AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association February 4, 2003 In This Edition: YOUR MOVE: Readers Write GAME COMMENTARY: Murderous Intentions GO NEWS: January Membership Thaw; E-Journal Archives Online WORLD GO: Korea, Japan GO CLUBS: Piscataway, NJ; Pittsburgh, PA The Empty Board: Playing with Demons GO REVIEW: Galactic Go, Vol. 1 GO CLASSIFIED AGA CONTACT LIST CALENDAR OF EVENTS (U.S.) February 9: Lancaster, PA Self-Paired Tournament Sam Zimmerman szimmerman@wareunl.com 717-892?1249 February 22: Chicago, IL "Axe Me No Questions" Bob Barber 773-467-0423 komoku@earthlink.net February 22: Toronto, Canada Toronto Go Tournament Monks@pmonks@look.ca 416-591-6414 March 1-2: Princeton, NJ New Jersey Open Rick Mott 609-466-1602 rickmott@alumni.princeton.edu March 2: Sunnyvale, CA 7th Jujo Jiang Cup Youth Goe Tournament Mingjiu Jiang 650-969-2857 March 13-16: Germantown, MD Greater Washington Go Club's Yang Workshop Anand Modak 301-513-8233 amodak@mcps.k12.md.us March 22: Arlington, VA Cherry Blossom Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@worldnet.att.net NOTE: this listing is not all-inclusive, featuring only upcoming tournaments in the next month or events which require early registration. For a complete U.S. listings, go to http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.html For the European Go Calendar see http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/go/tourn.html YOUR MOVE: Readers Write Redmond Correction: "Your info about my opponents in the Gosei tournament was incorrect," writes Michael Redmond, 9P, referring to our report on go news from Japan in last week's E-Journal. "My 1st round opponent was Kataoka Satoshi 9P. Second round was Ishii Kunio 9d (not Yamashita, as reported), who beat Ri ChangHo in Fujitsu 2001. My potential 3rd round opponents were correct." We apologize for the error. No Vacuum: "Your recent issues of the E-Journal have been just great!," writes Michael Quintero. "I appreciate the links and reviews. I shall not tell you to keep up the good work, because you're already doing that, but I thought you might like to know you are not working in a vacuum and that your hard effort is appreciated. Not only do I look forward to the arrival of the E-Journal each week, of late I have been hoping that you would have more tips like you have been publishing." The E-Journal staff appreciates these words of encouragement: it's always good to hear from happy readers and to know that our work is effective, useful and appreciated! We'll keep it up and continue to look for ways to do even better. Readers can help by passing along the E-Journal to all your go-playing friends with email: with over 5,000 readers worldwide we hope to hit 10,000 by the end of the year. Also, a lot of our news items or new features come from our readers, so don't hesitate to let us know if you have an idea or suggestion. GAME COMMENTARY: Murderous Intentions Today's game comes to us courtesy of GoGameWorld.com, an excellent source for very recent pro games with pro commentary. They put up several games a week and a year's subscription is just $20; check it out at http://www.gogameworld.com/ In today's game, Chang Hao 9p takes on Lee Changho 9p in a game played on December 28, 2002. The game features plenty of fascinating commentary, including a seldom-seen counter pincer by Black that Hua Yigang 8P jokingly calls "Zude Style", because this move was often adopted in fast games between Chen Zude 9P and Hua Yigang. Most interesting of all, though, is the game-losing play at B15 and White's "ordinary" move at 30 that is actually "full of murderous intentions." BONUS: Also included this week are the solutions to last week's set of life and death problems from master tsume-go creator Yilun Yang, 7P. To view the attached files, simply save them to your computer and then open them using an .sgf reader such as Many Faces of Go or SmartGo. Readers who need .sgf readers can get them for most platforms at Jan van der Steen's http://gobase.org/sgfeditors.html GO NEWS January Membership Thaw AGA membership took another leap in January, reaching a new record high of 1,680 and including 67 new members, the biggest single-month increase in nearly five years. January's increase extends to eight the AGA's string of consecutive monthly increases, which began last June. Membership is up a spectacular 15% over a year ago, putting the AGA on track to pass the 1,700-member mark this month. Youth membership was also up significantly, thanks to Feng Yun's special Youth Tournament in January, which brought in more than 40 new youth members. E-Journal Archives Online A complete set of back issues of the American Go E-Journal are now available online at http://www.hilltopgo.com/agej/ Samples of the attached game commentaries can be found at http://www.hilltopgo.com/agej/games.html AGA organizational news reports are archived at http://www.hilltopgo.com/agej/boardnotes.html Our thanks and appreciation to Mike Malveaux for his terrific work building and maintaining this archive! SPECIAL OFFER FOR AGA MEMBERS! All the great go stuff at Yutopian is now 5% off for AGA members! Improve your game today and save money on go books, software and equipment at http://www.yutopian.com/ Just mention the E-Journal promotion and your AGA membership number when you order and the friendly folks at Yutopian will be happy to take care of you. WORLD GO: Korea The KAT Cup is a team tournament among Korean pros sponsored by Baduk TV. Naiwei Rui 9P and Jujo Jiang 9P are part of a four player team (the Cheju Team) that has just won their match in the first round, 3-1. Both Naiwei and Jujo won by resignation playing White. You can download the games from http://www.kyoto.zaq.ne.jp/momoyama/news/kr/kat/kat.html . - William Cobb, AGJ Assistant Editor