Evidently our outreach programme is making headway - check out the reviews of Larry Murphy’s on yelp.ie

Monday, 15th March sees the debut of a new go club in Dublin, which will meet in the Tea Garden on Ormond Quay.  There will be one set left there from this evening but we would recommend that you bring your own to club meetings as we won’t be able to leave multiple sets there as Collegians does in Larry Murphys.  In support of this new club, Collegians will not be meeting on Monday nights for the next few weeks, so please come down and check out the new home of go in Dublin - we’ll be there from 8:30.

The results for both the Rapid and the Open are now up on the website.

You can find photographs too.

A total of 41 players participated in the Irish Go Congress this year, prominent amongst which were a large party of invading Dutch. They couldn’t stop Ondrej Silt taking first place in the Open though, just ahead of local Corkonian Student Wei Wang. Sharing third on SOS were Willem-Koen PombeestPomstra and Willem Mallon. There was a 4 way tie in the Rapid, separated eventually to leave Edwin Brady ahead of Justyna Kleczar, with Willem-Koen Pomstra again in third. Bernd Sambale, who had been leading going into round 5 was cruelly left with 4th place.

The full results will follow shortly, as will photographs of the event.

Colin MacSweeny and Rory Wales played their final Top 8 game for this year on KGS. Rory (w) fought hard, but was unable to prevent Colin getting his first win this year.

Connaught have won the first Online Interprovincial Championships with a 2-1 victory over Ulster on KGS tonight. Congratulations to them!

The third place play-off is still to be completed, see tournament page.

The first entries are coming in for the Congress - you can see the list of entrants here. I’d encourage anyone planning on attending to get their entry in early - you’ll save a few quid and considerably ease the job of the tournament director. See the main tournament page for full details on how to register and the full schedule.

All action at Larry Murphys this evening as Eoghan Barry (B) went down in flames to Noel Mitchell (W) while John Gibson (W) held onto a lead while shedding what he later described as “non-essential” stones to squeak a 1.5 point victory over Colin MacSweeny.  Only two games remain to be played in this year’s tournament.

James and Michael played their Top 8 game on KGS on Saturday night. After a complicated struggled James (black) pulled clear in yose to win by 8.5 points. On Monday night James and Ian then played their game in Belfast Boat Club. Despite inventing a new joseki, James (white) won by 4.5 points. This means that James Hutchinson qualified for the final in his first year in the competition with a perfect score.

The current scoretable is in the usual place.

Noel (w) faced Rory (b) on KGS last night in another Top 8 battle. In what was an interesting game White gradually pulled himself back from a poor start to win by 9.5 points. This keeps alive Noel’s chances of reaching the final. The full scoretable is available.