bgj127

Number 127 Summer 2002 Price £2.50

B R I T I S HGo J O U R N A L

July 2002 Cover 8/7/02 3:14 pm Page 1

Adam Atkinson teaching Go to Omweso champion Hudson Kyabaga on the BGAstand at the MSO in Cambridge. [photo: Charles Matthews]

July 2002 Cover 8/7/02 3:14 pm Page 2

Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

UK News and Tournaments ~ Tony Atkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Go Tutor ~ Edited by Charles Matthews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Ratings ~ A personal view ~ Francis Roads. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12The Book of Go ~ Review by Matthew Macfadyen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Get Strong at Scoring ~ Tony Atkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Beginners feature ~ A 13 x 13 game ~ Ger Hungerink. . . . . . . . . . . . . 16John Rickard ~ Charles Matthews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Ten Years Ago ~ Tony Atkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Kisei Game 5 ~ Nick Wedd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Council House ~ The Secretary’s role ~ Tim Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Challenger’s League ~ The deciding game ~ Matthew Macfadyen . . . . . . 24Monkey Jump Workshop ~ Review by Simon Goss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Nakade & Ishi-no-Shita ~ Part Eight ~ Richard Hunter . . . . . . . . . . . . 282001 President’s Report ~ Simon Goss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Letter to the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36What The Books Don’t Tell You ~ Part VII ~ Simon Goss . . . . . . . . . . . 37World Go News ~ Tony Atkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Small Ads and Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

BGA Officials ~ Postal, e-mail and Web Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

UK Club Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Glossary of Go Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

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BRITISH GO JOURNAL NO 127 SUMMER 2002 ~ CONTENTS

July 2002 Journal 8/7/02 2:43 pm Page 1

EDITORIALSummer is a time for leisurely pursuits andwhile tournaments may be thin on theground, the Journal has plenty to interestplayers of all strengths. In addition to theregular features, Matthew Macfadyenprovides a commentary on the decidinggame of the Challengers’ League and there isa 13 x 13 game commentary by GerHungerink.Tony Atkins’ series, In the Dark?, this timedescribes the various rule sets that are in usearound the world. More details of each ruleset can be found in the book Go Player’sAlmanac 2001, available from BGA Booksprice £20. This issue also carries the first ofa new series from Tony: Get Strong atScoring. In future Journals, this will belooking at some of the other countingmethods in use, but the series concentrateson the familiar Japanese rules.Also beginning in this Journal is a newseries called The Way to Go which featuresreminiscences from players, recalling howthey came to the game of Go: how theyencountered it; what attracted them; earlyexperiences and so on. I hope that the piecesin this issue will inspire many more readersto jot down their recollections and submitthem for inclusion in future issues. Pleasesend your contributions to the Editor.Contact details can be found on page 42.Sadly, this issue marks the death of JohnRickard who enlivened the Go scene in thiscountry for many years. Charles Matthewslooks back at John’s life and Go career onpage 19.Finally, I would like to take this opportunityto remind readers that this is your Journal. If you have suggestions for new features orimprovements, please let me know. Andplease send in your contributions. Whetherthey are about the game itself or more aboutyour personal experiences, write and sharethem with us.

UK NEWS AND TOURNAMENTSTony AtkinsThe Team with No NameThe Trigantius was held at the UniversityCentre in Cambridge, as usual, on 3rd Marchand had 79 entrants. Sponsorship again bythe local branch of HITACHI meant that thetop prize was £100. As before the winnerwas former Cambridge resident Seong-JuneKim (6 dan CLGC). The best kyu playerprize of forty pounds was won by SimonRosenblatt (1 kyu) who normally plays inParis. Winning wine or chocolates prizes forwinning all three games were AlisonBexfield (2 dan Letchworth), Erwin Bonsma(8 kyu Ipswich), Andrew Gardner (17 kyuCambridge), Paul Taylor (4 kyu Cambridge)and Simon Rosenblatt. The continuous13x13 was won by local school boy WilliamBrooks (8 kyu). The team with no name wonthe team prize, and the organiser disposed ofthe list of names, and so they shall remainnameless. There were five participants in thebeginners’ tournament, which was played asa round-robin on 13x13 boards withhandicaps. Three of the players won 3/4 sothe first place was shared between BerndSchmidt, Oscar John and George Matthews.

Young Guns Go For ItThe reigning holders of the CastledineTrophy invited the British Youth GoChampionships to their school for January,but it was put back to 10th March to avoidthe Kisei event. Anyway Bloxham turned outto be a pleasant Oxfordshire village not farfrom Banbury and you had to turn off themain road through a stone archway to reachthe school itself. However being on homeground did not help as Bloxham School lostthe Castledine Trophy to the team fromCambridge Junior Chess and Go Club,which consisted of William Brooks, OscarJohn and Ben Hill-Tout. 24 young guns tookpart this year in the competition split intoage groups by Simon Goss and his patent

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system. Overall and Under-18 Championwas Jimmy Mao (1 dan) from Bristol andrunner up in these categories was TomBlockley from Worcester. Under-16 winnerwas Shawn Hearn from Bracknell, ahead oflocal player Matthew Smith. Title winner inthe Under-14 section was William Brooksfrom Cambridge, ahead of Ian McAnallyfrom Manchester. Paul Blockley made surehis family got one title by winning Under-12ahead of Cambridge’s Oscar John. Therewas nobody in the Under-10s, but KenDackombe from London won the Under-8ssection. As usual prizes were awarded forhandicap games and Jimmy Mao, WilliamBrooks and Jonathan Englefield (from HighWycombe) won one for 4/5. The everpopular Go puzzles competition was won byNathan Harwood of Bloxham, Ben Hill-Toutand Tom Robinson of Norwich.

Under the SeatThe British Go Congress returned north ofthe border to Edinburgh from 22nd to 24thMarch. Pollock Halls was the selected venueas it is conveniently under Arthur’s Seat anda familiar venue. The Scottish Open, whichwas laid aside for the British, has been heldthere and it turned out that the South Hall,used for the British Open, was in the samecomplex of buildings used for the Europeanin 1983. The British Lightning was held asusual on the Friday evening and 24 playersassembled in the common room in LeeHouse to do battle. It looked like TonyAtkins was cruising to an easy win, when inround 4 he lost on time instead of passing.That just left young Shawn Hearn (8 kyuBracknell) unbeaten and he held on in thelast game to win the British Lightning title.Mike Nash and Roger Daniel, both fromLondon, each won 4/5. 48 players took part in the British Open.Winner was Piers Shepperson (5 dan) whowon all 6 games. Second on 5/6 was FrancisRoads (4 dan) and third T Mark Hall (4 dan)on 4/6. Jim Cook (3 kyu Edinburgh) was the

best local with 5 wins. Andrew Marshall (14 kyu Isle of Man) and Richard Thompson(5 kyu Leicester) got prizes for 4/6 andClaas Roever (5 kyu Newcastle) for 4/5.Continuous lightning 13x13 winner wasJonathan Chin (1 dan Cambridge) and theNippon Club Cup for best team was retainedby Wanstead. The Stacey Trophy was re-presented to Francis Roads for the most topgroup wins of the year; he declined to carryit back home by train after bringing it so andfound a friendly car to carry it. In the otherGrand Prix, the WKD (for the two dan withmost losses in the year) neither the trophynor winner was present; anyway AlanThornton’s retention and win for the thirdtime ended the competition with himkeeping the trophy.

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Stones of a different kind at theEdinburgh venue of the British GoCongress

Photo:AJAx


The Annual General Meeting of the BGAwas of course held on the Saturday evening,before adjourning to the Pollock Halls bar.Unfortunately there were no Scottishmembers at the meeting, maybe they had allgone to the SGA’s AGM instead was thesuggestion. With Arthur’s Seat nearby andthe fire alarm sounding in Turner Housewhere the Go players’ camp was on the fifthfloor, there was plenty of chance to exercisethe body as well as the brain. Exercising thestomach on the Sunday night after the prize-giving was a trip to an Indian on the RoyalMile near the cathedral, followed by anothertrip to the college bar. Thanks must go toDonald MacLeod and the other Edinburghplayers for having the BGA to visit.

April FoolsThe Thames Valley Team Tournament washeld again on Easter Monday, 1st April, inBracknell. It turned out the dan players fromthe local club were no April Fools as the

Bracknell Drunk was the best of the sixteams. Locals Clive Hendrie and Ian Marshwere the only undefeated players (as JimClare and Reading failed to turn up). Specialguest Tim Hunt won the continuous 10x10,ahead of Francis Roads, and went away withone of the traditional Easter egg prizes.

OddfellowsThe Candidates’ Tournament moved out ofLondon and took up residence at theGeorgian house that is the Oddfellows Hallin Leamington, on the 6th and 7th of April.Seong-June Kim (6 dan) was playing for thefirst time and won 4 out of 4 as expected.On 3 wins in order (after applying sos tie-break) were Alex Rix, Alistair Wall, DavidWard, Mike Charles and Piers Shepperson.Piers had the worst sos tie-break throughmissing round 1 by suffering from a clockwith jet lag. 18 players took part, not unrea-sonable considering the distance fromLondon, and most stayed locally taking

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The British Open, held at Pollock Halls, Edinburgh

Photo:AJAx


advantage of Matthew Macfadyen’s openhouse (and island) on the Saturday night.The first five named above then had amonth to prepare for the next Challenger’sLeague stage in Cambridge where theywould join pre-qualified players MatthewCocke, Des Cann and Young Kim.

Spring BoardsThe Coventry Tournament on 7th Aprilmoved towns to Leamington and was heldon a beautiful sunny spring day.Wandering in the park at lunchtime andindulging in an icecream will become aregular treat if the venue is repeated, but itwas not clear if anyone braved the localspa water or the Oddfellows’ swimmingpool. This year the event was a four-roundrapid played at the Oddfellows Hallalongside the Candidates’. MatthewMacfadyen stuck to organising the 28players, so it gave a chance for Des Cann (4 dan Coventry) to be the winner, ahead of Tony Atkins who won two and got apresidents’ jigo. Prizewinners on 3/4 wereTristan Jones (1 kyu Chester), John Lowe (2 kyu Coventry), Roger Daniel (2 kyuLondon), Chris Kirkham (2 kyuManchester), Claas Roever (5 kyuNewcastle), Phil Ward-Ackland (6 kyuBarmouth) and Jonathan Englefield (25 kyuHigh Wycombe). Matthew Macfadyen andDes Cann gave game analysis lectures, usingmaterial from Candidates’ games, and it ishoped this successful format will get asecond run next year.

International MatchThe first of the twice-yearly LondonInternational Team Matches was held at theNippon Club, near Piccadilly on Sunday28th April. It was one of those friendshipevents were everybody gets a prize and aJapanese bento lunch box for their money.Best prizes went to Cambridge headed byformer club member Seong-June Kim. Theyretained the trophy with 15 wins, ahead ofWanstead’s 14, Nippon Club’s 12, Reading’s

10 and Central London’s 9. On 4/4 wereRoger Daniel and Seong-June Kim. On 3/4were James Aspden, Itsuo Ishikawa,Kiyohiko Tanaka, Simon Goss, NickMandache, David Ward, Andrew Grant andBill Streeten.

The Cambridge Eight Like the Candidates’, the Challenger’sLeague was held out of London. Cambridgewere the host to the eight players who (inqualification order) were Young Kim (5 danCLGC), Des Cann (4 dan Leamington),Matthew Cocke (5 dan Norwich), Seong-June Kim (6 dan CLGC), Alex Rix (4 danLondon), Alistair Wall (4 dan Wanstead),David Ward (4 dan Cambridge) and MikeCharles (2 dan St Albans).The League started off on the Friday in theUniversity Centre and then moved to theCambridge MSO alongside the other events.It was the afternoons that saw the crunchgames or games that did not go with grade.In Round 2, Mike got a surprising winagainst Young and Matthew beat Seong-June. In Round 4, the upset was Alex beatingSeong-June and the crunch game was Youngbeating Des. In Round 6, two important winswere Matthew beating Young to win theLeague with an uncatchable 6, and Davidbeating Des to make it look interesting forthird place. The final round on the Monday

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Matthew Macfadyen lecturing at Leamington

Photo:AJAx


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morning saw Des regaining form to be theonly person to beat the winner and Mikeforcing Alistair to settle for seven losses. So Matthew became the new challenger toplay Matthew Macfadyen for the BritishChampionship. Seong-June Kim took secondwith 5 wins, but there were three players onfour wins: Des, Young and David. The toptwo of these by qualification order shouldhave played off in the afternoon to see whostays in the next League, but Young electedto take David to the airport instead, whichmeant Des was the lucky one to stay in.

