I am visiting London Open, which is one of the biggest British events. I won't be playing so I have the opportunity to take and post some photos here.

Unfortunately a small prize pool means not many strong European players are here, very different from several years ago. However this is a good news for those who play - everyone has a fair chance of winning.

So sad that people will only come for money instead of the pleasure of playing.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

All remaining boards are in the big theatre.

I am using my mobile phone connection to upload photos, which is painfully slow. I will try to find some interesting news to report. To start with, there are a number of strong ladies among the top players.

There was a big error on board 3 and that game finished in just half an hour.

In the mean time, board 9 has only 15 moves on it.

I am posting the pairing of top tables, in case you know anyone here.

The cost of travel is too much for young strong players, if only older people who had money could have sponsored them to go...

Hey, if someone wants to sponsor a 13kish amateur I'd be available XD.

Good job on the pictures, I've never been to a go event, so seeing something like this is always nice.

Hey, I somewhat spontaneously, decided to play there today. I was wearing a blue Tacoma Go Congress t-shirt.

Macelee, were you only there for today?

Dammit, we should wear some sort of L19 sticker or something. For anyone there tomorrow, I'll be wearing a light green Portland Go Congress t-shirt with a dragon on it.

'Twas a fun day.

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

That looks like it would be a lot of fun. I would love to attend something like this but sadly I live far away from anything remotely this cool.

Daily updates to the results are available here: http://www.britgo.org/results/2013/london.html

Three Zhangs, all 4d from UK. It is a common name but I cannot but wonder if they are related.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

No, 'Zhang' is just a very common family name used in China.

From here, you can see there are at least 85-90 million of them in China alone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mo ... Asia#China

Of course, I know very well that it is a common name in China. But it is not so much in Britain, so three of them there together has at least the possibility of them being related. Common as the name Smith is in Britain, I would at least there that there would be a possibility of three Smiths in a tournaments in China being related.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I notice that at the bottom of the list somebody called Tethys has entered. There was one UK player who changed his name to Weed, I wonder if this is something similiar.

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North Lecale

DrStraw, the UK has changed quite a lot since you left. Many Chinese students study here and some remain afterwards.

macelee, ah so that guy was you. Will you visit again? Would be nice to say hi.

Unfortunately I am away and won't be visiting again this time. Hope to see you again in the next big tournament. I really should spend less time online and play more real games.