The 5th annual Orlando Go Tournament (OGT) was held the weekend of April 2nd and 3rd on the campus of the University of Central Florida.  The strength of players ranged from 30k to 5d.  Most players were from the Florida go community; however, there were also players from Georgia, South Carolina, DC, and even Missouri.  Notably, of the 34 participants, there were eight players between the age of 7 and 16:  Brandon Zhou (4k), Guan Lim (29k), Taylor Beauchamp (25k), Joshua Manning (16k), Ghianyra Forestal (30k), Heather Crawford (16k), Ben Botwin (17k) and Spencer Moleda (4k).  These young players provided much appreciated energy and enthusiasm to the event, and more often than not also provided some pretty tough competition.

The five round, two day tournament included four strength divisions, with a total of 13 prizes awarded (generously donated by Yellow Mountain Imports and Slate & Shell). In the Dan division (1d and up), Kurt Lin (5d) placed first, Karsten Henckell (5d) second, and Joshua Lee (5d) third.  In the Lower Kyu Division (1k – 4k), first place went to Miki Hirama (1k), second to Stephen Barberi (1k), and third to Efrain Davila (2k).  First place in the Middle Kyu Division (5k – 10k) went to Shannon Jones (5k), second and third to Jonathan Sarry (5k) and Jason Ruiz (5k), respectively.  The Upper Kyu Division (11k – 30k) was particularly close, with first place going to 10 year-old Heather Crawford (16k) followed quite closely by Austin Diehl (11k) and Guan Lim (29k).  In addition to the placement awards, Ghianyra Forestal (30k) took an award for perseverance and fighting spirit.

Checkout the tournament results summary!