MC SJK YK DC DW AR MC AW Tot

Matthew Cocke - 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 6Seong-June Kim 0 - 1 1 1 0 1 1 5Young Kim 0 0 - 1 1 1 0 1 4Des Cann 1 0 0 - 0 1 1 1 4David Ward 0 0 0 1 - 1 1 1 4Alex Rix 0 1 0 0 0 - 1 1 3Mike Charles 0 0 1 0 0 0 - 1 2Alistair Wall 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0

Games GaloreThe second Cambridge Mind SportsOlympiad was a bigger event than the firstwith 465 players and more than 25 games. It only went ahead because of sponsorshipand personal financial backing from fourlocal games players (including Go players). The venue was centrally located ParksideCommunity College, near the bus station andParker’s Piece field, but also convenientlyhaving on-site parking. The BGA was therethree days in the form of the last three daysof the Challenger’s League and a teachingstand ably manned by Adam Atkinson. Thefirst day was very busy for Adam with lotsof junior Chess players to teach. Also thetwo-day British Shogi Championships wereon, plus many other games. On Sunday 5thMay, 26 kyu players (including a dan levelghost) played the Barlow. Winner wasEdward Blockley (2 kyu Worcester) by twoclear MacMahon points from a group lead

by Mike Nash on three wins. 14 of the 1 kyuto 17 kyu players were local so it was notthat surprising that Cambridge playerspicked up three prizes: on 5/5 was AndrewGardner (14 kyu) and on 4/5 were AndrewWalkingshaw (11 kyu) and Phil Hand (10 kyu). On the Bank Holiday Monday, the9-player Junior event was won by local ladWilliam Brooks (8 kyu) who actually wasthe best games player of the weekendwinning the Grantamind title. Second in theGrantamind was Ugandan Omwesochampion Hudson Kyagaba and third wasGo player Pier Shepperson. The 10-playerDan’s Go event, also held on the Monday,was won by Jon Diamond (6 dan) on 5/5 andsecond was Peter Smith (2 dan Cambridge)on 4/5; Alex Selby, Natasha Regan and PhilBeck all won three. The event much encouraged people todeviate from their normal game. Shogiprofessionals Miyata (7 dan) and Tamura (5 dan) were often seen playing small boardGo and Tamura played Go with CharlesMatthews’ son George (16 kyu and winnerof the Junior Grantamind). Hudson Kyabagawas also seen learning Go and Go players

Professional Shogi players relaxing atthe MSO in Cambridge.

Photo:Charles Matthews


themselves were often seen playing othergames such as Maldoo, Settlers of Catan,Mamba and draughts. Paul Smith wassecond at Omweso and Seong-June Kimproved he could play Scrabble (despitetrying a few Korean words). The Games &Puzzles shop did a good trade too, especiallyin selling the RushHour puzzle to Goplayers!

Your Flexible Friend50 players coped with the fact that theBracknell Tournament on 12th May wasagain in Wokingham (at WoosehillCommunity Centre) but was not on CupFinal Day, nor on a Saturday. It is not knownif any one played Pooh Sticks again thisyear, but the lovely sunshine encouragedmany to sit outside between rounds. Winnerwas Seong-June Kim (6 dan). He beat Xiao-Dong Wu (5 dan) from St. Albans, T.MarkHall (4 dan) and a Chinese student visitingBournemouth known as Tracy (5 dan).Winners of 3 games were Steve Bailey (3 kyu West Surrey), Phillippe Bourrez (4 kyu West Surrey), Shawn Hearn (7 kyuBrakenhale) and Simon Cozens (13 kyuOxford). Nicola Hurden (10 kyu Bracknell)won the 13x13 and Jim Clare (3 danReading) won the flexigon Go puzzle set byorganiser Ian Marsh.

AmbidextrousTony Atkins ran the twelfth Pair GoChampionships at the same venue as thelast two, the Foxcombe Lodge Hotel atBoars Hill near Oxford. In his usualefficient style he organised a quiz where allthe answers were pairs, managed to awardeveryone a prize of some kind (all in pairsof course) and acted as the ghost in thehandicap section (playing alternately leftand right handed). The top group was ashard fought as ever. In a repeat of theprevious final Kirsty Healey and MatthewMacfadyen came out on top againstNatasha Regan and Matthew Cocke toretain the ‘Pair Go Champion in England’trophies. Sue Paterson and Granville Wrightfrom Brighton and Helen and MartinHarvey from Manchester were the otherpairs on two wins, the Harvey’s two puttingthem on top of the table of World Pairsqualifying points. Winning the three pairhandicap section were Nicola Hurden (10kyu) and Shawn Hearn (7 kyu) fromBracknell. Annie Hall (32 kyu) andJonathan Englefield (23 kyu) won thenovices prize. Alison and Simon Bexfieldwon the best-dressed pair prize and EmmaMarchant and Simon Goss won the quiz.

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New Zealand RulesThe New Zealand players, being on theedge of the Go universe, devised their own set of rules which are very short withsome explicitly recursive definitions.They are area-counting rules, but instead

of rearranging stones and territories tocount the score as in Chinese rules,players count the score point by pointwithout any rearranging.

Tony Atkins

IN THE DARK?

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If the influence is maintained and the network keptin being during the game, Black will win. It comesto the same to say that Black can win by control-ling the game by means of the handicap stones.Now look from White’s point of view. White has todisrupt or destroy Black’s network to win. In theabsence of overall control by Black, White cancause fights which should favour the strongerplayer.Diagram 2 shows the common opening moveWhite 1. You have probably met it. What does itdo? It is the beginning of White’s attempt to breakup Black’s network. Suppose White manages toplay also on the other side of the handicap stonealready approached. Then it will in effect havebeen cut off from the network. Black’s position onthe whole board will suffer. Black has time to prevent this happening, and plays2 in Diagram 2. Why? Because this movereinforces the link between the corner and sidestones, maintaining the network and aiming toattack the White stone later.

How to Use Handicap Stones“Handicap stones do not seem to help,they only get in the way.” “Why aren’tthey put on the third line where theywould be more useful?” “I preferplaying even games with a large komi– that’s easier.”These are real quotes from people whohave trouble winning with handicaps.They reflect the frustration someplayers face every time they are givennine stones. They know that thehandicap stones are supposed to givethem an advantage but they just cannotfind the way to use them. Learninghow best to use handicap stones islikely to improve your Go overall.Let’s establish first how it is thehandicap stones do help you. Bearingin mind the slogan about the third linebeing the line of territory and the fourthline the line of influence, look at thepositioning of the handicap stones withfresh eyes. Eight lie on the fourth line.The other one is in the centre. Blackbegins the game with influence rightacross the board.Diagram 1 represents the startingposition in a nine stone game in graphicterms. The arrows are supposed torepresent influence or power radiatingoutward. Behold, what do you see? Notnine separate weak groups waiting forWhite to kill them but a powerfulnetwork of stones that control most ofthe board. It is important that youunderstand the effect of influence. So take away some of the stones andsee how the network becomes lesspowerful. Remove a corner stone andthe influence disappears completely inthat area. Experiment with weakening aside, the centre.

GO TUTOR ~ HANDICAP GO

Edited by Charles Matthews [email protected]

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If Black 2 is played lower, on the thirdline, it does not aid the rest of thenetwork as much and it does not aimto attack the White stone so severely.Black 2 is not played mid-waybetween the handicap stones because it is the corner that is under attack, and the corner is more important thanthe side.Why not attack immediately? Asequence such as that shown inDiagram 3 only forces White intomaking eyes and becoming secure. Itcan be better to wait and attack later.Save up your potential and it may paydividends when it is added together.What happens next? Something likeDiagram 4. White 9 cuts the side stonefrom the network, and Black mustrescue it sooner or later. However youneed not do this immediately, lettingWhite put you on the defensive, whereat the beginning you had control of theboard. Instead, take this opportunity toattack. Offensive action works bestwhere you have a huge advantage. Onthe right side of the board White hasthree stones working together in arather shaky way and Black has fivestones plus the next move for a 2 to 1advantage. Upper left, Black has threestones plus the next move for an evenbetter 4 to 1 advantage; and the lower

1

2

❏ 2

123

456

7

8

❏ 3

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2

3

45

6

7

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left is the same. The choice is between those twoareas. The White stone in the upper left is on thefourth line and is very ‘flexible’, making attackdifficult, while in the lower left the White stone ison the third line and attack is much easier.


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Now, having decided where toattack, how do you attack?Blocking the corner with 1 ofDiagram 5 is a good start, since lifeand territory is best found there.White is forced to answer at 2. Thenext best place for life or territoryis the side, so the best thing now isto consider that direction. Black 3is most effective, and the onlyescape for White is by running intothe centre. Please look at Black 1and 3 in the light that they aredirect threats to White’s life.Having forced the White group intothe centre you can push it about atwill. Needless to say, you should dothis to your advantage. White is notabove being forced into killing aBlack group, or destroying Blackterritory. So be warned, plan beforepushing, not afterwards.An attack on White should gosomething like Diagram 6. Don’ttry to learn these move by rote.Appreciate the chase: what Blackthreatens, why White is constrainedin answering. Most of all noticehow the Black stones are workingtogether, while the White stonesseem to be occupying neutralpoints.The sequence in Diagram 6 is quitecomplicated. Here are a couple ofdiagrams to answer some questions.Diagram 7 – if White pushes inbetween the Black stones, Blackcan defend by playing at 2.Diagram 8 – if White attempts tocut the Black stones on the side offfrom the corner, we see the value ofthe peeping move 5 of Diagram 6.The message then is to attack,attack and attack again. White startsat a disadvantage. It is White whohas weaknesses to exploit, so

12 3

45 6

❏ 5

1

2

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456 7

8 910 1112 1314

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❏ 6

exploit them. Don’t let White’s bluffs force youonto the defensive. Attack effectively, from asecure base. Make sure the odds are in your favour.And make it hurt.


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Cover your weaknesses as you go.Having to make a defensive move atthe end of an attack isn’t efficient.The attack should end with theattacker having the initiative. This and other aspects of attackingproperly have to be learned by sheerpractice, so persevere.This explanation has been aimed atthe first of the quotes at the start ofthis section. The attitude in the otherquotes can be criticised. Do youwant to improve? Don’t you want tolearn how to use those handicapstones? Isn’t there something in theidea that if the nine stones are reallyworth 100 points, then you shouldfind out why?

A Demonstration GameThis game with a nine stonehandicap was played by players whowere close in strength, aroundamateur 1 dan, as an experiment.

Figure 1Black chose the immediate attackwith the diagonal attachment of 2.As a pendant to the previous section,we can see what difference it makes.White aims for some confusion, andthis game is representative ofrealistic handicap Go. To begin with, try to understand thatBlack did not play 2 solely in orderto grab a large corner territory. Thismove does not guarantee Black thecorner. However it goes, Black can’tcount any points in the corner yet.After Black 4 in the game White canmake some sort of base with 5 at 6.However White preferred to play thecapping attack, which was one of theexamples at the end of the last article.Black, conscious of White’s inten-tions, plays at 6 rather than 8. Thismove combines attack and defence.

12 3

4 56

❏ 7

12 3

4 5

678

910

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12

131415

❏ 8

12

3

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5

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78910

11 1213

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151617

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Figure 1


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It stops White’s capping plan in its tracks(and it has other effects which could bedetailed as a study in the sector lines of thelast issue).It is now hard to see Black being even semishut in on the right. Further, it is on the pointWhite wanted for a base.While 6 looks like a good move, Black hasto handle the second approach move at 7. He chose the contact play at 8 to buildstrong shape up to 14. This final moveprotects against the cut. It is crucial forBlack not to have the corner stone shut in.Coming out into the centre automaticallyseparates White too. That much is in accordwith the teaching in the first section of thechapter, even though this game is going itsown way.After that White takes steps to settle thegroup at the top, and Black naturallycontinues to attack. One can questionwhether Black 22 was the ideal way to dothis. It appears to be from the stronger sideand Black reinforcing the top instead is morelike common sense. However this kind ofmistake is much less important in a handicapgame than a failure to attack at all.

Close Fighting in Handicap Games● Don’t start contact fights. Let White start

them. The handicap stones are on Black’sside, fighting strength on White’s.

● When White does make a contact move,don’t ignore it. Answer it and continue toanswer until both sides are stable.

● Remember that contact fights end upstrengthening both sides, and thatstrength is what White lacks.

● Dead stones are ‘stable’, don’t need extraplays. If you try to save small enclosedweak or eyeless groups, you take a greatrisk. Whatever happens, White willdevelop outside strength. You may have aweak group outside which then fallsunder serious attack. You may fail to liveafter handing White all that help. Learn tosacrifice while the group is still small.

● Don’t just try to kill stones. Be reallyambitious and try to make some territorytoo! That should steady you if you aretempted to overplay in going after agroup.

● Letting White live and taking thicknesson the outside is the way to avoid compli-cations and still win.

There has been much recent correspondenceabout ratings, especially those of kyuplayers, which together with Franco Pratesi’sno doubt rigorous mathematical approach tothe matter has prompted me to offer thesethoughts. They have no mathematical basisat all, but are based on impressions gainedover 30-odd years of Go playing and acertain amount of globe-trotting.There is no doubt that British kyu grades areweak by European standards. In the shortterm we are probably right to want to correct

this difference, and the method suggested byMartin Harvey is probably the right one;namely that kyu players who care about thismatter should enter tournaments at theirEuropean grades (easily found from theBGA website) and shame the remaining kyuplayers into adjusting their own grades.But in the long term, I question whether weshould be supporting the deflated Europeangrades. I play Go regularly in the USA, and I have done a Go crawl of Australasia.Usually I find it assumed that I wish to enter

RATINGS ~ A PERSONAL VIEWFrancis Roads [email protected]

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tournaments at 5 dan. In vain do I plead thatI am a weakish British 4 dan, and that in anycase even British dan grades are on the weakside on a European scale. There is a percep-tion in those countries that European gradesare a stone stronger than their own, and myimpression is that that is more or less thecase. The average grades of amateur playersfrom Japan also seems closer to theAmerican that the European level.Now, whose grades are better? It seems tome that for some decades certain Europeannational Go associations have been engagedin a macho our-grades-are-stronger-than-your-grades rivalry, which has deflated thecurrency. If one were able to take an averageof amateur ratings on a world, rather than ona local European scale, it would become

clear that it is Europe that is out of step, notthe rest of the world.I realise that there are difficulties in estab-lishing a world system. Data on tournamentgames between players from different conti-nents is not plentiful. But is any attemptbeing made to collect and analyse such data?I believe that if this were done, the worldamateur ratings would be found to be not sovery different from the current British level;if anything, I think our ratings would be onthe strong side.So perhaps it is time for us British toovercome our natural modesty and putforward the suggestion that the rest ofEurope should come into line with ourratings, rather than vice versa.

