The spring 2021 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read in the Members' Area, with printed copies being sent out later in the month.

For the second match in a row in the B-League, Alison Bexfield was the team's star player, with the only win. Finland thus won the match three games to one. Germany won their match which moved the team down to fifth position, with just one match to go.

League Page with game records

Alex Kent wrote of his game against Javier-Aleksi Savolainen: I lost my game by resignation. The opening had an interesting bit of symmetry on the bottom side which meant it was miai to lean on the each of our 3-4 stones. I gave my opponent too much scope to lean on (and potentially separate) the top side, so I fell a bit behind. My assessment was that I was nearly alive in the centre so my opponent's wall wasn't worth as much, but this proved to be inaccurate! I should probably have tried to treat my central stones more lightly.

A reminder that the AGM will this year be held on ZOOM on Friday 7th May at 20:00.

Any proxy votes must be set up in advance by sending an e-mail to secretary@britgo.org, arriving no later than the end of Wednesday 5th May, containing your name and address, who will be your proxy, and if you wish (this is optional) how you want them to vote.

The ZOOM meeting link has been added to the member's area of the website at https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews - you will need to be logged in to the site to access it.

The deadline for nominations has now passed, however as explained below nominations for Council will still be accepted at the AGM. Officers nominated unopposed, and hence appointed for another year are:

President - Toby Manning
Treasurer - Richard Wheeldon
Secretary - Colin Williams

Nominated to be Council Members are:

Andrew Ambrose-Thurman, Gerry Gavigan, Matt Marsh, Peter Rootham-Smith

As there is still one Council vacancy, according to our constitution extra nominations for Council members can be accepted at the AGM itself. Any such nomination will need two supporters.

Details of the ZOOM meeting will be posted to the member’s area of the website, and circulated by a news item such as this a day or so before the event.

The President's, Secretary's, and Membership Secretary's reports have been added as supporting documents for the AGM. They can be found with the other documents on www.britgo.org/history/councilnews

The Treasurer's and Auditor's reports are covered within the Annual Accounts.

The first CCTV World Youth Amateur Online Weiqi Tournament was in two sections, the first being for youth teams. Jayden Ng, Scott Cobbold and Caleb Monk played the seven qualifying rounds over each weekend from late October to mid-December on the Chinese server Yike. They beat Colombia, lost to China, France and close matches against Croatia and Hungary. They then beat Argentina and Slovakia to end thirteenth out of 22. The teams making the knockout stage were both China teams, Singapore, Russia, France, Ukraine, Malaysia and Canada. The teams from Germany, Thailand, USA and Hungary finished just above the UK. The semis saw the two China teams face off and Singapore take on and beat Russia.

In the 26-player junior individual section our player Ryan Zhang did very well. He won his first three beating Yuki Kouchi of Japan, Liu Zijia of China and Julie Blondeau of France. He then lost to Vsevolod Ovsiienko of Ukraine and Takuya Kawabata of Japan.

A number of further papers have been added to the AGM documents list, mostly relating to the motions on the agenda. They are quite short, and It would be very helpful if you could read them prior to the AGM. The documents list is just below the agenda on https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews (you need to be logged in as a member)

Also added is a short paper asking you to consider standing for a place on the BGA Council. We have a number of Council members not standing again this year, so this year in particular we are looking for other BGA members to come forwards and assist with the running of the BGA. Any of the current Council members would be very happy to answer any questions you might have about what being in the Council is like. If you do decide to stand nominations must be received by the end of Friday 23rd April.

The usual officer’s reports will be added in the next few days.

Germany had been struggling in this year's B-League, but the grades of the team they fielded against the UK suggested this match was likely to go their way. Four interesting games ensued and the top three boards were won by Germany. However Alison Bexfield was the team's star player, with a very entertaining game giving her the only UK win of the evening. The loss meant the team slipped to fourth position with two matches to go.

League Page with game records

Daniel Hu wrote of his game: I lost by resign to Benjamin Teuber after losing a large group at the end. The game was mostly good for my opponent, but within +/- 5 points. This was after I backed down from an early fight, failing to punish an overplay in the lower left joseki and instead sacrificing my stones. The variation on the right was probably questionable, and in several variations I was probably too willing to sacrifice my stones.

The 2020 BGA Accounts have been made available in the member's area of the website, and as a supporting document for the AGM Agenda at https://www.britgo.org/history/councilnews

The final game of the match, that started on KGS on 7th November, was held on Saturday 10th April. Played using the Supergo format (last team standing) the match came down to the final players, of the fifteen on each team, playing a head-to-head.

The previous weekend the UK's last player, Jayden Ng, had beaten five-game winner Ka Yau Chau. Hong Kong's last player of the team, put together by Liana Ao 4p, was Webber Tse. In a difficult game, Jayden fought bravely against the 5d, but lost a big group and another in time trouble before finally running out of time. This made Hong Kong the winners 15-14.

Match Details with game records and YouTube links.