[Newsletter] BGA Newsletter 330 September 2025

[Jil Segerman]

FROM THE EDITOR

This issue, and previous newsletters, will be found in the Newsletter
Archive <https://britgo.org/newsletter> in the Members' Area
<https://www.britgo.org/membersonlyaccess>.  *New:* we are adding clickable
links to the images so that they can be viewed full size. Full-size images
from past Newsletters may be found via the BGA All News pages
<https://britgo.org/allnews>.

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
<https://britgo.org/gopcres/info#mail>.

*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 at britgo.org to arrive by the first day of the
month.

Jil Segerman
NEWSBGA Tournament Winners

Full results here <https://britgo.org/results/12months>.
*Manchester* - Yuhang Xing
*Mind Sports Olympiad* - Bende Barcza
*Newcastle* - Xuanqi Cui
British Go Congress

<https://britgo.org/files/2025/bgc25.jpg>The British Congress returned to
Edinburgh in April 2025 after 15 years, this time hosted by the New
Melville Bridge Club. Fifty-seven players, matching last year’s turnout,
gathered to make up one of the strongest player fields in recent memory.

The Congress kicked off on Friday night with the traditional British
Lightning Championship. Twenty-six players were split into six round-robin
groups, battling fiercely for a place in the top 12 knockout bracket.
Details of all match-ups here <https://brackethq.com/b/06klc/>.

The tough competition continued through the weekend, with the bar for the
British Open set at 5d. Quan Wan (7d, Manchester) claimed the title of
British Open Champion, narrowly beating Yaoling Yang. A special mention
goes to Chenhe Yuan (5d), the reigning British Youth Open Champion, for his
impressive victory over Dohyup Kim in the final round. Links to full results
<https://britgo.org/results/2025/british> and photo gallery
<https://photos.app.goo.gl/TqfXeQmezRyZPYMVA>

Also finishing with five wins were Daniele Gentili (5k), John Armitage (9k
Lancaster), and William Lindved (11k Edinburgh), each of whom bagged a
giant Easter egg for their efforts. Six remaining Easter eggs were raffled
off to enthusiastic applause.

Finally, for the third time running, Peikai Xue was awarded the Terry
Stacey Trophy for achieving the most above-bar wins across the past year.
The First Manchester Open

<https://britgo.org/files/2025/man25winners.jpg>The first Manchester Open
was held at the Luther King House, nestled in a peaceful, tree-lined suburb
just a short distance from the vibrant heart of Manchester.

A total of 48 players joined this inaugural event, with strengths ranging
from 25k to 6d. First place went to Yuhang Xing (6d): three players Tik Wai
Cheung (5d), Peikai Xue (4d) and Zhan Shi (3d) ended with identical MMS and
SOSOS scores ands tied for second place.

Ezreal Yang (12k, Manchester) won a trophy and prize in the under-16
category. Also on three wins were Martin Harvey (6k, Manchester) and Caleb
Tin Nam Fai (16k, Leeds). The “Furthest Traveller” award went to Kwun Yin
Ng (2d), who journeyed around 200 miles from London to take part. The
winners are shown in the photo above. Results
<https://britgo.org/results/2025/manchesteropen>.

Peikai Xue, a familiar face at tournaments and winner of many trophies over
the years, is sadly concluding his university studies and will be flying
back to China immediately after the event. He will be fondly remembered for
his contributions to the Go community.

"It was a successful and memorable tournament — full of laughter, good
games, and great company," reported organiser Yangran Zhang.
Annual Youth Camp

<https://britgo.org/files/2025/gocamp25.jpg>The eighth annual youth camp
was attended by six boys 5k to 20k and aged 8 to 14, three from Cambridge
and three from the Oxford area. As usual 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 giant swing, high wires, orienteering, paddle
boarding, aeroball and zip wire. The Go-teachers this year were again Helen
Harvey and Tony Atkins.

Winner of the camp handicap tournament
<https://britgo.org/results/2025/youthcamp> was Jed Lau, winners of the Pair
Go <https://britgo.org/results/2025/youthcamppairs> were Jed Lau and Jin
Cheng and the 13x13 <https://britgo.org/results/2025/youthcamp13> winner
was also Jed Lau, joint with Jin Cheng.