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This beginners’ book provides a newvariation on an old theme by including aminiature Go set which fits into a pocketbound into the book. The stones are a bit onthe small side, but quite good enough toenable the beginner to play through theexamples.Bill Cobb’s text draws on the 1996 versionof the Nihon Kiin instructor’s course I hadattended the year before, and he seems tohave been as impressed as Frank Janssen andI were by the methods of Yasuda Yasutoshi,who introduces the game via the simplified‘Atari Go’ in which the first side to capture astone wins.Having decided to start with atari Go, thereis a question of how to introduce territory.

Bill leans on his background in Philosophyand strains to avoid introducing any unnec-essary extra rules. By forbidding playersfrom passing, the need for territory appearswhen you reach the end of a game in whichneither side has succeeded in making acapture.The result is a very elegant presentation ofthe game, but some established Go playersmay be a bit alarmed by the discussion oflive and dead shapes, which are verydifferent in first capture Go. However, this isa nicely produced package, whose size andprice should attract those looking for aChristmas present for a non Go player.The Book of Go is published by SterlingPublishing, New York.

THE BOOK OF GO BY WILLIAM COBBReview by Matthew Macfadyen

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As the complete book reviewed on 1st April2001 and described in BGJ 123 is nevergoing to be stocked by the BGA BookDistributor, the BGJ is proud to bring to youits chapters in serial form, edited by TonyAtkins.

ForewordResigning is a losing move! Everybodyknows that and it is the polite thing to dowhen you are being thrashed and there is nohope left. However resigning not only meansyou miss out on practising yose (end gamemoves), it means you miss out on myfavourite part of the game – the scoring. Sooften you see the score being counted in areckless, inelegant, sometimes inaccurateway. This book hopes to put right those sinsand is dedicated to all of you who fail toperceive that the real beauty of the game ofGo is its end.

Chapter One ~ Starting to ScoreKnowing when a game is over is one of thehardest parts of Go. We will assume thenatural end of the game has been reachedand like most British tournaments we areplaying Japanese rules. We will ignore thedebates about pass stones, how many passesare needed and the restarting rules. Theplayers can correctly tell what is alive andwhat is dead and what is seki. Some, none orall of the dame have been filled during playand we do not intend to look at which ofthose is correct. Anyway the clocks arestopped and play is finished.Firstly, before removing any dead stonesfrom the board, we must check all the damehave been filled in. We will assume all koswere fought already but, if not, any leftcould be connected as dame anyway. Dameare best played in the order of sente dame,reverse sente dame (connections andcaptures), strong dame and boring dame.

The thing to note here is that the game isover, so rip-off moves are not allowed. Playin turn, starting with whoever passed first,and make sure the opponent gets themselvesout of atari and defends correctly asnecessary in response to your sente. If youare out of sente moves, make a reverse senteconnection, such as connecting at a bamboojoint, or capture some cutting stones, andallow the opponent to play the rest of theirsente against you. Then play strong dame –those that look like they strengthen yourwall, but in fact do nothing. Lastly playthose common-or-garden boring dame.If something strange turns up during damefilling, resolve it in a gentlemanly way byallowing an extra defence move or alterationof defence. Restarting the game is unsport-ing and usually unheard of. Only when thenatural end had not been reached and thegame was stopped in error, is restarting at allcommon and reasonably experienced playersvirtually always do reach the natural end (ina restart, the player demanding the restartplays second). Care must be taken to ensureall the dame are filled; the referee had to becalled at the British Lightning in 1991 after adame point was found at the end of rearrang-ing and the result was within 1 point (it wasjudged a draw).Okay, so dame are all filled. The nextimportant thing is to place unplayed stones(especially overtime stones) back in thebowl so as not to confuse them withprisoners. Next place your lid of prisonersin front of you (care of prisoners isdiscussed in a later chapter). Two reasonsfor this. First to remind you which colouryou are counting; second to make sure youput extra removed captures safely in yourlid and do not throw them into the bowl. Do not mock, this can happen (Atkins -Bexfield Northern 1982) and in a one-

GET STRONG AT SCORINGTony Atkins [email protected]


15

pointer too! Now without rearranginganything, remove the extra captures to addto your lid; the opponent adds your losses totheir lid. When this is done we are ready forthe filling stage. Firstly it is important to remember you arecounting your opponents score and theyyours. It is very annoying for kibitzers towatch both players counting the same sideand tempting for them to join in bycounting the other colour (more on kibitzersin a later chapter). Take your time at thisstage and watch out for hand clashes thatmight cause a drop and rearrangement atthe crucial stage. This is especially aproblem with the extra hands when a pair isplaying (Atkins v Hurden/Hearn, Pair Go2002 – result jigo or 1 point). Take the captives from the lid and fill inthe same number of empty spaces in youropponent’s territory (if possible). Startwith odd single or double points. Ofcourse filling in the last eyes of a group isallowed as no capture can take place at thecounting stage. Then move on to largerareas, trying to square them up or resize toa multiple of 5 or 10. Remember there areno points in a seki in Japanese rules, sonever fill in what looks like territory in aseki (the only points that can be gained ina seki are prisoners that can and should becaptured during play).

Filling complete, you are allowed torearrange. Best aim is to make the areasmultiples of 5 or 10. It is advisable forbeginners to never disturb boundary stonesor move any stones of your own colour –leave that sort of thing to advanced counters.You may, however, move opponent’s stonesbetween their areas to improve the square-ness or size of the empty space. When bothplayers have finished rearranging, count theopponent’s score and declare it. You may ofcourse check your score after it has beendeclared. Any prisoners that could not befilled in are added on to the other player’sscore (one player scoring zero).Do not forget to add on the komi (compensa-tion points) to the white player’s score ifsuch points are being given. Announce “26plus komi gives 32 and a half”, say. Nevertake komi as prisoners at the beginning –otherwise the komi may get taken twice bymistake, and there are very few BGA half-point stones around! Congratulate the winneror accept their praise of you. Thank theopponent and the game is done, apart from,that is, packing your stones away into yourbowl and replacing the lid (and reporting theresult if a tournament game). In the next chapter we shall look at moreadvanced rearranging techniques, includingthe well-known 10-shapes and other usefulshapes and quick counting methods.

Japanese RulesJapanese rules are the most commonlyused in the west and are normally used inall BGA events (subject to their interpreta-tion by the referee). They were formalisedin 1949 and have periodic revisions (suchas that in 1989). They are territory ruleswhere only empty spaces and prisonerscount towards the score.

They are defined in three parts: rules,commentary and examples. The examplescontain judgements on many strange andunusual positions such as triple kos andround-robin kos.

Tony Atkins

IN THE DARK?


16

The following game is one between twobeginners. It is rather awkward to commenton a game like this; not so much because itis hard to tell whether moves are good orless good, as because the motivations formany moves can barely be retraced.Everyone who has played more than threegames, will wonder once in a while withwhat incomprehensible plan some moves areexecuted. Continuously there are deadgroups on the board, without the playersseeming to realise. It can therefore be under-stood that when confronted with thecomments, they wished to remain anonymous.

Figure 1 (1 – 13)1 By occupying the ‘three–three’ point, one

stakes out the corner with one move. It ishard to attack this stone because itscreens off the corner for stones thatcome close. The great disadvantage of amove like this however is that theopponent can play at ‘four–four’,screening Black off from the centre onboth sides in the process.Black may then have a bit of territory, buthis corner doesn’t have much of aninfluence on events elsewhere on theboard. In this manner one hands over theinitiative to the opponent. Experienceteaches that advantages and disadvan-tages cancel here, and consequentlyBlack 1 is acceptable.

3 The opposite result is achieved by thismove, so far out of the corner. White canapproach this corner very simply byplaying at A. In this case, Black can makesure White is screened off from the centreby playing at B. Screening off the centreas mentioned at 1 and 3 is called playingfor influence. True, in that way onedoesn’t make any territory as yet, but theinfluence one acquires all over the board

provides so many possibilities for initia-tive, that in the middle game the territo-ries seem to rise by themselves, as thetide of battle goes out. By themselves: ifthat initiative is applied correctly!

5 Strategic error. White can play 7 as ananswer to this move, and after Blackplays 6 White comes along over thefourth line, while Black has to remain onthe third line. The higher White’s wallbecomes, the more he likes it. Combinedwith his stone at 4 he gets so muchinfluence on the lower side and in thecentre that it is bound to bring him asizeable area of territory somewhere.

6 Wrong side. The wall that now comesinto being doesn’t cooperate with thestone at 4. A comfort still is that theBlack stone at 1 is tightly in the corner,and doesn’t nullify the influence ofWhite’s wall.

11 If Black has to enlarge his group in orderto come to life anyhow, then it might aswell be in the direction where White isalready threatening to get territory.Because of that: better at 22.

BEGINNERS FEATURE ~ A 13 X 13 GAMEGer Hungerink

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Figure 1 (1 – 13)


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13 Black must have thought that his group hadgrown large enough to live. What a shame. Whitecan kill Black’s corner by playing at 23. Checkthis for yourself!

Figure 2 (14 – 60)14 Played on the wrong side of 13. Black walks into

White’s sphere of influence by playing 17 and 19.15 At 17 right away.16 At 17. White is then left with something.18 An unnecessary weakening. Better at D.20 Apparently White hadn’t seen yet either that the

Black corner could be killed, and may haveplayed this move in order to defend against thecut above 10. If this was the reason, a directdefense move at the cutting point itself wouldhave been better.

21 Prevents White from connecting underneath with 73.

22 ‘Forces’ Black to bring his dead group to life.23 Black now is as good as alive. An analysis would

take us too far; anyone interested can look up theresult in the book of corners: Life and Death byJames Davies (a mannen ko, eternal ko, comesinto being).

26 White has to make his group large enough tocome to life. It is therefore better to play 27 forsome more room.

29 If Black wants to claim his territory here, he hadbetter play at 53 first. This move is as if it werefor free, for if White then doesn’t answer with 73,all of his group dies. (B 53, W elsewhere, B b4,W a4, B a5, W a6, B a8 and in the white corneronly one eye is not right.)

30 Has to be at 31, for…31 Black’s influence at the top grows so large that

White won’t be able to live there any more as it is.

35 Black has his premonitions.36 through 42. Play elsewhere only once, and White

makes kindling out of Black’s big area.43 If Black feared White’s cutting chances in his

wall (21, …, 3). Then E is better. Now he forcesWhite to play…

141516

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44 and defend against the cut at F.48 Especially risky. True, White can

connect this stone to 26, but Blackthen gets the chance to create afalse eye at a8. See what follows.

55 Black could have made the leftside white group a ko with thefollowing well known trick: Black at D, W a4, B a5, W a6, Bc2, W b2, B bl (!!), W d2, B dl, We2, B f2, White captures the ko.

57 Good. Don’t play at 58!59 Exaggerated. Now there is no

danger any more in playing at 60.

Figure 3 (61 – 104)63 Certainly a very unusual way to

defend 61.69 Two dishes with the same sauce.70 Still the white group is ko:

B b4, W a4, B a5, W a6, B a8, Wa7, B c2, W b2, B bl, W d2, B dl,W e2, B a2 (!!) and White mustwin the ko at cl.

81 Black didn’t understand sacrific-ing 79 himself; instead of 81 heshould play 96. If White thendefends, Black plays 82 and Whiteloses either (36, 38) or 78.

83 A single point only. 88 brings more.


18

87 Necessary. Otherwise White plays 87, Black 12,White 11, Black m2 and the corner is a ko.After White 87 black can’t play at m2. Why?How does Black live if White starts not at 87 butat 11?

89 Because of the many cuts, it’s hard to see whether90 is possible.

96 Unnecessary defending move.97 At 98 this brings more.99 At 100 would have kept the initiative.103 Giving atari at 104 first is a point more. That it

loses the initiative is not important any more: the game is over.

Black has 3 points more on the board, but because hehas to give 5 komi as compensation for first move, he loses by 2 points.

61 626364 65

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Figure 3 (61 – 104)

I was one of a generation of Goplayers that heard of the game throughan article in New Scientist in theweekly Free Energy column inFebruary 1965. It was by the mathe-matician Dr. Good of Trinity College,Oxford, and explained enough of therules to get you started. At the time Iwas a fairly keen chess player, and hadrepresented my college during anAsian flu epidemic. I had just startedbeing put off chess by those playerswho beat you by memory of openingsrather than skill, so I was veryreceptive to Go. My friend and I sentoff for one of the cardboard and plastic

Ariel sets and played with a few othersin my college’s Junior Common Room.I remember groups of 50 or morestones with two or three liberties beingchased around the board, so thestandard of play was not high.This was five months before my finals,but I’m not blaming Go for missingout on a first. Really. The followingyear I studied in London, and playedregularly with John Barrs and otherstrong players at the twice-weekly(CLGC please note) London Go Club.I advanced to 2 kyu within a couple ofyears, and was hooked.

Francis Roads

THE WAY TO GO

❍


I first encountered John Rickard some 20years ago when he corrected from theaudience some off-the-cuff mental arithmeticon a Fermat prime I did in a lecture. He wasof course in the right. It was a little whilelater, I think, that he started attending theCambridge Go club in company with hisTrinity College friend Richard Borcherds.They both came up to about 1 kyu levelwithin a year, something which wouldn’tmuch have surprised their contemporaries.Richard was attending no lectures, as helater recorded in Scientific American (he’snow a mathematician of great eminence),while John had the reputation of the ultimateTripos athlete, who could knock down thestiffest exam questions like ninepins. TheCambridge club was smaller then, with ourThursday meetings fitting comfortably insomeone’s rooms. I well remember having toblarney my way past a suspicious TrinityCollege porter to get to John’s set acrossGreat Court, on the evening of a flying visitby Prince Charles (literally so, in ahelicopter parked on the Backs).After three years graduate work in knottheory John made a career as a C program-mer in a number of Cambridge companies,starting out at Torus and working at the lastat Virata. While these were often fragilestart-ups, he never seemed to have a problemfinding work in the area. In parallel hemoved smartly to the top level of British Go. He became 1 dan in 1982, and from thatpoint on one can track his progress in thepages of the BGJ. He was 2 dan the yearafter, with a place in the Challenger’sLeague – at this point I decided I had littlemore to teach him – and 3 dan too camelater on in 1983. He was promoted to 4 danin 1989 and the next year challengedMatthew Macfadyen for the BritishChampionship (BGJ 81, 82). He was a top

player throughout the next dozen years,representing the UK in the WAGC, travel-ling successfully to the US Open and Milan,and winning many British events.John’s Go was distinguished by very accuratereading of local situations, but, less obviously,by overall counting. I once worked over a13x13 game he’d played against Paul Smithin a club competition, and was impressed bythe feeling that John’s opening strategy wasa winning plan in a purely numerical way. A most gentle soul in person, his gamestended towards uninhibited fighting. He wasalso one of the few players at his levelconsistently to take game records, somethingfor which I was grateful every year inputting together the Cambridge tournamentbooklet. With better health he would surelyhave become 5 dan. Very sadly Trigantius2002 was to be his last competition.