WORLD GO: Japan By the end of 2002 Michael Redmond 9P had played 670 professional games, winning 412 of them, while losing just 256 (2 were ties), for an overall winning percentage of 61%. GO CLUBS: Piscataway, NJ; Pittsburgh, PA Feng Yun, a 9-dan professional and former World Women's Champion will teach every Saturday afternoon at Feng Yun Go school at Piscataway, New Jersey. Bring your game records and questions. For details, go to http://www.fygc.com The Pittsburgh Go Association meets Tuesday nights, 7P at Carnegie Mellon's University Center. For directions see http://www.pittsburghgo.com/meetings.php THE EMPTY BOARD: Playing with Demons By William Cobb I've been reading a delightful mystery story set in Tibet, in which one of their famous demons plays a big role (The Skull Mantra, by Eliot Patison). Tibetan Buddhism is quite different from the Zen tradition in many ways, not the least of which is their panoply of demons. The Tibetan demons are always extremely scary and usually given to very violent interactions with humans. The key point to remember is that they always go after the bad guys. The demons are actually on the side of those who are struggling to live in accordance with the Buddha's teachings and are there to help you overcome negative influences. This suggests a useful, if rather different, way to think about your opponent in go. Naturally, you usually feel a little nervous when you start a game, especially if it's in a tournament, where outcome may affect your rating. So your opponent is a little scary. Why not let him become very scary? Think of him as a terrifying demon, giving off enormous negative energy, threatening tremendous damage. Then remember that all that negative energy is directed at those bad habits and careless slips that keep marring your games and look forward to your demon blowing them away. Maybe being a little worried about the ferocious reactions of our demonic opponents could help us maintain the focus necessary to play our best. So, before you play your first stone, look at your opponent and visualize him ripping off your arm if you make a slack play. Can't hurt. GO REVIEW: Galactic Go, Vol. 1 by Sangit Chatterjee and Yang Huiren Published by Yutopian Reviewed by Steve Fawthrop The aim of Galactic Go isn't clear. The title certainly gives no indication -- what exactly is "Galactic Go"? From my reading, it appears that Galactic Go is an effort to explain middle game fighting in 3-stone handicap games. The chapters, however, are organized according to the opening joseki moves, and not according to middle game principles. Since it also contains long sections on obscure joseki which would be more at home in a joseki dictionary, perhaps the intent is to explain the choice of joseki in a 3-stone game. I couldn't tell. But that's not the biggest problem. Galactic Go is rife with errors. Diagrams are missing stones and labels, text sometimes does not correspond to the diagram, and, at times, the explanatory text is simply confusing. For example, one diagram declares failure for black because a ladder does not work when, if fact, black gets a good position by a simple geta capture. In one chapter, the diagrams switch back and forth between a joseki and its mirror image, making the sequence hard to follow. In another, the text alternates between two different threads without explanation or transition. Diagram explanations are sometimes far too spartan. There are long series of diagrams in which the text essentially adds no more than "Black did this. White did .that. What should Black do next?" It makes for dry reading. Moreover, several interesting moves are passed over completely. When moves are examined in the text, the level of detail varies so widely that it is hard to know what level the book is aiming for -- I would guess about 7 kyu to 2 dan. I was left with the impression that Galactic Go was put together quickly without much planning and analysis. The mistakes I found make it hard to trust the remainder and so call into question the validity of the book as a whole. The authors say there will be three more volumes in the series. I hope that more effort is put into the remaining three. GO CLASSIFIED FOR SALE: Sets of old "Go World" magazines: 1-48 and 1-15; 17-25; 50-56 and individual copies #22, #40, #43, and #51. Check them out at john.hartman17@verizon.net Or email dobe.doinat@verizon.net WANTED: Go players in the West Lafayette, Indiana/Purdue area; e-mail Chris Kubica at ckubica@insightbb.com Got Go stuff to sell, swap or want to buy? Do it here and reach more than 5,000 Go players worldwide every week at Go Classified! Send to us at journal@usgo.org GET LISTED & BOOST TURN-OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach over 5,000 readers every week! List your Go event/news In the E-Journal: email details to us at MAILTO:journal@usgo.org Ratings are on the web! Check the website; http://www.usgo.org for the full list. GET YOUR TOURNAMENT RATED! Send your tournament data to MAILTO:ratings@usgo.org AGA CONTACT LIST: President: Chris Kirschner: president@usgo.org Secretary Susan Weir: Secretary@usgo.org Treasurer Ben Bernstein: Treasurer@usgo.org VP - Communications: Chris Garlock Journal@usgo.org Archivist Craig Hutchinson: Archives@usgo.org Chapter Management: Paul Celmer chapterservices@usgo.org Nicole Casanta: Chapters@usgo.org Community Outreach: John Goon Outreach@usgo.org Congress Liaison: Judy Debel Congress@usgo.org Education Coordinator: Lee Ann Bowie Education@usgo.org Equipment Distribution: Paul Celmer Equipment@usgo.org HR & Recruitment: Terry Assael Hr@usgo.org Membership Services: Tom Hodges, Joel Gabelman membership@usgo.org Policy & Governance: Keith Arnold Governance@usgo.org General Counsel: Michael T. 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