Durham Go Tournament

Held on the weekend of 14th June at St Johns College, this time the Durham Tournament had 34 players.

Wanstead’s Andrew Jones, 3d, was the winner with five out of six. His clubmate Alistair Wall was second and third was Mathieu Flinders, 1k, from York, both with 4.5, after a triple ko in the last round. See [below].

Winning five games was Keith Chapman, 19k, from Norwich.

(British Go Journal no 145, Summer 2008, p6)

---

AGA Rules OK?

Toby Manning

The BGA has adopted AGA rules in its tournaments, and recommends that all clubs adopt them. Practically, there are three changes from traditional ’Japanese’ rules:

• If komi is (say) 7.5 points under Japanese rules, then because under AGA rules white must play last, this becomes 6.5 points if black fills the last dame.
• Triple kos (and similar repeating positions) are no longer considered to be draws
• 'Bent 4 in the corner', and a few other pathological positions, are to be played out rather than simply being defined as dead.

At the Durham tournament in June, the AGA rules were put to the test when Alastair Wall and Mathieu Flinders achieved a triple ko.

Komi at this tournament was 7 points, deliberately chosen by the Tournament organiser so that jigos (draws) were possible.

When the triple ko arrived, a draw was offered, and the players consulted with the Tournament Director who agreed to accept a jigo as the result even though, according to AGA rules, the triple ko should have been played out (with no repetition of the global position).

In practice this involves a 7-move cycle:

White makes ko threat, B answers threat, W takes ko 1, B takes ko 2, W takes ko 3, B takes ko 1, W takes ko 2 and now if B takes ko 3 a repetition would occur, so Black must make a ko threat: the sequence then proceeds around another 7 moves before White must make a further ko threat.

Not only is this a protracted affair, it is in practice uncheckable – without a full game record it is impossible to determine if, in fact, the position is a repetition or not (and in the event of a dispute, it would be impossible for a referee to determine if, in fact, a repetition had occurred).

So full marks to the players at Durham for producing a pragmatic, sensible result even if it was against the rules.

(British Go Journal no 145, Summer 2008, p10)

---

Results list (British Go Association)

Tournament card (European Go Database)