19

JOHN RICKARDCharles Matthews [email protected]

John Rickard


20

His other interests can in part be gleanedfrom newsgroup postings: maths andpuzzles, programming. He went in formental arithmetic and Decamentathlon(problem-solving) events in the LondonMind Sports Olympiad; he had friends in theOthello community and took part in it at the2001 Cambridge MSO. He early looked intothe application of game theory to Goendgames, though he published nothing.Another area I believe he disposed of, afterBill Hartston brought it up: chess with justtwo kings, no repetition of position allowed,is a first player win from any start (i.e. thesecond player is eventually forced to makethe kings kiss). Although laconic, John wasn’t short of asense of humour. He was well read in

Woody Allen. On one occasion in the clubTony Warburton accused me of trying todrag him into a sordid ko fight; I replied thatko fights were only sordid if you did themproperly. It was John who was first to theallusion. I remember him too at CambridgeGo Dinners, in less middle-aged days,standing behind his chair to recite one ofthose “A is for ‘Orses” comic alphabets.Despite the manifold stresses of the occasionhe normally made it through to the end.After a liver transplant operation in 2000,John was back at work in not much morethan a month, and in competition at theIpswich British Congress. He won ThreePeaks later that year. Complications struckhim down in March 2002, when we had allhoped he had come through the worst.

❍

Matthew Macfadyen won his local tourna-ment, Coventry, held for the first time at theMidlands Sports Centre. The Challengers’League was also held nearby at Des Cann’shouse. T.Mark Hall was not there as he wasabroad, despite winning the Candidates’ witha perfect six ahead of Jim Barty and AlexRix on 5. Edmund Shaw won to become theChallenger, with Des and Alex placedsecond. Also in the same area, the Women’sWorld Qualifier was held at Leamington,won by Alison Cross. Overseas visitors didwell: Ulf Olsson (4 dan) of Sweden visitedBracknell and won; Leicester was won byJohn Power the Australian from Tokyo; the first London International Teams waswon by Japan. Edinburgh opened up theirannual club tournament. Colin Adams (3 kyu) was the best visitor and Dave Keeblethe best local.The European Go and Cultural Centre(EGCC) opened its doors on 9th May inAmstelveen, Amsterdam. The great

Iwamoto, as founder of the Centre, played agame with a director of the main sponsor,Obayashi. The first Obayashi Cup was heldthere and won by Zhang Shutai, beating GuoJuan in the final. Shutai also won the GrandPrix events at Milan and Helsinki. Guo tookHamburg and Warsaw; Shen Gruangji wonAmsterdam, also held at the EGCC.Matthew Macfadyen won the Russian GrandPrix event, the Volga Boat Trip. Matthew Macfadyen also took part for theUK at the World Amateur held at a conven-tion centre near Tokyo’s Disneyland. He wasfifth immediately behind Laurent Heiser.Winner was Kikuchi of Japan. Cho Chikundefended his Honinbo title againstKobayashi Koichi, making it four in a row.In the second Ing Cup, the strongest womanplayer Rui Naiwei got to the semi-finals toplay Otake Hideo, winner of the 5th FujitsuCup. The other semi-final was Cho Chikunverses Seo Bongsoo.

TEN YEARS AGO

Tony Atkins [email protected]


21

293 After this move, Ryu claims that he saidsomething like, “It’s finished, isn’t it?”. O, whosuffers from tinnitus, claims that he never heard this.The video footage of the game does not show O asmaking any acknowledgement of Ryu’s statement.After this move Ryu began filling the dame, withoutwaiting for O to play alternate moves.299 This move leaves six black stones in atari.O interrupted the game here. He asked the gamerecorder for advice, and he then asked for thereferee, Ishida Yoshio, to be called. Ishida consid-ered his decision for over an hour, and finally ruledthat there had been no agreement that the game wasover and so the game should continue with White toplay move 300.300 This move captures six stones, putting Whiteahead. After some discussion with the gamerecorder, Ryu resigned.

The previous issue of this Journal hasan article by Tim Hunt describing thefirst game of the seven-game Kiseititle match, played in London. In thisgame, the reigning Kisei, O Rissei(who was born in Taiwan) defeatedthe challenger Ryu Shikun (born inKorea).Later in the same issue, under “Newsfrom Japan”, Tony Atkins mentionedbriefly “Ryu Shikun won games 2and 3…, but O Rissei pulled back to3–2 by winning game 4 by 4.5 pointsand game 5 by resignation after adame rip-off.” (After that issue wentto press, O won the sixth game andthe match.)You may have wondered what a‘dame rip-off’ is, at the highest levelof play. In this article I aim to givethe facts about it. It has already beendiscussed in the usenet newsgrouprec.games.go, where opinions, somerather heated, have also been given. I have no strong opinions on it, andshall try to stick to the facts.The diagram shows the position afterBlack (Ryu’s) move 283. There isnothing interesting left to happen, justa few obvious one-point moves. Black is 3.5 points ahead.285 O later claimed that Ryu didmatta, that is, played a stone and thenmoved it to a different point. O did not protest at the time, so thiscannot be relevant, except perhaps inexplaining O’s state of mind. MichaelRedmond, who was watching, thoughtthat this was probably at move 285.(Exercise for the reader: if Black doesnot play 285, White can throw inthere, eventually capturing two stones.What is this move worth?)

KISEI GAME 5Nick Wedd [email protected]

84

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Kisei game 5 (284 – 300)

Go World no. 94 has an account of this game andits conclusion by John Power.


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At the last AGM, I took over from TonyAtkins as BGA Secretary. As a newcomer tothe post, I thought it would be a good idea towrite a Council House article about what Ithink my role is. However, becomingSecretary, and thinking about what thatentailed, made me realise quite how manydifferent people contribute to the BGA. So,before I describe what my role is, I want totell you a bit about what other people do.First, there are several large jobs that inother organisations might fall upon thesecretary, but from which I am saved: Themembership secretary, Kathleen Timmins,does an excellent job of keeping themembership list up to date and remindingpeople when they need to rejoin; DavidWoodnutt produces this Journal each quarter– a huge undertaking but effort well spentbecause the Journal always comes outlooking beautiful and full of interestingarticles; and Jil Segerman produces sixnewsletters a year – another big job –especially when you remember that itincludes getting together all the right tourna-ment entry forms to send with each issue. Picking out three people by name becausewhat they do makes my life easier isdangerous, because I risk offending the other20 odd officials listed at the back of thisJournal. They make large contributionstowards the success of the BGA too but therejust isn’t space to list them all individually.And then there are the people who run somefifty local Go clubs; who run roughly twentyfive local tournaments each year; or whowrite articles for the Journal. These are yetmore important contributions. All together, asignificant fraction of the membership ishelping to spread Go in the UK, evenallowing for the fact that many people domore than one job.

With all these people contributing to Go, isthere anything left for the Secretary to do?Well, the post of Secretary is defined in theconstitution:

The Secretary maintains the day-to-daycommunications of the Council andkeeps minutes of all meetings, Generaland Council.

(Of course, these are just the things that thesecretary must do, not the only things thatthe secretary is permitted to do.) ‘Keepingminutes’ is easy to understand.‘Maintaining the communications ofCouncil’ is slightly less clear. Certainly, itinvolves replying to e-mails from the IGFasking, “who is the British representativefor this year’s World Amateur GoChampionship?" or from the EGF saying“do you have any motions for this year’sAGM?" but more importantly, I think, it involves communication withinthe BGA. I have already said howimpressed I am with all the different contri-butions that people make. Naturally, thereare times when these contributors canbenefit from the centralised resources thatthe BGA has to offer. I think that my mainjob as Secretary is to make sure that all thepeople doing the front-line work get thesupport they deserve. This includes situa-tions where someone doing something Go-related is unsure whether the BGA is ableto help. My advice is: if in doubt, get intouch.An alternative to contacting me directly hasappeared recently, namely the BGA policydiscussion list. This is an e-mail discussionlist for people who (want to) take a moreactive part in how Go is organised in thiscountry. It lets Council canvas the views ofother members before taking certain

COUNCIL HOUSE ~ THE SECRETARY’S ROLE

Tim Hunt [email protected]


23

decisions, and it is also a forum people canturn to for help and advice when they aretrying to organise something involving Go.To join this list, visit the web page:

two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/bga-policyAnother way I hope to make other people’slives easier is to update the BGAOrganiser’s Handbook. The existing versionwas originally a printed booklet but is nowavailable on the BGA web site at:

www.britgo.org/covers/handbook.htmlIt contains much excellent advice, but isover 10 years old now and starting to showits age. For example it makes no mention ofthe Internet, although that is now animportant publicity tool.I did say that if you want something fromthe BGA you should contact me, but this isnot always accurate. Once again otherpeople make my life easier by providingmany of the more standard services to clubsand tournaments. So to finish this article Iwill list the situations where you shouldignore my previous advice, and contactsomeone else instead of me.

For clubsThe membership secretary can provide a listof Go players in your area.All clubs in the UK are listed in the Journaland on the web site:

www.britgo.org/clublist/clublist.htmlThe Journal gets its information from theweb site, so to update your details contactAllan Crossman, the webmaster. The BGA has posters and an introductoryleaflet that you can use to help youroutreach. You can get them from me, and Itry to take a supply to the tournaments that I attend.

For tournamentsThe tournament coordinator (me withanother hat on) tries to ensure that twotournaments don’t happen on the sameday. Tournaments are listed in the Newsletter,in the Journal and on the web site at::

www.britgo.org/tournamentsYour tournament entry form will be sentout to all members with the newsletter ifyou send a copy to Jil Segerman beforethe copy date. Nick Wedd will create anonline version of your entry form on theweb site if you ask him nicely.The BGA provides clocks and sets fortournaments. Contact Tony Atkins toarrange this.The bookshop may want to be at yourevent. Ask Gerry Mills, the bookseller.You can ask the publicity officer foradvice on getting your tournament intoyour local newspaper.You can use the program Godraw, writtenby Geoff Kaniuk to do the draw. The BGAcan lend you a laptop and printer to run iton, ask Tony Atkins.Send the results of your event to GeoffKaniuk, kyu grading, and they will beincluded in the European ratings system;send them to Allan Crossman and theywill appear on the BGA web site. JimClare, the chair of the grading committee,will get the results from the web site, soyou do not need to worry about that.Tony Atkins will write something aboutyour event for the Newsletter, Journal andweb site.


24

Black: Seong-June Kim 6 danWhite: Matthew Cocke 5 danKomi: 6.5

Figure 1 (1 – 50)Matthew starts by building influenceon the left side of the board, andcontinues single mindedly with 24.An alternative would be to play 24on the right side leading to a morefragmented game.Black 27 and 29 invite White tobuild the left side. Seong June mighthave had an easier time playingDiagram 1, which gives up a cornerin exchange for access to the centre.Black 45 is either very calm or veryslack, depending on what washappening in his mind at the time.Most players would want to pull outthe cutting stone and fight in thecentre. If Black can lead the gameinto a simple contest of territorieswithout fighting then that may bebetter.

Figure 2 (51 – 100)Black 59 is the point at which Blackis expected to produce his masterplay, probably around n15, and claimto be winning the endgame. If hecan’t do that, then it was not soclever to settle the centre area socompletely.The sequence from 59 to 92 is a bitof a disaster for Black. He has lost30 points in the corner and reducedthe centre by not much more than 10.

Figure 3 (101 – 150)Up to 110 the lower area iscompletely played out (actually bothsides should have ignored this areafor several moves). The game seems

CHALLENGER’S LEAGUE ~ THE DECIDING GAMEMatthew Macfadyen [email protected]

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Figure 1 (1 – 50)

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to be settling down into a 20point win for White, and it istime for Seong June to come upwith some reason why that centreis smaller than it looks.His sequence from 111 to 115shows more appreciation for whatis needed than what is possible.Black is going to need a success-ful deep invasion of the centre,and he might as well take a bigendgame move on the left tomake it enough if he succeeds.But Matthew plays calmly at 116.Now Black has to invade, buteven if he succeeds the upperright corner will stop being Blackterritory and the game will beclose.Black starts his miraculousinvasion with the crosscut at 129,and up to 155 establishes a moreor less living shape, but hiscorner stone is now weak andisolated.

Figure 4 (151 – 200)White 158 is meant to be a threaton both sides, but Seong Juneagain calls Matthew’s bluff.White 160 expects to kill.White 176 at 183 would probablyhave worked, but somehow thegroup survives. Black lives at 187and the game is close.Black seems to get slightly thebetter of the small endgamemoves , but it is not enough.White wins by 2.5 points.Matthew Cocke showed plenty ofboldness and imagination inbuilding up his position early onin this game, but perhaps moreimportantly he kept calm andplayed a reasonable endgameafter suffering a huge disaster.

