Alex Selby 43rd at World Amateur
— Tony AtkinsThe UK representative at the 32nd WAGC was Alex Selby from Cambridge. He won 3 games to take 43rd place. His first game was a loss to former World Champion Hirata of Japan. He then lost to Nechanicky of Czechia and Trippel of Switzerland, before beating Neville Smythe of Australia. He then lost to Minieri of Italy, beat the player from Azerbaijan, lost to Pedersen of Denmark and won the last game against Mexico. James Hutchinson of Ireland was 36th with 4 wins against Denmark, Argentina, Portugal and Brazil. The unbeaten Champion was Bai of China. Second was Choi of Korea. The group on 6 wins were Eric Lui (USA), Thomas Debarre (France), Hirata (Japan), Jun Fan (Canada) and Franz-Josef Dickhut (Germany). 57 countries took part at the Shimane prefectural hall in Matsue, a ancient castle town in the west of Japan.
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Nick Krempel to play Matthew Macfadyen for British title
— Tony AtkinsMatthew Macfadyen, British Champion 2010, won all seven games in the Challengers' League to earn the right to defend his title. This year he will be playing Nick Krempel (3 dan London), who won five games in the League, in a best of 3 final. Hui Wang and Alistair Wall just missed out on playing for the title by one win each.
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Scottish-born Winner of Scottish Open
— Tony AtkinsFor the first time in many years, the Scottish Open was won this year not by a Scottish resident but someone Scottish-born - Sandy Taylor (2 dan Durham) - winning all five games to take his first tournament title. 23 players took part in total. A drop in local players was caused by the closure of long-term sponsor Real Time Worlds and a local wedding anniversary. A new sponsor, Denki (games software), ensured that, as ever, all players took away a jar of Dundee's famous marmalade. Prizes were also awarded to David Lee (2 dan Dundee) and Dieter Daems (9 kyu Leuven) for four wins out of five, and to Martha McGill (2 kyu Edinburgh), Boris Mitrovic (2 kyu Edinburgh), Tom Croonenborghs (1 dan Antwerp), Eugene Kee-Onn Wong (4 kyu Glasgow) and Andrew Thurman (7 kyu Durham) for three wins. Edwin Brady (1 kyu St Andrews) and Sandy Taylor (2 dan Durham) jointly won the Lightning tournament with three wins out of four.
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Final round win against Spain
— Jon DiamondAnother slightly more scratch team than usual (Matthew couldn't play again) for our final game against Spain proved more successful with a 3:1 win (probably).
The probably is because Toby was playing on Pandanet for the first time and he and his opponent failed to manage to set the time limits correctly and play their game. This game had been set up at the last minute as Spain couldn't raise a 4th board until the day of the match. So, since Toby's opponent was much weaker and would have needed to finish early in any event, he had allowed Toby the win.
In other games Andrew and Jon both gave their opponents a serious opportunity to kill significant groups, but these weren't taken, and they both captured other groups in return to win by resignation.
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Ian Marsh organises and wins Bracknell
— Tony AtkinsThe organiser of the Bracknell Tournament was also the winner: Ian Marsh (1 kyu Bracknell) was the best of the 28 players. Also winning all three were Xinyi Lu (4 kyu Maidenhead) and Laurence Anderson (7 kyu Bracknell). Poland's Marcel Zantman (6 kyu) won two and then had a last round jigo. Bahareh Afshari won the problem solving, Mike Charles won the 13x13 and Peter Collins won the caption contest.
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How to Play Go licensed
— Jon DiamondIn March the BGA was approached by a Taiwanese Game Manufacturer who wanted to use the text and diagrams from our “How to Play GO” booklet in a new Go set produced in volume for the North American and European market. They said “We found the 'How to play Go' on your web site is very clear and easy to understand”.
Accordingly the BGA has granted them a non-exclusive licence to use this text (with appropriate acknowledgements etc.) for a sum of £1,000.
Edwin Brady was instrumental in getting the booklet updated in 2010, but a large number of other people were involved in producing the text (noting also those involved in the previous version in 2004). We think this agreement is a testament to the quality of the work undertaken by all those involved and thank them all.
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Bar-Low: ends in three-way tie
— Tony Atkins14 players took part in the Cambridge Bar-Low. The only players winning 4 games were in equal first: Graham Lamburn (1 kyu), John Richardson (1 kyu) and Adan Mordcovich (2 kyu).
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Andrew Kay wins Candidates':
— Tony Atkins28 players from 2 kyu to 5 dan attended the Candidates' Tournament held at Selwyn College in Cambridge. Andrew Kay (4 dan) was unbeaten winner and Des Cann (4 dan) won five out of six. The rest of the qualifiers, on 4/6, were Hui Wang (5 dan), Alan Thornton (1 dan), William Brooks (3 dan), Nick Krempel (3 dan) and Alistair Wall (3 dan). The reserves, also on 4/6, were David Ward, Richard Hunter and Paul Taylor.
Champion Matthew Macfadyen was on hand for two days in the Lyttleton Room to analyse the players' games and suss out the likely opposition.
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Guildford win Thames Valley
— Tony AtkinsAfter a 4 year gap, Guildford-based West Surrey Go Club won the Thames Valley Team Tournament for a second time, winning ahead of teams from Maidenhead, Bracknell and Reading. Mark Nubbert from West Surrey led his team by being the only player with three wins. The winners in the traditional 10x10 side event were Xinyi Lu with 7 wins and Tony Atkins with 4/4.
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Loss to Slovenia could have been win
— Jon DiamondWith a somewhat more scratch team than usual (Matthew couldn't play etc.) we lost 1-3 against Slovenia.
Thanks to Jonathan Chin for stepping up at the last minute to play board 4. He was leading with a huge centre, but then there was an unfavourable big exchange in a ko and he ended up losing by 1.5 points.
It could easily have been 3-1 the other way as Jon was also leading, but played self atari at the end. Doh...
The season is nearing its finale with only one more match to be played (vs. Spain). For more details, see the BGA Euroteams page
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