Dear Go Players,

2026 New Zealand Online Teams Tournament

We are trialing a new online tournament this year which we hope will be fun and can become a regular event on our calendar. 

Entry will be free, certificates will be awarded to the most successful players - but the emphasis is on having fun, enjoying the games, not so much on winning. The tournament will run over three weeks, with play on Sunday evenings starting from 8pm, two games each evening. 

The first round will be on 5th April, subsequent rounds on the 12th & 19th.

It’s okay if you cannot play all the rounds so long as you let the organisers know when you will be available.

In each round the organisers will form the available players into roughly matched teams (and set handicaps if required to make the games fair) Teams will be different every round. Playing time will be reasonably fast as we don’t want people to have to wait too long for their next turn. 

To register for our tournament click here. Full details are below. 

Details

We want fast play, but we don’t want people to feel pressured and we don’t want games to be decided by time default. Tricky. We have chosen to use a base time of 1 minute, plus a 30 second byo-yomi 30 times. But mostly we want people to just follow the spirit of the event and play quickly so that no one has to wait too long for their next turn.

The tournament is open to players from New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific nations (Citizens or residents) Results will have no effect on NZGS points nor on your national ranking.

• The tournament is on the Internet using OGS, the Online Go Server (https://online-go.com) 

• Some rounds will have teams of two, other rounds will have larger teams.

• Teams will generally be different every round. 

• A handicap may be used when the difference in strength between teams is too great.

• Even games have komi of 7 points to white and no handicap stones.

• To avoid the problem of negotiating a mutually suitable time for multiple people, games will all be on Sunday nights starting at 8pm NZ time.

• Entries close on Friday 3rd April 2026.

• Teams will be announced on Saturday before games (make sure you let us know before this if you will not be playing on the Sunday).

Let us know early if you can’t play a particular round - it’s no problem if we know in advance.

Kudos will go to the people with the most wins across all the teams they play in.

The focus is fun!

Registration

To register click here.

Questions

Please send any questions you have to the tournament director (coling3a@gmail.com) 

 

We hope to meet you in the tournament

Colin Grierson
Stepan Lapshev
Tournament directors

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