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Figure 5 (201 – 295) 239, 245 @ 233242, 248 @ 236

250 @ 233290 @ A 291 @ 262

A

51

52 53

5455

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6061

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7374

75 7778798081 82

838485

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8889

9091

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96 9798

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100

Figure 4 (151 – 200) 176 @ A

Ing RulesThe Ing SST Rules of Goewere derived in 1975 byMr Ing Chang-Ki,president of a largecomputer company. Theyhave been officially usedin Taiwan since 1977 andare used in various Ing-sponsored events aroundthe world. A fund was setup to promote the rulesworld wide whichcontinues to support Goein Europe and America.The principle is areacounting (SST is Stonesand Spaces are Territory)but play uses exactly 180stones of each colour heldin special Ing measuringbowls. If you can fill inyour own territory at theend with unplayed stonesand have some space leftover, then you have won.Unfortunately the ruleshave very complicated (orbadly described) ko rulesto avoid special positions.

Tony Atkins

IN THE DARK?


When was the last time you (a) played amonkey jump and it was cut off and killed?(b) played a monkey jump and ended ingote? (c) answered a monkey jump thewrong way and saw 20 points knocked offyour territory? (d) thought that a monkeyjump was the answer to a life and deathproblem and then turned the page andlearned that it could refuted? (e) thought thata monkey jump wasn’t the answer to a lifeand death problem and then found that itwas? Monkey Jumps are among the mostcommon things to occur in actual games,and most of us have experienced thesefrustrations several times in our Go careers.Richard Hunter’s Monkey Jump Workshop isa comprehensive study of the monkey jumpas both an endgame and a life-and-deathtesuji. In part, it’s a reprint of the seriesRichard wrote for this Journal during the1990s, but greatly expanded with theaddition of new text, more problems, and alarge collection of professional games.The book has 144 pages. Slightly more thanhalf of it deals with endgame sequences. Itbegins by establishing the most commonsequence as a reference point, explaining themeaning of each move. It then goes on toshow how the arrangement of the surround-ing stones can affect matters and how tochoose the most appropriate line in eachcase. On the way, there are several warningsabout errors elsewhere in the literature.Among the reasons why one sequence canbe better than another is when they are wortha different number of points, so it would beimpossible to deal with this subject withoutcounting the values of the moves. Richardhas taken great care to do this in a way thatwill be accessible to most readers. Anyonewho has read the counting chapters in BasicTechniques of Go or The Endgame will haveno trouble at all. In fact, I suspect that many

people who have not read anything like thatwill cope quite easily and may findRichard’s approach to be a useful introduc-tion to the subject.The treatment of life-and-death situations isshorter. It deals with: spotting when amonkey jump may be a killing move; astandard technique for defending against it(different from the sequences used to blockan incursion into territory); and how tochoose between attacking a group with thelarge and small knight’s moves.The book includes 16 endgame problemsand 39 life and death problems, ranging indifficulty from basic review of the ideasintroduced through to the challenge thatTakemiya faced when he wanted to kill a biggroup of Sakata’s. It concludes with a collec-tion of 19 uncommented games played bytop-ranking Japanese professionals over thelast 40 years.Monkey Jump Workshop is published bySlate & Shell.

27

MONKEY JUMP WORKSHOP BY RICHARD HUNTERReview by Simon Goss [email protected]

Korean RulesKorean rules are territory rules likeJapan, but are formulated differentlyand are not usually described in listingsof rule sets.

Tony Atkins

IN THE DARK?


28

The previous article in thisseries ended with twoproblems. The firstreviewed some of the ideaspresented in that article.

Answer to problem 1Diagram 1: Black muststart by widening his eye-space with 1.

Instead, if he makes an eyein the corner with A, Whiteplays at 1 and connects out.Next, White cuts at 1 inDiagram 1a. If White plays1 in the corner (at A) tobreak the eye there, Black 1makes a seki.

With 4, Black captures fourwhite stones. But a bentfour does not necessarilygive Black a live eye-spacebecause there is a weaknessin Black’s wall.White’s placement at 1 inDiagram 1b looks deadly.

It threatens to captureblack’s stones in a snapback.If Black connects at 2, White3 breaks the eye in thecorner and Black dies.Instead, Black should ignorethe snapback and make theeye in the corner with 1 inDiagram 1c. White dulycaptures the black stones,but this is a square four.

Black plays back under thestones at the marked pointand makes a second eye.(This is just like Diagram3b in the last part.) The keyto this problem is to realisethat White’s threat tocapture a square four is anempty threat, because Blackcan still make an eye thereby playing back under thestones.Diagram 2: Let’s look at asimplified position. Black’s

atari at 1 is a mistake. Blackis expecting White toanswer this atari byconnecting at A, whereuponhe will extend to B. Butthat’s ‘katte yomi’. Instead,White will play 2 at B,making an eye on the leftand a second one on theright by means of ishi-no-shita. Instead of the atari,Black should play 1 at B;that kills the white stones.Diagram 3: Here, theposition is slightly different.

Black 1 fails to kill White.After Black 5, White makesa second eye by cuttingunder the stones. So isWhite safe here? No, not atall. In this position the atariat 1 in Diagram 3a iscorrect. Although Whiteplays back under the stoneswith 1 in Diagram 3b,Black’s hane at 2 is deadly.

NAKADE AND ISHI-NO-SHITA ~ PART EIGHT: ANTICIPATING THE ISHI-NO-SHITARichard Hunter [email protected]

❏ 1 Widen the eyespace

1A

❏ 1a White cuts ...

1 23 4

A

❏ 1b Mistake by Black

12 3

❏ 1c Black lives

1234

❏ 2 The atari is wrong1A

B

❏ 3 White lives

12 345


29

White’s cut under the stonesdoes indeed make an eye bycapturing two black stones,but White’s liberty shortageprevents him from getting asecond eye on the left.Please study the differencebetween Diagrams 2 and 3carefully.Once you’ve learned to playthe ishi-no-shita yourself,you must also learn to spotwhen your opponent canplay one too. If you spot itin time, you may be able toavoid it before it’s too late.Problem 2 in the last articlewas a slightly harder intro-duction to this theme.

Answer to problem 2Diagram 4: Black wedgesin at 1 and extends to 3.White makes one eye in the

corner with 4. Black’s nextmove is the key. Which sideshould he cut? At A or B?You might think it makes nodifference, but it does.If Black cuts at 1 inDiagram 4a, White captures

at 2. Next, Black throws inat 1 in Diagram 4b, butinstead of capturing at 3,White connects at 2,allowing Black to capturesix stones with 3. These six

stones are essentially asquare four with two irrele-vant extra stones. White canplay under the stones with 1in Diagram 4c and make asecond eye.

The key to this problem, andthe theme of this part, is to

spot the ishi-no-shita beforeit’s too late and choose abetter course that avoids it.Black must cut the otherside, with 1 in Diagram 4d.White captures with 2. Next,Black’s throw-in at 1 inDiagram 4e kills the whitegroup. White B leaves White

in atari, so that’s hopeless.But White A is answered byBlack B, which makes theeye false. This time there isno way for White to live.Study Diagram 4 carefullyand try and read out thecontinuations in your head.The two cuts lead to quitedifferent results.Diagram 5: Black 1 is amistake. It’s no good

❏ 3a The atari works

123

❏ 3b Liberty shortage

12 A

❏ 4 Which cut?

12

3 4

A B

❏ 4a Wrong cut

1

2

❏ 4b White lives

12

3

❏ 4c Ishi-no-shita

1

❏ 4d Cut here

1

2

❏ 4e White dies

1A

B

❏ 5 No good1 A


30

expecting White to captureat A, allowing Black tothrow in at the markedstone, breaking the eye.Black has failed to spot thatWhite has a good move.

White connects at 1 inDiagram 5a. Too late, Blackrealises what is happening.If he captures the whitedogleg four with A, Whitewill play under the stones at! and live.

Black must play atari at 1 inDiagram 5b. This is thevital point that White tookin Diagram 5a. Black muststop White from playingthere and making a doglegshape. After 1, if Whitecaptures with 2, Blackthrows in at the markedpoint, killing the whitestones.Diagram 6: Black’s cut atthe 2–2 point is a move that

often arises in problems andalso actual play. White mustplay atari at 2 not at 3. AfterWhite 4, Black must becareful. Playing atari at Awould let White reply at B,as I hope you have alreadyspotted. Instead Blackspurns White’s sacrifice and

plays 1 in Diagram 6a andthen turns at 3. If Whiteplays 4 at A to capture thethree black stones in thecorner, he will end up withonly one eye. But after 5,White is caught in a libertyshortage; he has no move.Next, when Black ataris atB, White A is self-atari, sohe can’t set up an ishi-no-shita.Diagram 7: Black to play.Black has three liberties,including the approachmove that White needs tomake. White’s stones on theleft also have three liberties.If Black focuses toonarrowly on the capturingrace and doesn’t consider

which White liberty to fill,he’ll come to grief.Black 1 in Diagram 7a doesindeed capture the cuttingstones, but it’s still no good.

White connects at 2, makinga dogleg four. After Blackcaptures these stones, Whitecan play back under themand capture Black’s stones.Black must start with 1 inDiagram 7b. This is thevital point. Now, White ishelpless. It takes too long toapproach from the right.This position is taken from

❏ 5a Ishi-no-shita1 A

❏ 5b Tesuji1 2

❏ 6 What next?

1 23

4A

B

❏ 6a White dies

12 3

4

5

B

A

❏ 7 Black to play

❏ 7a Careless

1

23

4

5 6

❏ 7b Correct

123


31

a book of problems, but Isaw a similar position in aprofessional game on TV.The cutting stones wereinvolved in a large-scalecapturing race. Thecommentator pointed outthe danger of the ishi-no-shita and the need to playthe throw-in at 1 in Diagram7b. Sure enough, KobayashiKoichi played correctly toavoid the ishi-no-shita.Would you have done sotoo? If not, I hope you’ll getit right next time.Diagram 8: White has justplayed 1 and 3, making adogleg four. Black to play.Beware of the ishi-no-shita.

Black 1 in Diagram 8ablunders straight into thepitfall. After White 4, Blackcannot make two eyes. If hecaptures the white dogleg,White cuts under the stonesand captures three black

stones, which stops Blackfrom getting an eye here.If Black spots the ishi-no-shita in time, he can comeup with a better plan. Black1 in Diagram 8b is anexquisite move. After 3,White should cut at A, andthe correct result is ko.

If White tries for the sameishi-no-shita as in Diagram8a instead of fighting theko, he’ll find things areslightly different. AfterBlack captures with 4 inDiagram 8c ...

White’s cut at 1 in Diagram8d fails to stop Blackmaking a second eye. WhiteA is self-atari, so Blacklives unconditionally. Thisis a beautiful example ofanticipating the ishi-no-shitaand skillfully sidestepping it.

Diagram 9: Black to play.

Black 1 in Diagram 9arushes headlong into anishi-no-shita. When Blackthrows in with 5 at 3, Whiteconnects at 6. I hope youspotted that.

Instead, Black should play 1in Diagram 9b. If Whiteplays 2 at A, Black cuts at3, making a temporary seki,which kills White becauseBlack can fill the liberties in

❏ 8 Is Black dead?

12

3

❏ 8a This dies

1

2

3

4

❏ 8b Exquisite

123A

❏ 8c Ishi-no-shita?

1

2

3 4

❏ 8d Black lives

1

2

A

❏ 9 Black to play

❏ 9a 5 at 3 No good

12 34

6

❏ 9b 5 at 1 White dies

123

4

A


32

the corner and put White inatari. So White plays atariwith 2. But this time Blackgets the vital point of 3.Black’s throw-in with 5 at 1stops White getting an eyehere.Diagram 10: Black to play.

This position looks familiar,but be careful. Can you readit out all the way to the end?

Diagram 10a: Theplacement at 1 doesn’twork. White connects at 2.If Black 3, White 4 leaves Aand B as miai to live inseki. Black 3 at B isanswered by White 4,leaving A and 3 as miai.Black should push at 1 inDiagram 10b and then make

the placement at 3. AfterBlack 7 at 5, White gets thevital connection at 8. Thislooks as if it will lead to anishi-no-shita for White, butthere’s an important differ-ence this time.When Black captures thesacrificial white stones inDiagram 10c, he puts White

in atari. White has no timeto cut at A, so he dies. IfWhite plays B next, Blackcan defend at A.Diagram 11: Black to play.

Beware of the ishi-no-shita.This time it’s a nakade-typeplacement under the stones,rather than a cut.Black 1 in Diagram 11a iswrong. You might think that

after 5, White is caught in a‘connect and die’ sequence,but in fact Black is alreadydead as it stands at thisstage. Instead of playing onthe 1–1 point to capture theblack stone, White simplyplays elsewhere. If Black does nothing,White can fill all the outsideliberties and put Black intoatari.If Black captures the fivewhite stones, with 1 inDiagram 11b, White can

play back under the stonesat !, threatening to extendin either direction. Startingwith 1 at 5 in Diagram 11awill lead to the same result.Black must start with thethrow-in at 1 in Diagram11c. If White drops back to2, Black must fight the ko;

he can’t play the atari below2, because White will justconnect. White can alsoplay 2 one point to the right,

❏ 10 Black to play

❏ 10a No good

1

2

3

4

AB

❏ 10b Ishi-no-shita?7 at 5

12

3 45

6

8

❏ 10c Atari!

A

B

❏ 11 Black to play

❏ 11a Status?4 at 1

12 35

❏ 11b Black dies

1

❏ 11c Ko is correct

12


33

connecting. Then Blackthrows in at 2, and the resultis still ko.Diagram 12: What is thestatus of the Black group?

