together the squad. Ten countries are taking part.

TOURNAMENTS

London Youth

This was unfortunately cancelled because of insufficient entries. The London Go Centre is considering holding a youth event later in the year.

European Youth Go Championships

This event will take place in Hamburg, Germany, from 21 - 23 March (registration on 20 March). The location is adjacent to Hamburg-Heising train station (a 20 minute train ride from central Hamburg). Cheap (floorspace) accommodation is available at the venue (€5/night).

Toby Manning (youth-chair@britgo.org) will be the UK non-playing captain, and will provide game reviews, teaching and mentoring during the Championships.

Please contact Toby if you need a letter of support to take time off from school, or if you have any other questions. If travel and/or accommodation costs are a problem then the Youth Go Trust may be able to assist. The Championships will be preceded by a "Training Camp" (from 18 - 20 March).

OGS Online Meetings

We have suspended our regular Sunday sessions. Instead you are invited to join a regular session for Youth Go Players on OGS hosted by Cambridge Junior Chess and Go Club. These take place on Tuesday afternoons and will be restarting on Tuesday 27 February. They run from 4pm until 6pm (players can drop in at any time during this period) in the Cambridge Junior Chess & Go Club group. Before you come for the first time, please set up an OGS username if you haven't already got one and let us know it so we can invite you to the group and send you a link to the Zoom call which we have during the meeting. In order to do this, or for any other information/questions please contact Paul, email paul361smith@gmail.com or text 07503 898934.

TEACHING/TRAINING

DDK Teaching (for weaker players, below 9 kyu)

The next DDK teaching session will be on 10 March at 14:30.

EGF Academy

The EGF Academy is for stronger players. The BGA offers a 50% grant to anyone attending the Academy: please email ynews AT britgo.org for more details.

DIARY SUMMARY

10 March DDK teaching (online)
21 - 23 March - European Youth Go Championships Hamburg, Germany
14 April - British School Teams (online)
14 - 17 August - Youth Camp at Caythorpe
20 October - UK Go Challenge Finals (Cambridge)
9 November - British Youth Go Championships, Leicester

USEFUL RESOURCES

Here are some useful resources/links:

BGA Youth Go Twitter account (kept fairly active, 216 followers)
BGA Youth Go OGS (closed group, 205 members including adult organisers). If you are a new member, please complete this form.
BGA Youth Go Discord Channel
BGA Website: Junior Pages

PROBLEMS

Black to play