I having been playing the board game Go since school days, a friend having seen the rules in a Lasker book.

At university I progressed through the grades uniformly from 18 kyu to 6 kyu, with rapid promotion to 3kyu at the '76-'77 London Open after winning 6/8. 2 kyu followed a couple of years later while playing at Reading Club.

I spent 20 years at 2 kyu - losing a couple of grades when not playing for a while; but never getting stronger from just playing, and never finding time for serious study.

In 1999 I was persuaded to call myself a 1 Kyu. (only DAN grades are regulated in UK).

1999 - 2001 I was playing at Reading Club on Monday Evenings, though found less time for Go in 2002 onwards.

can be found on KGS at times.

UPDATE - played first tournament (indeed any real Go) for 2 years on 2004 Jan 17 at Furze Platt tournament - an excellent occasion at Hitachi European HQ - Maidenhead/Cookham - only won 1 of 3 but all were VERY close.

Also played at Oxford on 14 Feb again with only 1 out of 3.

Meanwhile there has been a UK wide regrading so I now enter tournaments at 3kyu. though it seems the ratings do not justify quite such a large drop.

For more information about Go see the British Go Association site.