Black 1 in Diagram 12a isthe most promising lookingmove. Other moves areeasily refuted. But White 4is deadly. It stops Blackfrom playing B next.However, if Black plays A,you should have no troubleseeing that White B builds adogleg four. Even if Blackcaptures this, he dies by

ishi-no-shita. So the answerto the status question is thatthe black group in Diagram12 is dead. Both playersshould play elsewhere.Playing out a sequence thatfails is a waste. If Blackspots the ishi-no-shita intime, he can at least savehimself some ko threats for later and sometimesdead stones can affect thesurrounding wall or comeback to life if other stonesappear nearby later in thegame.

ProblemsAs usual, I’ll end with twoproblems for you to studybefore the next part. Bothare Black to play. Problem 1reviews some ideas coveredin this part while Problem 2introduces the theme of thenext part.

❏ 12 Status?

❏ 12a Black is dead

12

3

4

A

B

Problem 1 Black to play

Problem 2 Black to play

❍

Chinese RulesChinese rules, because of the game’sorigin, are the oldest; they are area-counting rules. That is stones and territoryare counted and you simply need over halfthe board. Prisoners are not needed andare thrown back in to the supply ofunplayed stones. Seki is scored, withneutral points shared.

Counting is usually done by rearrangingstones and territories. Originally underChinese rules it was the person who couldlegally put the most stones on the boardwho won, but not filling each group’s twoeyes was effectively a group tax.

Tony Atkins

IN THE DARK?


34

I first saw the game of Go on Britishtelevision in the early 1960s. Therewas a programme called The Man inRoom 17 with Richard Vernon. Thetitles and advertising breaks showedpositions from Go and the two protag-onists appeared also to play the game.They were meant to be problemsolvers for some secret Governmentdepartment and of course playing Gowould show how intelligent they were.Later, I saw an article in the Observermagazine about games, which alsomentioned Go (I learned later that EvaWilson had been instrumental ingetting the mention of Go). I musthave seemed like a true countrybumpkin because when I asked theObserver where I could get the gameand they referred me to Hamleys, I hadto ask what Hamleys was. Hamleys were at that time selling theAriel set (cardboard board with apurple colour, pill shaped plasticpieces) which I bought, sight unseen.The rules booklet had the address ofthe British Go Association, which atthat time had the encouraging policy of‘join and we'll tell you where you canplay’. I was a reasonable Chess playerat that time (the only man at the clubwhere I played who was stronger than

me was the West of EnglandChampion) but I found the spaceinherent in Go more attractive and Ijoined and found that the nearest clubwas in Bristol, 21 miles away and theymet just once a week. My mothermade the comment, which she hasnever lived down, that ‘It won’t last aweek’. I suppose, like many youngmen I was picking up enthusiasmsfairly regularly and dropping them justas quickly.Strangely enough, the Bristol clubwere at about that time moving to newpremises and they actually got onto awest country TV news program topublicise the game and their move.One thing that was missed, though,was that no-one actually said where itwas they were moving to! However thelimited club list from the BGA gaveme a contact name and number and Istarted playing immediately. Shortlyafterwards the chance came to move toLondon and one of the attractions (theother was to get overseas travel andeven to go to Japan!) was that inLondon there were actually dan playersthat I could meet and even play! Thenmy office did send me to Japan, butthat is another story.

T Mark Hall

THE WAY TO GO


The AGMAt the annual general meeting during theBritish Congress in Edinburgh. T Mark Halland I were re-elected to our current posts,Tim Hunt was elected as BGA Secretary andSteve Bailey, Jackie Chai, Les Bock and BillStreeten were elected to Council. NatashaRegan has since been co-opted to Council.Tony Atkins stood down from Council andwas elected as a vice-president.The motion to increase the subscriptionrates, notified in an attachment to theFebruary newsletter, was approved and takeseffect from 1st July 2002. The effect of thisis that member services and tournamentexpenditure can in future be covered bysubscription and tournament income, freeingus to use revenue from BGA Books for morenumerous and ambitious outreach and playerdevelopment projects in future.

BGA Policy e-mail ListAs a result of interest shown in last year’squestionnaire, we have now set up an e-maillist for BGA members to discuss mattersconcerning the running of the BGA and ourprojects. It’s called the BGA Policy List, butits scope is not restricted to questions ofpolicy. Anything that helps us do more, or doit better, or just understand the views of themembership better, is welcome for discus-sion there.To join the list, you should go to the webpage:two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/bga-policywhere you’ll find some general informationand a form for you to supply your e-mailaddress and choose your password. Whenyou have done that, click the ‘subscribe’button and leave the page. Very soon youwill receive an e-mail asking you to confirmyour subscription request (the purpose of this

is to stop other people from subscribing youagainst your will). Reply to this e-mailaccording to the instructions. Some timelater you’ll receive another e-mail, confirm-ing your subscription and giving you detailsof how to use the list. When you receivethis, you can start using the list.

OutreachLast year was a good one for outreach. Inaddition to the Mind Sports Olympiads inLondon and Cambridge, at both of whichAdam Atkinson generously ran teachingstands, several valuable opportunities forpublic exposure were taken at the manyMatsuri festivals throughout the country aspart of Japan 2001.There were also two exceptional happeningsin the field of schools Go, both of themunder the auspices of Japan 2001. One ofthem was a theme day on Japanese culturerun at Tatton Park near Manchester fortalented children from five Oldham schools.The Manchester Go club was there teachingGo to 150 children in huge (and very noisy)groups. Teachers from all five schools tookaway leaflets, starter sets and contact detailsto help them use Go in their schools. Manyof the children bought starter sets forthemselves.Last, but definitely not least, is theHampshire Go project, set up by PeterWendes under the auspices of Japan 2001. In this project, Peter will visit eighty schoolsand special-needs units in Hampshire and theneighbouring counties, teaching Go,providing starter sets and giving each schoola copy of volume 1 of Janice Kim’s LearnTo Play Go series of books. Funding for thisproject has been obtained by means of anIng grant from the EGF.Even though Japan 2001 is now over, I hopethat we shall be able to continue such activi-

35

PRESIDENT’S REPORTSimon Goss [email protected]


36

ties at the same high level, and am delightedthat Paul Smith managed to gain interestfrom a number of schools at the recentCambridge Mind Sports Olympiad. PeterWendes, the BGA schools liaison officer, is aretired special needs teacher and knows,more than we ever have previously, how tomake the right contact with the right peopleto do this sort of thing. I hope that theHampshire Go project will become themodel for similar activities in other parts ofthe country. If you feel you could help tomake this happen in your area, pleasediscuss it with Peter. His contact details aregiven elsewhere in this Journal.During the year we’ll also be looking forways to promote Go to segments of thepopulation other than schools. Suggestionswill be welcome – either e-mail them to meor raise them on the policy e-mail list.

The Body CountSome of the activities I hope we shall beembarking on this year, especially outreach,require a lot of time and effort. I’m less

concerned about finances. We can’t hope foran Ing grant every year, but revenue fromBGA Books can be applied to new projectsas soon as the effect of the subscriptionincrease begins to bite, and we can startsome projects even sooner than that, thanksto an extremely generous anonymousdonation received recently.However, I am worried about how manypeople we can call upon. The well-knownactive people really are very busy, and it’sunrealistic to expect that big new projectscan succeed unless we can identify who willmake them happen. So now is the time torepeat the call for volunteers. If anyone outthere has some time and skills that they arewilling to offer to the BGA, please tell meso. I think some people shy away fromputting themselves forward because they areafraid of what they can’t do. I sometimes gettold something like “I’m not really acommittee person” or “I wouldn’t know howto make a web page”. It doesn’t matter – wecan fill such gaps. What we want to know iswhat you can and would like to do.

LETTER TO THE EDITORFour game tournaments are beginning toappear. I get the impression that many kyuplayers are in favour of this format. Butlooking to the future, I would like everyoneto consider 2 day 8 game tournaments.Here I will try to make plain some of theadvantages of such a way:1 There would be less waiting between

games if there are 4 a day.2 More games to be graded if they are found

acceptable for grading with shorter timelimits.

3 A greater test of endurance and strengthwhich a 3 game tournament does not allowfor.

4 If needed we could have a smaller numberof tournaments overall and a greater

number of games for grading overall.5 If Go players decided to go to less tourna-

ments, they would still submit a greaternumber of games for grading – do thearithmetic – almost 3 times.

6 Since there would be a smaller number oftournaments, the total amount of moneythat players spend will not increase greatly(except for accommodation).

7 I understand two day tournaments are notuncommon abroad and so experienceshows that it is practical.

8 The opportunity to play a greater numberof players.

9 The possibility of attracting players fromabroad.

Roger Daniel

❍


37

Reading out of order – IIn this and the next article,we’re going to look at atrick that can sometimes beused to help solve life anddeath problems quickly.This article describes thebasic idea, and the next onewill look at an extension ofit. It’s Black to play in allthe problems. We’ll beconcentrating not so muchon the solution itself as onhow you go about finding it.

Problem 1 is quite tough ifyou don’t already know it.If you don’t and it comes upin play, how do you tackleit? Does anyone out therereally consider all 7 Blackfirst moves, and all 6 Whitereplies to each, and all 5Black continuations foreach of those, and so on?That’s already 210 varia-tions just for the first 3moves and, in some ofthem, 3 moves won’t beenough to get at the truth.It seems most sensible tolook first at those points thatour instincts suggest to us.Black 1 in Diagram 1alooks like a promisingcandidate, doesn’t it? White2 threatens two eyes, soBlack must play at 3, and

now White 4 makes a directko. If White captures Black3, he has three eyes. IfBlack captures White 2 andthen connects, he kills bynakade.Can White do better thanthe direct ko in Diagram 1a?White 2 in Diagram 1b also

threatens two eyes, so Blackneeds to reply at 3. Then wehave a mannen ko – eitherside can start a ko bythrowing in, but whoever isgoing to win it has to playthe approach move at x, soboth sides will wait in thehope that the other side willshoulder that burden. Blackhas an option to take sekiinstead, but usually he’s inno hurry, because White hasno way to get anything butko.Black 1 is beginning to looklike a bit of a headache, andmany of us would probablybe tempted to suspendreading it at this point andgo off looking for other,perhaps more decisive ways

for Black to start. This iswhere we waste time. Inthis position, there’s nopoint considering any otherattack than Black 1, and youcan discover this fact withhardly any reading.The trick is to figure thatany killing sequence mustbegin with moves numberedBlack 1, White 2, Black 3.Now, which White 2 isBlack most worried about?

Consider Diagram 1c,which shows a White 2.

What Black 1 and 3 did weneed in order to kill? Aquick examination shouldconvince you that therearen’t any. The conclusionis that whatever Black playson move 1 must make itimpossible for White to playWhite 2 in Diagram 1c. Theonly way for Black toachieve this is to play therehimself at move 1.Diagrams 1a and 1b are theonly sensible possibilities,as you may check byreading out the otherpossible replies to Black 1.In the rest of this article, I’llcall a point like White 2 inDiagram 1c a ‘criticalpoint’. The value of finding

WHAT THE BOOKS DON’T TELL YOU ~ PART VIISimon Goss [email protected]

❏ Problem 1

❏ 1a

3 41 2

❏ 1b

x 21 3

❏ 1c2


38

a critical point is that itsaves you a lot of worthlessreading. Note carefully thatattacking on a critical pointisn’t guaranteed to work,and you still have to readout the succeeding moves.

Practice problemsThe remaining problems aregiven for you to practiceusing this idea. In everycase, it’s Black to play. Seeif you can spot the criticalpoint and then read outwhether it works. It’s onlyfair to warn you that at leastone of the problems doesn’thave any solution.

Answers and furtherideasDiagram 2a: Black 1 is atthe critical point, and itworks. After Black 3 it’s notseki – White is dead by bent4 in the corner.

Diagram 2b: If Whiteplayed first, he shouldusually live like this, not byplaying at x. This way ofliving leaves Black a kothreat at x, but if Whiteplays at x to avoid this heloses points by leaving

Black an endgame point at1. The point x is ‘critical’because Black can’t letWhite play it, not becauseWhite necessarily has toplay it. That’s why I haven’tused the term ‘vital point’for it.

Diagram 3a: Black 1 is thecritical point, but it doesn’twork, because Black can’tplay at A after White 4. IfBlack had a stone at B,though, then this attackwould work.

Diagram 4a: If White getsto play at 1 he has two eyes,however many moves Blackplays after that, so Blackcan only begin there. Itlooks as if it’s no good,since White seems to makea second eye by capturingwith White 2, but ...Diagram 4b: ... Black 3threatens five White stoneswith a snapback. If Whitesaves them by capturing twoBlack stones, Black x takesaway the second eye.

❏ Problem 2

❏ Problem 3

❏ Problem 4

❏ 4a

1

2

❏ Problem 6

❏ Problem 5

❏ 2a

2

31

❏ 2b

1

x

❏ 3a

1 2B 3 A 4


39

Diagram 5a: Some peopledescribe critical points bysaying something like “IfWhite plays here, Black hasno ko threats". Thatcaptures the general idea,but it can be a little mislead-ing, as this diagram shows.

The marked White stone ison the critical point for thelife of the main group, butBlack A is a ko threat tocapture the four markedstones on the right.Diagram 5b: Black plays thecritical point and thenignores the atari to connectunderneath at 3. Now ifWhite captures two stones,Black recaptures one wherethe marked stone is, soWhite can’t make two eyes.

Note that this works onlybecause the main Whitegroup is short of liberties. Ifit had an extra one, Whitecould play move 4 at pointx and Black’s ploy wouldfail.Diagram 6a: The idea ofcritical points seems towork more often whenlooking for killing moves,

but it sometimes works forliving moves too. Thisproblem is an example. IfWhite gets to play themarked stone, Black can’tlive with two moves in arow.Diagram 6b: So Black playsthere, and now we find onemore fact about criticalpoints. White, looking for a

way to kill Black, finds thatA and B are both criticalpoints (check this!). SinceWhite can’t play both ofthem in one move, Black isalive as it stands.Diagram 6c: White can’tkill, but he can still get thisgote seki. After White 2,Black had to be careful.

