The World Amateur Go Championships took place this year in Guanzhuo, China. 55 countries took part in the competition, as well as an extra player from the host nation. Ireland were represented by Colin MacSweeney, who performed very well. With an initial win over John Leuner of South Africa, Ireland moved into first place at the end of round 1. A few defeats came our way after this, but with victories over China (2) and Brazil, Colin finished on 6 points. This saw us take 46th place, a good result.

The Galway Go Club is pleased to announce the THIRD GALWAY GO TOURNAMENT at the Bridge Club St Mary’s Road Galway City on 26-27 May 2012.

This is a 5 round McMahon tournament with 50min time limit, 20sec per move overtime (3 times) and 6.5 Komi. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided. Everyone is welcome! Loads of prizes!

For full details click here .

The World Amateur Go Championship is approaching. The IGF’s online new channel, Ranka will be providing full coverage. Ireland are going to be represented by Colin MacSweeny this year, we wish him luck in his individua,l international debut, on the 11th of May. Ireland expects a podium finish.

Ireland won by default last Tuesday, in the European Team Go Champsionships, when their opponents failed to turn up. Bosnia clearly were intimidated by our powerful reputation, and realised, quite correctly, that turning up would not change the scoreline. A flawless 4-0 performance.

The result will eventually be displayed here.

The Confucius Cup, sponsored by the Confucius Institute, made front page news in Ireland. The Chinese language newspaper, the Emerald Sun, published an illustrated article on the tournament.

Click on the photo to see if you can recognise yourself.

In a sudden change of form, Ireland have actually started winning games in the European Team League. Today, we best Kazakhstan by 4 games to nil. Congratulations to Michael Hutchinson who claimed his first international win for Ireland. As the season comes to a close, there looks to be an increasing chance that we can take fourth place this year.

The 2012 Irish Go Congress occurred over the weekend with 48 players attending in sunny Dublin. Csaba Mero, 6d Hungary, won the main tournament, The 1st Confucius Cup, with a perfect 5/5 score. In second place was Guochen Xie, 6d China, who flew in from Boston for the event. Kim Ouweleen, 3d Amsterdam, came third, edging out Chu Lu, 4d Warwick Uni. Former Dublin resident Julien Renaud, 1d France, returned to Ireland to win first place below the bar, which was at 2d. He was followed by James Hutchinson, 1d Belfast, and Ian Davis, 1d Belfast.

Winning four games were Diana Blaszczyk, 4k Warsaw, Frank Tan, 9k Dublin, Marek Gutkowski, 9k Warsaw, and Paul Kelly, 11k Belfast. Patrick Ridley, 10k Chester, won best double-digit kyu player. The Friday evening Rapid tournament was won by Julien Renaud with five straight wins.

Full results of the Confucius Cup are available here. As an interesting piece of trivia, Liming Wang (Director of the UCD Confucius Institute) played in the first Irish Open.

Rapid and Confucius Cup photos by Tibi.

This year’s Irish Championship League, affectionately known as the  Top 8, came to an end tonight. Roman beat Noel by time, while Justyna achieved the same result against Tibi. This makes Roman the clear winner with 6/7. Tied for second are James and Ian, on 5/7, who must now play off to see who makes the final. Noel and Colin are on 4/7, and have to play off for the final qualification spot. Justyna finished on 3/7, Tibi on 1/7, and John on 0/7.

Another set of Top 8 games were played this weekend. A triangle tournament between the Belfast players was played, with all 3 games played in sequence on Saturday. Ian beating James and Tibi, and James beating Tibi. Then, the next night on KGS, Ian beat Justyna, although had she picked up on a serious middlegame error, it could easily have been the other way around. There can now potentially be 4 players tied at the top of the event with 5 wins.

There were 2 games played in the Top 8 this week.

In the plush surroundings of Bewley’s hotel John took an early lead against Colin on Saturday. John maintained the lead until well into the middlegame but was later forced to resign after losing points in several areas of the board.

Noel and Colin also played on Wednesday night amidst the psychedelic backdrop of the Tea Garden. Both players appeared to forget about the clock and were well into byo-yomi during the most crucial moments of the game. After Noel started a massive ko in the upper right corner, Colin responded badly and a huge dragon was killed.