BGA Newsletter 318 September 2024

FROM THE EDITOR

This issue, and previous newsletters, are available in the Newsletter Archive in the Members' Area. This is the most reliable way to view the Newsletters, as some email clients can corrupt the formatting of the pictures.

Contributions are always welcome, both from our members and others. We ask that they be Go-related and "newsy". The place for debate and general discussion is the BGA open mailing list Gotalk. However, an introduction to a new topic is fine in the Newsletter. A brief introduction to Gotalk, with a link for joining, is on the BGA page Go on the Internet.

Instructions for Contributors: Please use plain text not file-attachments. Keep it fairly brief, and give web-links and contact details. It's good to include pictures. If they are on the internet, send me the URL, otherwise attach the picture files to your email. Send your contribution to newsletter@britgo.org to arrive by the first day of the month.

Jil Segerman

NEWS

British Championship Title Match

The dates of this year's best-of-3 title match have been finalized. The first two games will be played on 14th and 15th September in Nottingham, with a further game at a later date if necessary. The games will start at 11:00 each day with a sealed move for lunch between 12:30–13:30. The contenders are Ho Yeung (Damen) Woo, defending champion, and Yaoling Yang, playing in the championship for the first time. The match will be broadcast on KGS (look for the game in the British Room) and on OGS. Links will be posted on the BGA Events Calendar.

Great Result in the World Youth Championships

Edited from a write-up kindly supplied by Clare Chen:

From August 26th to August 30th, the 39th World Youth Go Championship was held in Vatra Dornei, Romania. Ryan Zhang from the UK competed in the Under-12 section, being one of the three European qualifiers (from the European Youth Go Championships) in that age group. A total of 22 young players from 16 countries and regions around the world participated. After four days of intense competition in the preliminary and final stages, Zhang Yimiao, a 1 dan professional player from China, and Kim Tae-hyuk, 7 dan from South Korea, won the championships of the Under-12 group and Under-18 group respectively.

Ryan Zhang performed outstandingly. In the first stage he defeated the players from the Czech Republic, Malaysia and a Japanese 6 dan. He only lost to Zhang Yimiao, a professional player and the eventual winner. This put him in the semi-finals. Sadly he didn’t progress past the semi-final, but making it into the top four of the junior group is a ‘first’ for a player representing Europe. As such he broke the usual monopoly of the top four seats in the World Championship by players from China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

In addition to Ryan the other European representatives in the Under-12 section were Bende Barcza 3 dan from Hungary and Bartik Dach 4 dan from the Czech Republic, who came sixth and seventh respectively.

Fun at Youth Go Camp

The seventh annual youth camp was attended by 8 players aged 9 years to 15 years old. Again the PGL centre at Caythorpe Court in Lincolnshire was the venue and as well as Go lessons and playing, the youngsters were able to enjoy pole climbing, canoeing, archery, fencing, tunnel trail and zip wire. Photo gallery here

The Go-teachers this year were Helen Harvey and Tony Atkins, with guest teachers Toby Manning and Huw Mort on one day each.

Winner of the camp handicap tournament was Jed Lau from Oxford and second was Clinton Yu from Manchester. Winners of the Pair Go (Doubles) were Olivia Jennison (Cheadle Hulme) and Elijah Whitbread (Cambridge).

Robot Go

From the BGA President:

At the EGC in Toulouse this year the French Federation received a donation of ten Go-playing robots, for use specifically with youth groups to encourage and motivate new players. They very kindly gave five away to other countries, and due to the relationship our Youth Group has with France they donated one to the BGA.

It having survived a trip back on EasyJet, I hope to introduce it at the Wessex tournament this year. Our initial thoughts are to hand it to Paul Smith for use with the many school clubs he helps run in the Cambridge area. A YouTube advert for it can be seen here.

ADMIN

EGF Annual General Meeting

From the BGA President:

As usual this was held during the first week of the European Congress, this year in Toulouse. Full details should appear on the EGF website, but the most relevant points for ourselves were:
* Following prior discussions with the London Go Centre, we bid for and were awarded the right to host the 2026 European Women’s Championship. This will be in September 2026 at the London Go Centre.
* A proposal to change the way EGF membership fees are calculated was narrowly defeated – 25 votes to 20. This avoids what could have been additional complexity for Tournament Directors.
* An increase of 5,000 euro in EGF income from membership fees was agreed. It is not clear how this will be implemented, but we should expect our share to be perhaps another £400 a year from 2025.
* The auditors made several recommendations to the EGF to better budget for and handle travel expenses, which currently account for 25% of the EGF annual spend. The EGF Board pushed back on those, with a response along the lines of ‘We need the overseas travel to the Far East to enable us to get income in from sponsors there’. We are yet to see quite how much sponsorship will arrive.
* From now one-third of the EGF Board members will be elected each year, as opposed to the entire Board being elected every three years.
* Our proposal to create a Youth Commission, submitted jointly with a number of other members, was supported by the Executive, and duly passed.
* The European Congress for 2025 was confirmed to be in Warsaw (details currently on the EGF Events Calendar). It will (probably) be in Turkey in 2026, and the Netherlands expressed their intent to bid to host it in 2027.

International Events in the UK

From the BGA President:

As noted above, the London Go Centre supported by the BGA will be hosting the 2026 European Women’s Championship in September 2026. We also expect to host the European Pair Go Championship, again at the London Go Centre, in April 2026. This is awaiting final confirmation from the EGF. Thanks go to Gerry and the LGC team without whom this would not be possible. Once we get into detailed planning it is likely we will be asking for additional volunteers to help support these events. Both these events need no pre-qualification, so we hope a good number of UK players will be able to take part.

There has been some discussion recently about us hosting a future European Congress. Some members are keen for us to pursue that, whilst others would rather we didn’t waste our time and effort on what would be a huge task. To move the debate forwards we have appointed a small working party to look into hosting a Congress. It consists of members who between them have many years’ experience of attending European Congresses, and who can contribute time to this without impacting other BGA activities. They are, Stephen Bailey, Mike Cockburn, Toby Manning and Matt Marsh. They will report back to the Board on their findings, and to members generally when we have something substantive.

It is evident that the BGA has no defined policy or process that covers bidding for and hosting international events. As a result a draft policy will be discussed at the September Board meeting, to cover how to manage these opportunities in the future.

BGA Logo Competition

From Sam Bithell:

While the deadline for entries was due on the 31st August, the decision has been made to extend the deadline for a further 2 months and to allow up to two entries per person. The new deadline will therefore be 1st November.

Shortlisting will take place over the following month, by the 1st December 2024, with a membership vote scheduled across the following 3 months and a winner announced by March 2025.

Please see the Full Details, including how to enter, also the Entry Form.

EVENTS COMING SOON

This Month: Nottingham, Edinburgh, Confucius Cup (Dublin), Swindon
October Sheffield, British Small Board / UK Go Challenge Finals (Cambridge), Wessex (Bath)
November Bar Low (London), Three Peaks (Yorkshire), British Youth (Leicester), Northern (Cheadle Hulme)
December T Mark Hall Rapid Play Tournament (London), London Open