Had he played at 4 insteadof 3, White 3 would havekilled him. As I said, criticalpoints can help youdispense with unnecessaryreading, but you can’t avoidthe necessary stuff.

❏ 4b

3x

❏ 5a

A

❏ 5b

2

x 1 3

❏ 6a

❏ 6b

1 BA

❏ 6c

32 4

AGA RulesThe American GoAssociation (AGA)adopted its own rulesin 1991. They aredesigned so that areacounting and territorycounting give exactlythe same result(except in a fewspecial positions);players can choosewhich way to count.To this end whitemust play last, passstones are given andterritory is counted inseki.

Tony Atkins

IN THE DARK?


40

European Pair Go Championships This year the European Pairs returned toCannes for the weekend of 1st to 3rd March.This coincided with the regular InternationalGames Festival and play took part in theprestigious Palais des Festivals. Last year’sBritish Pairs runners-up were selected to beour representatives and Natasha Regan andMatthew Cocke, together with supporterMatthew Selby, are reported to have had agood time. There are reports of a boat trip, aFrench dinner and informative gamecommentaries of every round by Fan Huiwho is living in France. Best of the ten pairswas the local French team of MyrtilleCristiani and Paul Drouot; they won on

tiebreak from Germany’s Daniela Trinks andLutz Franke and Romania’s Irina Suciu andMihai Petre Bisca. Natasha and Matthewwere fourth having lost to Romania andGermany but beating France, Netherlandsand Italy.

Irish OpenFollowing on from last year’s successfulEuropean Go Congress, it seemed strange tobe back at the Teacher’s Clubs without thehoards of Go players of the summer. As areward for work in the summer anyone withan organisers’ green shirt got free entry. Theweekend was back to its normal number ofdays with the Irish Rapid on the evening ofFriday 8th March. Tony Atkins (2 dan)

WORLD GO NEWSTony Atkins [email protected]

Natasha Regan and Matthew Cocke playing the French team of Myrtille Cristiani andPaul Drouot, who went on to win the European Pair Go Championship.


41

skilfully returned late from a day trip toAntrim to gain a half point bye, which afterthree wins gave him the advantage overGermany’s Michael Marz (3 dan) who wassecond. Third equal were Colin Adams (1 kyu) and Toby Manning (3 dan). 20players took part in this event that wasplayed on handicap plus one. The main IrishOpen is played over two days and 24 playerscompeted for the new trophy donated bytwo-times winner Gerry Mills. TobyManning (3 dan) held his grade to cruisehome to an easy win. Second was MichaelMarz. In third place Stephen Flinter (1 dan)became the highest placed Irishman for agood few years. Gerry failed to win his owntrophy, coming a creditable fourth.Frenchman Frederic Mircovic (8 kyu) won 4out of 4. After the prize giving on theSunday it was off to the Old Stand pub forthe traditional drink (Guinness) and then,due to a power cut, off to the second choiceof Chinese restaurant for the Irish GoDinner. Guests of honour were the Koreanambassador and the head of Fujitsu-SiemensIreland (who was the EGC sponsor). Otherguests included representatives of theJapanese and Chinese embassies, membersof Irish-Oriental friendship societies and ofcourse the Go players. A small number ofthese Go players survived the night with adesire to play more Go on the Monday. Theytook part in the Irish Handicap event, whichproduced a win for a local. Cian Synnott (9 kyu) was the winner ahead of ColinAdams and Michael Marz. Our thanks go toJohn Gibson and the others for making BGAmembers so welcome as usual.

Ing Cup The Ing Cup every second year is away fromthe European Go Centre. So this year it wasfrom 8th to 10th March in St Petersburg. Itwas held in the large modern Hotel StPetersburg and contestants were treated toRussian caviar and champagne. This year the24 qualified players were from 12 countries

and graded from 4 to 7 dan. Winner was theRussian Alexandr Dinerstein (Dinerchtein)with a perfect six. Second was Guo Juan (7 dan) who lost to Christian Pop ofRomania. Third was the Korean fromRussia, Lee Hyuk. Britain’s MatthewMacfadyen was equal sixth (with Florescu)on 4 wins out of 6. He lost to Csaba Mero (6 dan Hungary) placed fourth and fifthplaced Dmitri Surin (6 dan Russia); he beat11 year old Ilja Shikshin (brother of RussianSvetlana Shikshina), Leszek Soldan(Poland), Geert Groenen (Netherlands) andDmitriy Bogackij (Bogatskiy) (Ukraine).Having solved the problem of visas to get tothe event, an unexpected twist was not beingallowed to take your prize money away withyou, thanks to Russian currency laws, buteveryone got their money eventually.

European Youth Goe ChampionshipsThis year the EYGC was held at the HotelKrystal in Prague, capital of the CzechRepublic from 14th to 17th March. This yearthe event was naturally attended by manyCzech children and kids from countriesfurther east. Organisation went well apartfrom the hitch at the start of round onewhere both groups of players were numberedstarting from the single Board One. Lots offun events were arranged, such as Pair Go,explanations of the Ing Goe rules, and gamesagainst and commentaries by professionalYuki Shigeno. Pal Balogh (5 dan Hungary)won the 109-player under-18 section.Second was Timur Dugin (3 dan Russia) andthird was Oleg Mezhov (4 dan Russia). Allthree won 5 out of 6. Best of the 88-playerunder-12 group were Andrej Kravec (2 kyuUkraine) and Andrej Kashaev (5 kyuRussia), also both on 5 out of 6. The luckyyoungsters selected by lot from the topplaces who will be going to Phuket inThailand for the World Youth GoeChampionships in August were Balogh,Dugin, Antoine Fenech (France), Kravec,Kashaev and Konstantin Lopatjuk (Ukraine).


Paris Toyota Tour FinalsAs usual Paris was held at Easter starting onSaturday 30th March. Different from normalwas the venue; it was a very elegant townhall, with chandeliers and a high archedceiling, on the Place d’Italie. 229 playerstook part including six from the UK.Quentin Mills, Natasha Regan and RichardMullens all won 3 out of 6. Winner of the1000 Euro first prize was Fan Hui, the localChinese, winning all 6. On 5 wins, to takethe next places, were Du Jingyu, Guo Juanand Miyakawa Wataru, Orientals fromGermany, Netherlands and France respec-tively. As it was the Toyota Tour Finals,extra points were at stake but they did notaffect the outcome. Winner of the secondToyota European Go Tour was Tibor Pocsaiof Hungary who scored the maximum 100points over 10 events. Guo Juan was secondwith 87 points from 4 events. Csaba Merowas third with 72.73. The rest of the top tenplaces went to Vladimir Danek, GaborSzabics, Victor Bogdanov, Ion Florescu, DuJingyu, Pal Balogh and Radek Nechanicky.Top British resident was Seong-June Kim;he was equal 17th with his 18 points fromthe London Open.

Bled60 players went to the first Toyota Tour ofthe new season in Slovenia on the weekendof 19th April. Thanks to joint sponsorshipfrom IGS-Pandanet, prize money for thethird tour has been set back to the level ofthe first Tour. Czech players dominated thisevent, finishing the top three in rating order.Radek Nechanicky won on sos tiebreak fromVladimir Danek, who had beaten him buthad lost to local 5 dan Eduard Ekart. JanHora was third with 4 out of 6.

Amsterdam The 31st Amsterdam Tournament was thesecond Toyota Tour event of the season andattracted 109 players to the European GoCentre on the Ascension holiday weekend

(starting 10th May). Orientals living inEurope dominated. Winner on 6 out of 6 wasFan Hui. Guo Juan and Du Jingyu both lostto the winner to end on 5 wins.

Hamburg The Hamburg Affensprung (monkey jump)was the following weekend from Amsterdamand as the third Toyota Tour event attracted118 players. Venue was the CVJM-Haus inAn der Alster in the middle of town. Thistime Guo Juan did not falter as she won aperfect 6. German resident Du Jingyu wassecond with 5. Germany’s own ChristophGerlach headed the group on 4 wins to bethird.

International In the Kisei Title match, started in London,O Rissei beat Ryu Shikun by two and a halfpoints to retain the title in Omachi on 6thand 7th March. A shock in the first round ofthe Toyota-Denso Oza in Tokyo on 19thMarch saw Fernando Aguilar of Argentinabeating professional 9 dan Hasegawa Sunaoby three and a half points. The Europeanqualifier Alexandr Dinerstein lost to Yu Binby resignation. The seventh LG Cup kickedoff with European professional CatalinTaranu (5 dan) losing to 14 year old KoreanYun Jun-Sang after only 159 moves. The ladwent out to China’s Zhou Heyang in thesecond round. Earlier in April Yoo Chang-Hyuk beat fellow Korean Cho Hun-Hyun towin the sixth LG Cup. Hans Pietsch, theother European professional (4 dan), lost inthe first round of the 4th Chunlan Cup inChina on 18th May to Zhao Junxun ofChina. American Michael Redmond also lostto Luo Xihe.

Late NewsLi Fu of chin won the World Amateur with aperfect 8. Korea was second. The UK’sMatthew Cocke was 22nd with 5/8.

42


43

FORTHCOMING EVENTSFor the most up to date information on

future events, visit the BGA web site at:www.britgo.org/tournaments

NOTICESJournal ContributionsPlease send contributions for the AutumnJournal as soon as possible and in any caseby 31st August.Copy sent via e-mail is especially welcome.Please supply plain text as all formattinginformation will be discarded.Diagrams can be supplied as mgt or sgf filesfrom any reliable Go editing program.Please e-mail your contribution to:

[email protected] post to:

David WoodnuttHergest MillKingtonHerefordHR5 3EL

Advertisements£100 per page and pro rata (b/w). Contactthe Editor for colour cover rate. Privatelyplaced small ads, not for profit, are free.Discounts available for a series.

BGA Tournament Phone 07951 140433The BGA has a mobile phone so that peoplecan contact tournament organisers on the dayof the event (for example, in case of breakdown or other problems). Please note thatnot all tournaments make use of this phone.

Susan Barnes TrustThe Susan Barnes Trust acknowledgesreceipt of a generous anonymous donation.

Web addressesWhen quoted in the Journal, these aregenerally given without the leading http://,which can be assumed.

© 2002 BGA. Items may be reproducedfor the purpose of promoting Go and not forprofit provided that all such copies areattributed to the British Go Journal and theconsent of the author has been sought andobtained. All other rights reserved.Views expressed are not necessarily thoseof the BGA or of the Editor.

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Q>>#1*R&3#'3",/%#'*3,$#*''"0%",

7DDEFBBGGGHIJ>J7:KKHJ8HLM!"!"!"!"!"!"!"!


44

☛ PRESIDENT & YOUTH COORDINATOR:Simon Goss 4 Butler Rd, Crowthorne, BerksRG45 6QY 01344 [email protected]

☛ TREASURER: T. Mark Hall47 Cedars Rd, Clapham, London SW4 0PN020 7627 0856 [email protected]

☛ SECRETARY: Tim Hunt208f North Row, Central Milton Keynes MK9 3LQ 01908 695 [email protected]

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Kathleen TimminsThe Hollies, Wollerton, Market Drayton,Shropshire TF9 3LY 01630 [email protected]

JOURNAL EDITOR: David WoodnuttHergest Mill, Kington, Herefordshire HR5 3EL01544 231887 [email protected]

WEBMASTER: Allan Crossman 53 North GyleTerrace, Edinburgh EH12 8JY 0131 539 [email protected]

PUBLICITY OFFICER: Post VacantNEWSLETTER EDITOR: Jil Segerman

c/o Nuclear Medicine Department, RoyalSussex County Hospital, East Road, Brighton,BN2 5BE 01273 664 534 [email protected]

BOOK DISTRIBUTOR: Gerry Mills10 Vine Acre, Monmouth, Gwent NP25 3HW01600 712 934

CHAMPIONSHIPS ORGANISER & TOURNAMENTS:Tim Hunt See Secretary above

ANALYSIS SERVICE: Des Cann18 Percy Avenue, Ashford, Middx TW15 2PB01784 887 018 [email protected]

ARCHIVIST: Harry Fearnley38 Henley Street, Oxford OX4 1ES01865 248 775 [email protected]

YOUTH NEWS: Alison Bexfield112 Westview, Letchworth Herts SG6 [email protected]

SCHOOLS LIAISON OFFICER Peter Wendes 13 Stakes Road, Purbrook, Hants, PO7 5LU02392 267 648 [email protected]

GRADING COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Jim Clare32–28 Granville Rd, Reading RG30 3QE [email protected]

☛ JOURNAL BACK NUMBERS: Steve Bailey49 Stocton Road, Guildford, Surrey GU1 1HD01483 533 748 [email protected]

☛ Bill Streeten 3 Wellington Court, WellingtonRoad, London E11 2AT 020 8926 [email protected]

☛ Jackie Chai 14 Durdells Avenue, Kinson,Bournemouth BH11 9EH 01202 578 [email protected]

☛ Natasha Regan 81 Plough Way, LondonSE16 7AE 020 7231 2333 [email protected]

☛ Les Bock 36 Grove Park, London E11 2DL020 8530 5006 [email protected]

GODRAW PROGRAM/CLGC: Geoff Kaniuk35 Clonmore St, London SW18 5EU020 8874 7362 [email protected]

NATIONAL TRAINER: Matthew Macfadyen22 Keytes Lane, Barford, Warks. CV35 8EP01926 624 445 [email protected]

EXHIBITIONS: Adam Atkinson 1 Kelsey Court,Burgess Hill, West Sussex RH15 0TU01444 248 011 [email protected]

AUDITOR: Toby Manning7 Oak Tree Close, Leamington Spa CV32 5YT01926 888 739 [email protected]

Useful e-mail and web addressese-mail for general BGA enquiries

[email protected]

BGA Web sitewww.britgo.org

BGA e-mail listssee web site for details of how to enlist

for general and discussion broadcast:[email protected]

for youth discussion broadcast:[email protected]

BGA OFFICIALS ☛ indicates member of BGA Council


45

BATH: Paul Christie 01225 428 [email protected] Meets at The Rising Sunnear Pulteney Bridge, Tues 7.30pm.

