Numbers were up on last year, likely due to Catherine's homemade lunches. As an experiment, they had a formal game review session at tiered levels, between rounds two and three, and most players chose to attend, enjoy and debate. The schedule accommodated this with the main time preserved, but byoyomi made more aggressive.

Toby Manning was again the overall winner. Unusually, no others won three games, so Chris Kirkham (3k) gained a prize for second place (over the losing finalist, Helen Harvey (1k), on a tiebreak) and Tony Pitchford (10k) won a random draw prize.

Results

The European Team Championship started on Tuesday 17th September. Our first match was against Greece.

Greece's team entered was quite a bit weaker than ours, so this was a match we really needed to win if we were to hope for promotion again to the B league after being relegated last season. Thankfully our team came through, and we got off to a great 4-0 start. The game records are available below in the 'sgf' links.

Our second match is against Switzerland on 22nd October, 8pm UK time. Please do come along and support the team if you're around - always nice to get support and the matches are high quality.

As the autumn term gets underway and we start thinking of the exciting Go events in 2014, including the European Youth Go Championships coming to England, let's remind ourselves about one of the exciting events earlier this year.

23 youngsters competed in the 2013 finals of the UK Go Challenge, held at Milton C of E Primary School near Cambridge. It was especially good to see two brothers from Bungay at their first event.

Congratulations go to the top 3 overall place-winners: 1. Oscar Selby, 2. David Robson, 3.

After 13 years of trying, John Culmer (1k Cornwall) won the event he organises, the Cornish Open. He topped the list of 22 players by beating Ian Marsh (1k Bracknell) in the final. Also winning 3/3 were Cornish players Robert Churchill (11k) and Matt Dodkins (20k).

Results

Eric Hall, 5k from Swindon, was again the winner of the rapid play Cornish Handicap Tournament. He beat local player Sam Foster, 2k, in the final. Others of the 20 players who won 3/4 were Tony Atkins (1d Reading), John Culmer (1k Cornwall), Ian Marsh (1k Bracknell), Sue Paterson (4k Arundel) and Elinor Brooks (8k Swindon).

Results

The weekend, 9-10 November is part of an ongoing series of events and will bring together some of the UK’s strongest players for an intensive training weekend with the aim of increasing the number of UK players graded over 2400. It is being organised by Alison Bexfield and held in Letchworth Garden City with Guo Juan as the resident professional.

It is by invitation only, and these will be sent to BGA members with a grade over 2100. There is a maximum number of 16 players and priority will be given according to Go strength, with some preference towards younger players.

Final confirmation will be sent out to those people who have responded by 30 September.

If you think you should have received an invitation, but have not, please contact Alison Bexfield (email: alison at bexfield.com)

The Chinese professional and Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Weiqi Association, Wang Runan (8p), visited the British Museum on Saturday 7th September. He spoke to a lecture theatre containing nearly 100 people interested in Chinese Culture, including some British Go players, on the subject of Weiqi (Go) in Chinese Culture. In particular, Mr Wang is keen to get the very early Go manual held by the British Library, the Dunhuang Go Manual, returned to China.

He then played simultaneous games against players from the BGA: Matthew Cocke, Michael Webster, Baoliang Zhang and Oscar Selby. Francis Roads gave a commentary on the Cocke game which was projected on a screen for all to watch.

We're pleased to announce that old tournament results have now been linked to the Tournament Records on our website. This will allow you to easily browse details of old events for each tournament, going back to 1996 in many cases.

See the London Open for an example.

We now have agreement to hold a stall at the Mind Sports Festival in Cardiff on September 14-15th. This will be run by the British Go Association in conjunction with the Cardiff Go Club.

There is some information about this and other Mind Sports Festivals here: http://www.mindsportsfestivals.com.

The Festival will host competitions for (currently): Chess, Scrabble and Magic, with about 400 registered competitors so far.

We expect to have good opportunities to promote Go to like-minded people during the Festival, when they have intervals in their play or are knocked out.

Andrew Kay ended 24th with 4 wins in the World Amateur in Sendai. He lost to Korea, beat Turkey, lost to Switzerland and beat New Zealand. In round 5 he beat Indonesia, then lost to Israel and Sweden, and beat Slovenia.

James Hutchinson for Ireland also won 4 and took 31st. He beat Belarus, Portugal, Bulgaria and Italy, but lost to France, Sweden, Lithuania and Denmark.

Unbeaten winner was Choi Hyunjae of Korea and Hu Yuqing of China was second with 7 wins. The group on six wins was Artem Kachanovskyi (UA), Ilja Shikshin (RU), Pavol Lisy (SK), Kwan King Man (HK), Nikola Mitic (RS). Japan came 8th.

Results