AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association June 9, 2003 In This Edition: U.S. GO NEWS: Janice Kim Wins Major Promotion; Pro v. Pro at U.S. Go Congress; Call For Go Clip Art WORLD GO NEWS: Go Summer On The Continent; Kato Takes 2-1 Lead In Honinbo; Lee Changho Down 0-2 In Paewang; Redmond Off To Rocky Start In 2004 Honinbo Prelims; Korea Dominates Fujitsu Semi-Finals GAME COMMENTARY: Ko Fight to the Death MY MOVE: A 21st Century Journal? GO CLASSIFIED CALENDAR OF EVENTS U.S. GO NEWS JANICE KIM WINS MAJOR PROMOTION: Janice Kim has just been promoted to 3 dan by Korea's Hangook Kiwon, the highest rank they've ever awarded to a woman player. "Unfortunately," reports Janice. "I have never concurrently been the same rank as a world champion, as they promoted Lee Se dol to 6 dan at the same time." PRO v. PRO AT U.S. GO CONGRESS: This year's Go Congress will feature the event's first all-professional tournament, organizers have just announced. Up to eight pros will participate in the tournament, which will be played over four days, beginning Saturday, August 2. All games will be played under Ing Rules for $5,000 in prizes, including a $2500 1st place prize. Find out more about the Congress at http://www.houstongoclub.org/USGC2003/intro.html CALL FOR GO CLIP ART : We want to support your efforts to promote the game of Go in the US. At http://www.usgo.org/promotion/PromotionalKit.asp you will find a collection materials intended to help you establish a "sustainable Go culture" in your area. We want to expand this section of the web site with a collection go promotional posters and Go-themeD clip art. If you have any non-copyrighted materials that might be of interest, send them to webmaster@usgo.org. And watch our promotional page for new materials! - Roy Laird, AGA Webmaster WORLD GO NEWS GO SUMMER ON THE CONTINENT: Planning to go to Europe this summer? You can find a list of the up-coming tournaments in various countries at http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/go/tourn.html . KATO TAKES 2-1 LEAD IN HONINBO: Kato Kensei (Masao) Honinbo has taken a 2-1 lead over the challenger Cho U. Black has won all three of the games in this match so far, and by resignation each time. At 56, Kato is 33 years older than Cho. The older generation of Japanese pros is not stepping aside without a fight. You can see the game record at http://www.mainichi.co.jp/life/hobby/igo03/03/index.html . LEE CHANGHO DOWN 0-2 IN PAEWANG: Yu (Yoo) Changhyeok 9 dan has won a second game against Yi (Lee) Changho 9 dan in the Paewang tournament in Korea, taking a lead of 2-0 in this best of 5 match. Yu needed just 174 moves to defeat Yi. You can download the game record at http://www.kyoto.zaq.ne.jp/momoyama/news/kr/pw/pw.html REDMOND OFF TO ROCKY START IN 2004 HONINBO PRELIMS: The preliminary matches to determine next year's challenger for the Honinbo title in Japan are already underway. Unfortunately, Michael Redmond 9 dan has lost a game in these preliminaries to Ogaki Yusaku 9 dan. Ogaki won by resignation with White. KOREA DOMINATES FUJITSU SEMI-FINALS: Korea continued its domination of international go by winning three of the four spots in the semi-final round of the Fujitsu. Yoda Norimoto 9 dan was the lone Japanese survivor. Yoda defeated Yu Changhyeok 9 dan, while Yi Setol 7 dan won over Kobayashi Satoru 9 dan by 6.5 points. Yi Changho 9 dan defeated O Rissei by 4.5, and Takao Shinji 9-dan of Japan lost by a half point to Song Taekon 4-dan. Song, at the age of 16, is the youngest player ever to reach the semi-finals of the Fujitsu. GAME COMMENTARY: Ko Fight to the Death Cho Hunhyeon 9p is the man Rui Naiwei 9p defeated to win the Korean Kuksu title in 2000 and become the first woman to win an open pro tournament. In this rematch in the 2003 Chinese National Go Team Tournament, neither player will give way, and the result is an exciting, intense, and brilliant game that concludes with an astonishing series of ko fights. The detailed commentary by Qian Yuping 9p in Weiqi World, translated by GoGameWorld, available by subscription from http://www.gogameworld.com PLUS: The solutions to last week's Yilun Yang brain-teasing life and death puzzles. To view the attached file(s), simply save to your computer and then open 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 MY MOVE: A 21st Century Journal? By Chris Garlock, Editor, American Go Journal & E-Journal (Note: a longer version of this column appears in the Spring 2003 issue of the American Go Journal) Is it time to re-think the American Go Journal? After 50 years of publication, a new model may be necessary, one that combines the incredible scope of the electronic revolution with the continuing need for hard-copy communication. The Journal has long served as the American Go Association's primary point of contact and communication with its members, and as such has received the lion's share of the annual budget derived from membership dues. Most of the Journal budget now goes to printing (66%) and mailing (24%) while just 10% goes to those who actually produce content for the Journal. Two years ago we began publishing the American Go E-Journal, a weekly email newsletter providing go news and tournament reports. Since then we've expanded content several times, adding reviews of go books and software, commented game records, a classified section and more comprehensive coverage of go news worldwide. The E-Journal's readership is now nearly 5,500 worldwide, while the Journal goes to the 1,400 full members of the AGA. In short, we now have an expensive and infrequent publication with a small readership and an