The thirtieth Queensland Championships will occur over Saturday 6 February and Sunday 7 February, 2010, in the Holt Room at the Student Union on the University of Queensland campus at St Lucia in Brisbane. There will be an open division for dan players (attracting AGA representative points) and a handicap division for kyu players. First round of six starts at nine o’clock, and there is a published schedule running until five o’clock both days.

Please RSVP to your nearest Brisbane Go Club officer – use the registration form or write an email. If you’re interstate, that’s horatio@go.org.au. Because this is an AGA-sanctioned championship, competitors will need to either have current Australian Go Association membership or be prepared to acquire some during registration (club membership will do nicely), and will accrue AGA credit points from their placings. Entry is five dollars for students and juniors (thank QUGS for this one) and thirty-five dollars for everyone else. Anyone and everyone who plays any sort of go in the greater Brisbane area is welcome and strongly encouraged to turn out and play.

The 2010 annual general meeting of the Brisbane Go Club, including elections, will take place on the Sunday of the tournament, during lunch.

After the final three tournament rounds on Sunday, the Queensland Open Go Champion for 2009 is Kevin Jiang 6d with a clean sweep of six victories. Kevin was also the 2008 champion. Second place went to Fred Huang 3d, and third to Chulho Rhee 4d, each with five wins. The Queensland Kyu Go Champion for 2009 is the Journal’s own Amelia Gray 3k with five victories. Second place went to Bruce Macintosh 5k with five victories, and third place to Warrakun Mangrai 8k with four wins.

The Brisbane consulate-general of the People’s Republic of China was kind enough to send consul Duan Zhong to say a few words at the closing ceremony, and to donate some rather colourful prizes for all six winners. Above are pictured (from left to right), Amelia, the consul, and Kevin, just after the trophies were presented; picture by Rodney Topor, who was one of several bystanders to come along to watch the finale.

More pictures as people start decanting their cameras…

After three rounds on day one, the open division placings are as follows:

1. Kevin Jiang 6d
2. Fred Huang 4d
3. Markus Pache 4d
4. Larry Wen 3d
5. Chulho Rhee
6. Sam Nakagawa
7. Mark Bell
8. Jeremy Wen

plus eleven others with fewer than two wins. In the kyu division, the placings so far are:

1. Warrakun Mangrai 8k
2. Amelia Gray 3k
3. Horatio Davis 4k
4. James Chown 1k
5. Bruce Mcintosh 5k

plus six others with fewer than two wins. The day also featured the Brisbane Go Club‘s annual general meeting, which re-elected the same officers as last year and discussed the upcoming Ballina Go Camp.

Three more rounds, and pictures to come.