Junior Tournament Report

The 2017 British Youth Go Championship (BYGC) returned to King Edward VI School in Aston, Birmingham, thanks to Andrew Russell and the support of the headmaster there. It attracted a big crowd of young players, in fact 46 competitors, aged from 7 to 18.

Thanks to a large number of oriental players currently living in the UK, there were several dan-graded players, most of whom not being British played in an Open group for cash prizes. Also thanks to a new club at Harpenden Academy (who are shown celebrating their win as best primary school) and a good crop of new players from Edinburgh, Cheadle Hulme and Letchworth there was a large group between 30 and 40 kyu in strength. Some of the games they played were on 13x13.

This year the BGA decided to hold the British Youth Go Championship at the exciting location of The National Space Centre in Leicester. Previously used as the venue of the East Midlands Tournament, the conference rooms made a very comfortable venue for the 43 young players, aged from 5 to 17, grades 2d to 37k, and their adult helpers. There was a long lunch break so there was a chance to view the exhibition, however the promised free tickets did not materialise.

The players battled over five rounds to decide the winners in each age category and in the team competitions, as well as the overall winner. This was all kept together by tournament director Tony Atkins using the Smudgy draw system (invented by Simon Goss).

With the oldest players of recent years moved on to University the way was open for the new generation to take over at the British Youth Go Championships in Aston, Birmingham. Everybody expected Oscar Selby to triumph, at 6k being 3 grades above the rest of the field, but he made a mistake in a fight to lose by less than 10 points to Leamington Go Club's Dylan Zhu-Dong. Dylan beat the other top players too and ended up collecting the Under-14 and Youth Champion titles. Oscar won the Under-12 and was runner up in the overall championship. Runners up in those age groups were Hasan Nisar from Aston and Kelda Smith from Cambridge. Melchior Chui from Cambridge won again in the Under-16 section, with Thomas Meehan from Solihull the runner up.