inexpensive and frequent publication with a large (and rapidly growing) readership. The Journal editors propose merging the strengths of both publications by shifting financial resources into dramatically enhanced content for the E-Journal and cutting the costs of the print Journal by reducing the publication frequency to once a year. The quarterly Journal would be replaced by an annual Yearbook featuring the best material from the previous year's E-Journal. In addition, the Yearbook would include a CD with all the E-Journal content for the year, including all the games, tournament reports, reviews, etc. Also included would be bonus material and games produced just for the Yearbook. The E-Journal will continue to be distributed free, while the existing Games Edition will be enhanced with additional content, including material now appearing in the print Journal (columns like The Empty Board, Life in B-League etc) as well as more game records and expanded coverage of go news from Japan, Korea, China and Europe as well as other new features now in development. Other material -- photographs, for example - would be published on a special page on the AGA website, solving an existing problem with the Journal, because we can publish far more photos on the website than we have space for in the Journal and instead of waiting months for the next issue, we can publish them online immediately. The page would be hot-linked in the E-Journal for easy access by readers. Paying content providers -- including professionals, strong amateurs and other contributors -- is not just a good investment in the future of go, it's the best way to get timely quality content. Since we began paying professionals for game commentaries earlier this year, we've begun receiving terrific original game commentaries from pros like Guo Juan, Yilun Yang and Feng Yun, with more yet to come. These are dramatic changes but we feel they are urgently necessary. The existing Journal simply costs far too much money, time and energy for the limited readership it reaches, while the popular and growing E-Journal suffers from content deprivation. A final consideration is that the E-Journal's popularity has helped fuel the record-breaking membership increases over the last year as go players here and around the world sign up for free, like what they see and join the American Go Association, making it now the largest go association in the Western world. What do you think? Your thoughts, comments and suggestions will help us make sure we're best serving our members and readers. Send them to us at journal@usgo.org GO CLASSIFIED WANTED: Gifted, dedicated volunteers to help with exciting, ground-breaking html E-Journal project. Chris Garlock, journal@usgo.org WANTED: Will trade go lessons for English lessons; Philadelphia (36th & Powelton Ave): Dayong Yu, yuxiao1970@hotmail.com (6/2) WANTED: Copy of "All about Thickness" by Ishida Yoshio and "The Power of the Star-Point" by Takagawa Shukaku in any condition. weiqi@earthlink.net (posted 5/19) WANTED: Students, 30k - 2d. IGS 5d offers online lessons. http://www.angelfire.com/oh5/icarii (posted 5/19) WANTED: Plans for building go boards. BardKile@cs.com P Kile (posted 5/12) GO PLAYERS NANTUCKET, MA. Eager 9-kyu who will be on Nantucket all summer is looking for other eager players who might be there for a few face-to-face games. Please contact Andy at aokun@glowwormpub.com (6/2) IOWA: I am a go player stuck in Ames, Iowa with apparently no other go players. Anyone out there want to play? Email: Kirk Moloney at kmoloney@mchsi.com (6/2) ALABAMA: amateur Go player looking for someone to play with locally in the Birmingham area. Email Ro at lasro@earthlink.net (6/2) ALASKA: I have known about go for over 20 years but playing just the last four and am looking for players in Alaska, particularly the Anchorage area. Ed Sawyer, eddieballgame@yahoo.com (posted 5/12) 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 CALENDAR OF EVENTS June 14: Chicago, IL One Nation Under Go Bob Barber 773-467-0423 komoku@earthlink.net June 16: Hoboken, NJ Feng Yun lecture, Hoboken Go Club lruss@stevens tech.edu June 26-29: Hackensack, NJ 2003 NJ Yang 7p Go Workshop John Stephenson 203-396-7808 jcs@wingsgoclub.org June 28: Richmond, VA VA Open William Cobb 800-653-7640 wmscobb@attbi.com June 28: Austin, TX Pre Congress Ratings Rally Jeff Shaevel jeff@shaevel.com 512-733-0027 July 5-6: Orlando, FL 1st Annual Florida State Go Championships Brian J. Olive 407-595-8405 oliveb@ocps.k12.fl.us August 2-10: Houston, TX U.S. GO CONGRESS http://www.houstongoclub.org/USGC2003/intro.html 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 For the European Go Calendar see 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; for the full list. GET YOUR TOURNAMENT RATED! Send your tournament data to MAILTO:ratings@usgo.org AGA CONTACT LIST: For a full list of AGA officers, contacts & their email addresses, go to: http://www.usgo.org/org/index.asp#contactinfo Published by the American Go Association Text material published in " AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL" may be reproduced by any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source. PLEASE NOTE that attached files, including game records, MAY NOT BE published, re-distributed, or made available on the web without the explicit written permission of the Editor of the Journal. To make name or address corrections, notify us at the email address below. Story suggestions, event announcements, Letters to the Editor and other material are welcome, subject to editing for clarity and space, and should be directed to: Editor: Chris Garlock