The fifth season of the BGA Online League is now under way.

To balance the divisions out, I have moved Belfast and Billericay up to division 1, Glasgow up to division 2 and then done the draw for matches in each division.

As last year there are two matches between each pair of teams, a notional "home" and "away" match. Please try to complete at least one match if you can't fit in both matches. If you do play both, please try to field a different set of three players for each match against the same opposing team if possible.

If you have any problems and difficulties please don't hesitate to ask me or an "old hand" if available.

I hope everyone enjoys themselves this season and we look forward to seeing some interesting games!

John Collins

Although I've written in the forthcoming British Go Journal that all Council members are offering themselves for re-election, it turns out that two of the existing members have recently decided not to for a variety of personal reasons.

We thank them for their efforts and hope that they will still continue working with the BGA to promote and develop Go in the UK.

Nominations for Council members are therefore solicited - this could be yourself or someone else!

Please contact one of the Council members if you're interested or have a suggestion as someone who might be suitable.

Most of the involvement does not involve travelling, but there are typically three face-to-face meetings (mostly in association with a tournament) - last year they were in Cambridge, Leicester and London.

The 2013 British Youth Champion is Tian-Ren Chen, retaining the title he won last year. Second was Matei Mandache, a fellow-student at Loughborough School.

The Castledine Trophy was won this year by Loughborough, who beat Aston by 2 games to 1.

The Best Primary School award went to Sandilands, Manchester. They entered five 8- and 9-year-olds, who enjoyed some successes in this their first-ever tournament away from their school.

The event was held on 17th March, at the new venue of King Edward VI (Aston) School, Birmingham.
The event attracted 27 competitors aged from 7 to 18, with strengths from 37 kyu to 1 dan.

A prize (a nice Easter egg) was awarded to each of the winners and runners-up in each age group (Under-8, U10, U12, U14, U16 and U18), as well as those with 3 or 4 wins. There were also prizes for the 3 children who correctly answered all the Go-puzzles on an A4 hand-out.

The 2013 British Youth Go Championship attracted 27 competitors aged from 7 to 18, with strengths from 37 kyu to 1 dan. The kind hosts this year were King Edward VI School at Aston, Birmingham. The organisers would also like to note their gratitude to the Castledine-Barnes Trust, for facilitating the entry of certain players.

Tian-Ren Chen (1d) from Loughborough retained the youth title beating school mate Matei Mandache (5k) into second.

Prizes and places went to:

U18: Tian-Ren Chen, 2nd: Matei Mandache
U16: Melchior Chui (Cambridge Chess-Go), 2nd: Peran Truscott (Cambridge Chess-Go)
U14: Hasan Nisar (Aston), 2nd: Hugh Banes (Bloxham)
U12: Dylan Zhu-Dong (Leamington), 2nd: Max Kirkham (Bloxham)
U10: Oscar Selby (Epsom), 2nd: Anthony Ghica (Newmarket)

Our poor run of form continues, but this time we have a really tough match against the table-topping Finns.

Vanessa again had problems with connecting to Pandanet-IGS and dropped out at the last minute, leaving Jon Diamond on top board to face Antti Törmänen (7 dan on Pandanet), who's just had a fantastic result in the World Students Oza, coming third.

Despite the venue having staffing problems that caused a change from the Sunday to the Saturday, 40 players attended the Cambridge Trigantius at Parkside Community College. Andrew Simons (3d) was again the winner. This time he beat the new organiser, David Ward (2d) in the last round. Equal second with David was local student Jamie Taylor (1d), a former under-18 champion. Tim Hunt (2d) also won two to come fourth. Two local students, Tom Eccles (5k) and Joe He (9k) won all three games and they, and all those on two wins, were rewarded with prizes.

Results

38 players attended the 2013 Irish Go Congress, held in Dublin. Csaba Mero, 6d Hungary, won the main tournament, The Confucius Cup, for the second time with a perfect 5/5 score. In second place was Zebin Du, 4d China, and third was Antoine Fenech, 5d France.

Roger Daniel, 6k UK, and Mikulas Kubita, 15k Czech Republic, won all five of their games, while Thomas Shanahan won four. Results

The Friday evening Rapid tournament was won by Yuanbo Zhang, 4d China, with five straight wins, while Roman Pszonka, 3d Poland, came second and Thomas Shanahan, 7k Cork, came third, both with four. Results

Full PDFs for issues 157 and 158 are now available online

26 players attended the 3rd Welwyn Garden City Go Tournament, held in the Bridge room of the Gosling Stadium.

With a surprise win over Andrew Simons in round 3, the tournament winner was Michael Webster (1D London). Also on three wins was Michael Charles (1K St Albans).

Prizes were also given to those winning two games; these were Andrew Simons (4D Cambridge), David Ward (2D Cambridge), Francis Roads (1D Wanstead), Chris Hodge (1K from St Albans), Simon Bexfield (1K Letchworth), Stephen Bailey (4K West Surrey), Geoff Kaniuk (4K Cambridge), Richard Mullens (5K London City Go Club), Patrick Batty (6K London) and David Lorking (6K Billericay).

Prizes were again awarded by Barbara Kime from the Bridge Club (who protested at the lack of female players!) and afterwards several of the players joined Derrick and Barbara Kime at the Chinese Buffet in the centre of town.

Results

The 2013 Oxford-Cambridge Match was held in St Edmund Hall, Oxford, on Sunday 17th February, the day after the Oxford Tournament.

The Match consisted of two rounds, 50 mins each, with 30/5 Canadian overtime, and 7.5 komi for even games.

All games were played using handicaps - one less than the normal correct handicap, so giving the advantage to the stronger player/team. 14 of the 21 games were played even.

There were 11 players on each side. Cambridge had the strongest player (Li Shen), and Oxford the weakest. The playing strengths ranged from 5 dan to 12 kyu, with a majority of the players being dan level, and an average of about 1 kyu. On average, Oxford was 1/2 a stone stronger than Cambridge.