Pictures of the Go and physical activities can be seen in the Gallery
<https://britgo.org/junior/events/caythorpe2025>.
Youngest Ever MSO Go Winner

<https://britgo.org/files/2025/bendemso25.jpg>The 29th Mind Sports Olympiad
(MSO) took place in its regular venue of the JW3 centre in London. As usual
many games fans from around the world came to play a very varied list of
games and compete to be Pentamind Champion (Natasha Regan was the Women's
Pentamind runner up). Details of all MSO results are on the MSO Database
<https://msodb.playstrategy.org/>.

The Go Open was held on the final day, the August Bank Holiday Monday. 16
players took part, including five juniors and two players at 25k. The Gold
medal went to Bende Barcza (4d Hungary), shown above, who at just 11 became
the youngest ever MSO Go medal winner. The Silver went to Paco Garcia de la
Banda (2d Spain) on tie-break from Scott Cobbold (4d Cambridge Uni) who
took the Bronze. The junior medals went to Benda Barcza, Chun-Yin Ng and
Eden Ng. Special mention went to the two young brothers from Leeds, Caleb
and Joshua Fai, who both won three in the handicap section. Go Open Results
<https://britgo.org/results/2025/mso>
ADMIN2028 European Congress

>From Colin Williams, President:

As mentioned in last month's Newsletter, we are likely to submit a bid at
the 2026 EGF AGM to host the event in 2028.

A planning committee has been established consisting of Alison Bexfield,
Toby Manning, Matt Marsh, Alexander Rix, Francis Roads and Colin Williams.

An initial meeting was held on September 2nd which identified a number of
key actions. A meeting with the EGF President-Elect, Manja Marz, will be
scheduled as soon as possible to start agreeing the organisational
responsibilities for the event.
British Go Journal 212, Summer 2025

The latest edition is now available as a pdf in the Members' Area on the
BGA website. You will need to be logged-in as a Member to access the
Members' Area and Journal files.
*  Member's Access page to login <http://www.britgo.org/membersonlyaccess>
*  Members' Area <http://www.britgo.org/membersarea>
*  Journal web page <https://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj212>
*  sgf files, including the problems, for this edition
<https://www.britgo.org/bgj/issue212>
The three previous Journals are also available in the Members' Area.

*CONTENTS*
EDITORIAL
LETTERS
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Colin Williams
BRITISH GO CHAMPIONSHIP 2025 Damen Woo
WORLD NEWS Tony Atkins
WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP 2025 Alistair Wall
UK NEWS Tony Atkins
FASCINATING TSUMEGO: PART THREE Richard Hunter
YOUTH NEWS Tony Atkins
TOURNAMENT HISTORIES XXV: BRITISH EUROPEANS Tony Atkins
SOLUTIONS TO THE JOURNAL PROBLEMS
ASSOCIATION CONTACT INFORMATION
Logo Competition Result

Sam Bithell writes:

Voting closed for the BGA's logo competition on the 31st July, and results
have now been tallied and verified with the membership secretary. An
anonymised version of the results is available here
<https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5dnznrhqjhj6wl04an9yv/Logo-Competition-Results-anonymised.xlsx?rlkey=0bj5q91adddhwz556u56two9o&st=t1ymndt3&dl=0>.
We would like to thank all those who entered from the start, and
congratulate the shortlisted entries on their wonderful and varied designs!
In the end, we received 60 votes with people ranking their choices from the
shortlist from 1st to 6th, according to the  instant-runoff voting
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting> method.

The end result is that entry number 2, by Joel Barrett, won by a healthy
margin of 17 votes (38 votes against the 2nd place 21) after 3 rounds
(although in the lead from round 1), congratulations to Joel!

We have now begun the process of redesigning various media to fit with the
new logo and its aesthetic, and will be working with Joel to implement the
changes according to his design. There's no fixed time limit for this, but
hopefully things will take more shape in the coming months.

Congratulations again to Joel, and thanks to all those who submitted
entries and engaged with the process from the start!
EVENTS COMING SOON

*This Month:* Nottingham, Confucius Cup (Dublin), Swindon
*October:* Sheffield, European Students' (Durham), Wessex (Bath)
*November:* Bar Low (London), Three Peaks (Yorkshire), British Youth
(Nottingham), Northern (Cheadle Hulme)
*December:* Edinburgh Christmas, T Mark Hall Rapid (London), London Open
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