BILLERICAY: Guy Footring 01277 623 [email protected] Meets Mon eves.

BIRMINGHAM: Michael Vidler 0121 246 [email protected] Meets at theBrook pub, Selly Oak., Mon 7.30pm

BOURNEMOUTH: Marcus Bennett 01202 512 655Meets at 24 Cowper Rd, Moordown BH9 2UJ,Tues 8pm.

BRACKNELL: Clive Hendrie 01344 422 [email protected] Meets at Duke’sHead, Wokingham, Tues 8.30pm.

BRADFORD: Kunio Kashiwagi 01422 846 [email protected] Meets at Prune ParkTavern, Thornton Weds 7.30pm.

BRIGHTON: Granville Wright 01444 410 229(h), 01273 898 319 (w)[email protected] Meetsat The Queen’s Head, opposite BrightonStation, Tues 8pm.

BRISTOL: Paul Atwell 0117 949 [email protected] at Polish Ex-servicemen’s Club, 50 StPaul’s Road, Clifton, Bristol, Tues 7.30pm.

CAMBRIDGE CHESS & GO CLUB: Paul [email protected] 563 932 Meets Victoria RoadCommunity Centre, Victoria Road, Fri 7.30pm(term). Caters for beginners and children.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY & CITY:Charles Matthews 01223 350 [email protected] Meets at TheErasmus Room, Queens’ College Tues7.30pm (term); Coffee Lounge, 3rd floor, TheUniversity Centre, Mill Lane Thurs 7.30pm;CB1 (café), 32 Mill Road Fri 7.00 to 9pm

CARDIFF Paul Brennan 029 206 [email protected] Meets Chapter ArtsCentre, Market Street, Canton, CardiffTues 19:30

CHELTENHAM: David Killen 01242 576 524 (h)Meets various places, Tues 7.30pm.

CHESTER: Dave Kelly 01244 544 [email protected] Meets at OldeCustom House, Watergate St, Weds 8.00pm.

DEVON: Tom Widdecombe 01364 661 [email protected] Meets Tues at 7.45pmExeter Community Centre, St. David's Hill.

DUBLIN COLLEGIANS: Noel [email protected] Mons and Weds 9:00pmPembroke Pub, 31 Lower Pembroke Street(off Baggot Street), Dublin 2

DUNDEE: Bruce Primrose 01382 669 564Meets weekly.

DURHAM UNIVERSITY: Paul Callaghan0191 374 7034 [email protected]

EDINBURGH: Howard Manning 0131 663 [email protected] at Cambridge Bar, 20 Young St. EH24JB, Weds 7.30pm.

EPSOM DOWNS: Paul Margetts 01372 723 [email protected] Meets at 7 RipleyWay, Epsom, Surrey KT19 7DB but checkwith Paul first. Tues 7.30pm.

GLASGOW: John O’Donnell 0141 330 [email protected] Meets term time atResearch Club, Hetherington House, 13 University Gardens, Weds 8pm.

GUILDFORD: Pauline Bailey 01483 561 [email protected]. Meets 27, DagleyFarm, Shalford, Guildford GU4 8DEMons 7:30 except bank holidays.

HASTINGS/EASTBOURNE: Patrick Donovan 01323 640 552 Meets by arrangement.

HIGH WYCOMBE: Paul Clarke 01494 438 [email protected] Meets Tues 8.00pm.

HP (BRISTOL): Andy Seaborne 0117 950 [email protected] Meets Wed & Frinoon. Please ring in advance to ensure thatplayers are available.

HUDDERSFIELD: Alan Starkey 01484 852 420Meets Huddersfield Sports Centre, Tues 7pm.

HULL: Mark Collinson 01482 341 [email protected] alternate Weds 7.30pm.

UK CLUB LIST


46

ISLE OF MAN: David Phillips 01624 612 [email protected] Suns & Weds 7.30pm.

LANCASTER: Adrian Abrahams 01524 [email protected] Meets GregsonCommunity Centre, 33 Moorgate Weds 7.30pm

LEAMINGTON: Matthew [email protected] 624 445 Meets 22 Keytes Lane,Barford, Warks. CV35 8EP Thurs 7.30pm.

LEICESTER: Richard Thompson 0116 276 [email protected] Meets at 5 Barbara Avenue,LE5 2AD Thurs 7:45pm.

LINCOLN: Dr Tristan Jones 07752 681 [email protected] Thurs 7.30pm.

LIVERPOOL: Roger Morris 0151 734 [email protected] Meets Maranto’s WineBar, Lark Lane Weds 8pm.

MAIDENHEAD: Iain Attwell 01628 676 792Meets various places Fri 8pm.

MANCHESTER: Chris Kirkham 0161 903 [email protected] Meets at the SquareAlbert in Albert Square Thurs 7.30pm.

MID CORNWALL: Iyan Harris 01872 540 529Meets Miners & Mechanics Social Club, St.Agnes Thurs 6:00pm.

MIDDLESBOROUGH: Gary Quinn 01642 [email protected] Meets at the Universityof Teesside Weds 4:00pm.

MONMOUTH: Gerry Mills 01600 712 [email protected] by arrangement.

NEWCASTLE: John Hall 0191 285 [email protected] various places, Weds.

NORWICH: Tony Lyall 01603 613 698 Weds.NOTTINGHAM: Mat McVeagh 0115 877 2410

[email protected] Meets second andfourth Sunday at Newcastle Arms, 68 NorthSherwood Street Nottingham 2.00pm.

OPEN UNIVERSITY & MILTON KEYNES:Tim Hunt [email protected] 695 778 Meets 1st Mon of month atO.U. (CMR 3) other Mons at Wetherspoons,Midsummer Boulevard Central MK, 7.30pm.

OXFORD CITY: Richard Helyer01608 737 594 Meets at Freud’s Café,Walton Street, Tues & Thurs 6pm. Check with Richard that Freud’s is available.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Niall [email protected] Meets at theSeminar Room, Corpus Christi Coll Weds 7.30pm (term).

PENZANCE: John Culmer 01326 573 [email protected] Meets Flat 4, 25Lannoweth Road, Penzance Thurs 8.00pm.

PURBROOK: Peter Wendes 02392 [email protected] Meets most Wedsevenings at Peter’s house, ring and check.

READING: Jim Clare 0118 377 5219 (w)[email protected] Meets at theBrewery Tap, Castle St, Mon 6.30 pm.

ST ALBANS: Alan Thornton 01442 261 945 or Richard Mullens 01707 323 629 Meets atThe White Lion, 91 Sopwell Lane, St. Albans.Non-regular visitors should ring to confirm ameeting.

SWANSEA: Francesco Reale [email protected] at JC's, a pub on the university campusSuns 3.30.

SHERBOURNE & YEOVIL J Andrew Evans01935 872 382 [email protected] One Tuesday a month

SWINDON: David King 01793 521 [email protected] Meets at Prince ofWales, Coped Hall Roundabout, WoottonBassett, Weds 7.30pm.

TAUNTON: David Wickham 01984 623 519Meets Tues various places.

WEST WALES: Jo Hampton 01341 281 [email protected] Allday 01341 280 365 Llys Mynach,Llanaber Rd, Barmouth LL42 1RN.

WINCHESTER: Alan Cameron 07768 422 [email protected] Meets at TheBlack Boy Pub, 1 Wharf Hill, Bar End,Winchester Weds 7:00pm.

WORCESTER & MALVERN: Edward Blockley01905 420 908 Meets Weds 7.30pm.


47

LONDON CLUBSCENTRAL LONDON: Geoff Kaniuk

020 8874 7362 [email protected] 12:00 to 19:00 sharp (except whenthe Friday or Monday is a bank holiday) atthe Crosse Keys pub, 9 Gracechurch Street,London EC3, Board fee £2.00

NORTH LONDON: Martin Smith020 8991 5039 [email protected] in the Gregory Room, Parish Church,Church Row, Hampstead Tues 7.30pm.

NORTH WEST LONDON: David Artus 0777 552 2753 [email protected] at Greenford Community Centre,Oldfield Lane (south of A40), GreenfordThurs 7pm.

SOUTH WOODFORD: Francis Roads020 8505 4381 [email protected] Meetsat Waitrose Coffee Bar Tues 10.30am

TWICKENHAM: Roland Halliwell020 8977 5750 (h) Meets irregularly at Popes Grotto Hotel Sun eves. Always ring to confirm.

WANSTEAD & EAST LONDON: Jeremy Hawdon020 8505 6547 Meets at Wanstead House, 21 The Green, Wanstead E11, Thurs 7.15pm.

YOUTH GO [email protected] YOUTH: Simon Goss 01344 777 963

[email protected] at St Paul’s Church Hall,Harmanswater Mon 4pm to 7pm.

BLOXHAM SCHOOL Oxfordshire: HughAlexander 01295 721 [email protected]

BRAKENHALE SCHOOL:Emma Marchant 01344 481 908

CAMBRIDGE JUNIORS: Paul Smith01223 563 932 (h) 01908 844 469 (w)[email protected]

CUMNOR HOUSE SCHOOL: CroydonLene Jakobsen meets Weds 4 – [email protected]

THE DRAGON SCHOOL Woodstock:Jonathan Reece 01869 331 515 (h)[email protected]

EVELINE LOWE PRIMARY SCHOOL London SE1:Charles O’Neill-McAleenan 0207 252 0945

FITZHARRY’S SCHOOL Abingdon: Nick Wedd01865 247 403 (h)

HAZEL GROVE HIGH SCHOOL Stockport:John Kilmartin 01663 762 433 (h)

LONGWELL GREEN PRIMARY SCHOOL Bristol:Bob Hitchens 01761 453 [email protected]

QUEEN ANNE HIGH SCHOOL Dunfermline:Greg Reid [email protected] 730 083 (h) 01383 312 620 (w)

ST IVES SCHOOL Cornwall: Ms Alex Maund01736 788 914 (h)[email protected]

ST NINIAN’S HIGH SCHOOL, Douglas, I.O.M.Steve Watt

ST PAUL’S SCHOOL Cambridge:Charles Matthews 01223 350 096 (h)[email protected]

STOWE SCHOOL Buckingham: Alex Eve 01280 812 979 [email protected]

WHITEHAVEN SCHOOL: Keith Hudson019467 21952 [email protected]

Up to date information on UK Go clubsis maintained on the BGA Web Site at:www.britgo.org/clublist/clubsmap.html

Please send corrections and all new oramended information to Allan Crossman,the BGA Webmaster.See page 44 for all BGA contact details.


48

AJI: latent possibilities left in a positionAJI KESHI: a move which destroys one’s own

aji (and is therefore bad)ATARI: having only one liberty left; stones

are said to be ‘in atari’ when liable tocapture on the next move

BYO YOMI: shortage of time; having to make a move in a given time. Overtime is nowmore widely used in tournament play

DAME: a neutral point; a point of no value to either player

DAME ZUMARI: shortage of libertiesDANGO: a solid, inefficient mass of stonesFURIKAWARI: a trade of territory or groupsFUSEKI: the opening phase of the gameGETA: a technique that captures one or more

stones in a ‘net’, leaving them with two ormore liberties but unable to escape

GOTE: losing the initiativeHANE: a move that ‘bends round’ an enemy

stone, leaving a cutting point behindHamete: a move that complicates the

situation but is basically unsoundHASAMI: pincer attackHOSHI: one of the nine marked points on

the Go boardIKKEN TOBI: a one-space jumpISHI NO SHITA: playing in the space left

after some stones have been capturedJIGO: a drawn gameJOSEKI: a standardised sequence of moves,

usually in a cornerKAKARI: a move made against a single

enemy stone in a cornerKATTE YOMI: self-centred play; expecting

uninspired answers to ‘good’ movesKEIMA: a knight’s move jumpKIKASHI: a move which creates aji

while forcing a submissive replyKOMI: a points allowance given to

compensate White for playing second

KOSUMI: a diagonal playMIAI: two points related such that if one

player takes one of them, the opponent willtake the other one

MOYO: a potential territory, a frameworkNAKADE: a move played inside an enemy

group at the vital point of the principal eye-space to prevent it from making two eyes

OVERTIME: in tournament play, having toplay a number of stones in a certain timee.g. 20 stones in five minutes

OIOTOSHI: ‘connect and die’, capturing by acascade of ataris, often involving throw-ins. If the stones connect up to escape,they all get caught.

PONNUKI: the diamond shape left behind aftera single stone has been captured

SABAKI: a sequence that produces a light,resilient shape

SAGARI: a descent – extending towards theedge of the board

SAN REN SEI: an opening which consists ofplaying on the three hoshi points along oneside of the board

SEKI: a local stalemate between two or moregroups dependent on the same liberties forsurvival

SEMEAI: a race to capture between twoadjacent groups that cannot both live

SENTE: gaining the initiative; a move thatrequires a reply

SHICHO: a capturing sequence shaped like a ladder

SHIMARI: a corner enclosure of two stonesSHODAN: one dan levelTENGEN: centre point of the boardTENUKI: to abandon the local position and

play elsewhereTESUJI: a skillful and efficient move in a

local fightTSUKE: a contact playYOSE: the endgame

GLOSSARY OF GO TERMS


bgj127

Documents

tony atkins20kisei game

tony atkins series

game commentary

deciding game

simon goss

pm page 2editorial2uk

tony atkins14beginners

charles matthewslooks