Dear Go Players, we are pleased to invite you to join our 2024 New Zealand Digital Tournament
Welcome to 2024 and we hope, welcome to our 2024 Digital Go Tournament, which will start on Monday, March 25. Play games, watch others play, review their games (& plot how to beat them) … all good clean fun 
As in previous years we will have an Open division for strong players, a Division 2 for mid strength players and a Handicap division for everyone. Plus, this year we are trialing a Team go division - just for fun!
To register for our tournament click here. Details are below.
The tournament is open to players from New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific nations. For New Zealand players the tournament results will count towards your NZGS points and National ranking as with other regional tournaments. Australian players will likewise receive ranking and international representation points*
* To be confirmed by the AGA committee
The tournament is on the Internet in six rounds, one per week. Results are due by midnight each Sunday by email. The draw for the next round (opponent, colour, & handicap) will be sent out by midday the following Monday. Contact your opponent, sort out a time, play the game online, email the result and the game record to the tournament director.
The tournament has four divisions.
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Open: No handicaps. Recommended for strong players 2dan and higher
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Division 2: No handicaps. Eligible to players ranked up to 2dan
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Handicap: Handicaps will be set depending on the difference in ranks of the players.
Eligible to all… -
Team Go: Mostly no handicaps. Eligible to all…
The Open division and Division 2 will use a Swiss draw. The handicap division also if there are enough entries, otherwise a round robin will be used. Team Go will be different, see details below.
People can enter multiple divisions - and we encourage you to do so! The Open Division and Division 2 have a ‘serious’ feel - even games testing your strength - while the handicap division has more of a fun feel and the teams division we hope is lots of fun. Entering one serious division and one fun division is perfect!
All divisions will use Fischer time control with 30 minutes starting time and 20 seconds added per move (about 1 to 1 1/4 hours each)
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Entries close on Friday 22 March 2024.
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Round 1 drawn Monday25 March.
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Round 2 drawn Monday 1 April.
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Round 3 drawn Monday 8 April.
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Round 4 drawn Monday 15 April.
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Round 5 drawn Monday 22 April.
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Round 6 drawn Monday 29 April.
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Results announced Monday 6 May.
The preferred server is the ‘Online Go Server’ or OGS (https://online-go.com) Other servers can be used by mutual agreement.
To enter, click here to open the registration form. Or if you have difficulty with the form please email the tournament director (
Entry fee is NZ$10. Please do a direct bank transfer to the NZGS account 03-0149-0095693-000 or, if you are not in New Zealand, use our PayPal account account
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However you pay, make sure you include your name and NZGS number in the reference so we know who the money is from!
Open Division and Division 2
For ‘serious’ games where you can test your strength against others, also the Open division.
Winner gets the title of New Zealand Digital Champion!
May the best player prevail!
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The Open division is open to all, but recommended for stronger players.
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Division 2 is for players up to 2 dan. If you are stronger - play in the Open division
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Komi of 7 points to white and no handicap stones.
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Game settings: Fisher timing with 30 minutes main time plus 20 seconds per move, Chinese (area) scoring and counting, colour is specified in the draw. No nigiri.
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Set your game to public and save a copy of the SGF for us.
Handicap Division
For more ‘relaxed’ games with a handicap to give each player an equal chance. Have fun!
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Handicap division games will have a number of stones (as specified in the draw) and no komi unless it is an even game.
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Even games in the handicap division, have komi of 7 points to white and no handicap stones.
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Stones, if any, will be given at one stone per one difference in rank.
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Winners ranks are automatically adjusted up by 1 (just for the purposes of this tournament)
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Game settings: Fisher timing with 30 minutes main time plus 20 seconds per move, Chinese (area) scoring and counting, colour is specified in the draw. No nigiri.
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Set your game to public and save a copy of the SGF for us.
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We may introduce a McMahon bar between the top players and the rest of the division for the first couple of rounds, to avoid highly mismatched games. The sections of each division will be reunited from the third round onwards.
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This division is open to everyone and there is no maximum handicap! However we will try to match players of similar ranks to keep the handicaps small.
Teams Division
Just for fun! Teams will be assigned by the organisers, and will be selected so opposing teams have approximately equal strength.
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Some rounds will have teams of two, other rounds will have larger teams.
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Teams will generally be different every round.
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A handicap may be used when the difference in strength between teams is too great.
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Even games have komi of 7 points to white and no handicap stones.
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To avoid the problem of negotiating a mutually suitable time for four or more people, and to accommodate both New Zealand and Australian players, team games will all be on Thursday nights at 8:30pm NZ time.
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Let us know early if you can’t play a particular round - it’s no problem if we know in advance.
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Players will log onto OGS and the organiser will invite the players to the match.
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Once started, OGS prompts the appropriate participant to make a move.
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Prizes will go to the people with the most wins across all the teams they play in.
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The focus is fun!
Prizes
There will be cash prizes, we will announce the exact amounts when we know the number of players in the tournament.
So that almost everyone can aim at winning a prize, we again have ‘plates’ within each division. First and second in each plate will receive prizes as well as the tournament first, second and third places.
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After the first round we have two groups - Winners and Losers (W & L).
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After the second round there are four groups: WW, WL, LW and LL.
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The WW group, where players won their first two games, is where the tournament winner and runner up are most likely to come from.
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The WL, LW and LL groups are the ‘Plate’ divisions 1-3. First and second within each of these groups (based on the players final positions in the tournament) will also receive prizes
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It is possible for the tournament winner or runner not to come from the WW group. In this case the player will only receive one prize, the highest they are eligible for.
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The plate groups make no difference to how players are matched for their games as the tournament progresses.
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For the purpose of assigning players to plates 1-3, byes are treated as a loss.
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In round 2, if a first round loser has to play a first round winner they will be assigned to plate 2 (LW) regardless of the result of the match.
Final ranking will be determined by number of wins, direct result and SOS.
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Number of wins is 1 for each game won. Draws count as half. Games that were not played may count as 1, ½ or 0 depending on the circumstances, the tournament director will decide.
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Direct result: If two players with equal numbers of wins have played each other, the winner is ranked higher.
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SOS: Sum of opponent's scores. The total number of wins of a player's opponents. Higher is better.
Conduct
All competitors must behave reasonably: don't cheat, don't troll, play nice. Violations attract a warning, then disqualification. We don't have an official code of conduct, you can look at the Queensland Go Society Code of Conduct https://queensland.go.org.au/
Registration
To register click here.
Questions
Please send any questions you have to the tournament director (
We hope to meet you in the tournament
Colin Grierson
Stepan Lapshev
Tournament directors
