AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association July 21, 2003 In This Edition: U.S. GO NEWS: Top 10 Reasons To Attend The 2003 US Go Congress; Board Highlights; MasterGo Adds Shusai WORLD GO NEWS: Yi Defeats Teacher Cho; Yoda Notches 2nd Win Over Kobayashi; Martin & Jiri Top Harmony Open; Lorrain Wins In Belgium; Swedish Summer GAME COMMENTARY: The 1971 Honinbo MOMENTS IN GO HISTORY: A Memorable Act of Chivalry GO CLASSIFIED CALENDAR OF EVENTS U.S. GO NEWS TOP 10 REASONS TO ATTEND THE 2003 US GO CONGRESS: Reason #3: Private lessons: Congress participants can arrange for private lessons with professional instructors. Small group theme-oriented lessons for particular levels of strength are especially popular. Reason #2: The North American Ing Cup: Watch 16 of the strongest amateur players in North America battle it out for a top prize of $2000. Some rounds are open to the public. The Congress runs August 2-10 in Houston, TX: 296 people are already registered. More details at: http://www.houstongoclub.org/USGC2003/intro.html BOARD HIGHLIGHTS: George Zhou was unanimously confirmed as Ing Coordinator at last week's AGA Board meeting. Other actions taken by the Board included accepting Rochester, NY as the site for the 2004 Go Congress and acceptance of the 2005 AGA budget. The Board also issued several advisory opinions on items scheduled to come before the National Assembly at next month's Go Congress, including amending the bylaws to elect all Directors at-large (without regard to regions) and elect Directors by membership vote (rather than by chapters); the vote in favor was 4-3 in both cases. After a closed session, the Board also voted 4-3 to form a Search Committee "to actively find a new President for the AGA." The Board approved, then reversed a motion making the Committee a standing committee, and also narrowly rejected a motion to extend the search through 2004. The Search Committee, headed by Board member John Stephenson, and including Larry Gross and Sam Zimmerman, has been directed to report back by December 31, 2003. Anyone with suggestions for the committee, which Stephenson says is seeking "new and hidden talent among (AGA) membership who can provide sound management and leadership" may contact Stephenson at jcs@wingsgoclub.org MASTERGO ADDS SHUSAI: The latest release of MasterGo includes a collection of games by one of the great go masters, Honinbo Shusai (1874-1940). The updated go software has 22,127 games, including a collection of games from the 1939 Oteai (Japanese Rating Tournament), providing an opportunity to study games played several years after the Go Seigen and Kitani Minoru introduced "new fuseki". Going back to 1887, MasterGo now has over a century's worth of professional go, missing games from just two years (1916 and 1922). Try a free demo version with 1,355 games, order the full version or upgrade at http://www.MasterGo.com WORLD GO NEWS YI DEFEATS TEACHER CHO: In the title match of the 37th Korean Wangwi tournament, Yi Changho 9p has beaten his teacher Cho Hunhyun 9p in the first two games and needs only one more victory to hold on to the title. Yi and Cho have been fighting each other since 1988. The most recent statistics show a 173:111 score between these two players, with Yi winning more than 60% of their games. You can download the title match game records at http://www.kyoto.zaq.ne.jp/momoyama/news/kr/ww/ww.html . - reported on http://www.Go4Go.net YODA NOTCHES 2ND WIN OVER KOBAYASHI: Yoda Norimoto Meijin has won a second game in the Gosei title match in Japan with Kobayashi Koichi 9 Dan, the current title holder. Yoda won with White by 8.5 points, so he now leads 2-0 in this best of 5 match. You can see the game record at http://www.hokkoku.co.jp/igo/board.html . MARTIN & JIRI TOP HARMONY OPEN: The Harmony Club Open at Pardubice, Czechia, a six round tournament on July 11-13, had 79 participants. The top two winners, losing only to each other, were Kuzela Martin 4 dan and Holecek Jiri 3 dan, both of Czechia. Wieczorek Wojciech 3 dan of Poland was third. LORRAIN WINS IN BELGIUM: A tournament in Belgium on July 8th involving ten kyu players and one dan player was won by Eric Lorrain 4 kyu, who defeated the lone dan player, Alain Wettach 4 dan. Alain was second. SWEDISH SUMMER: Here's an invitation to a go event in Sweden that you might like to keep in the mind for future Summer plans in Europe: http://www.siljan-go.com/100855/2/1765.htm . GAME COMMENTARY: The 1971 Honinbo Today's game commentary is the decisive game in a dramatic victory. Ishida Yoshio, then 7 dan, and only 22 in 1971, became the youngest player ever to win the Honinbo Title. This game gained him the title. Rin Kaiho, the reigning Honinbo, plays White. Ishida wins by only a half point (with a komi of 4.5). Originally published in Go Review XI, 9 (Sept. 1971). Today's bonus files are Yilun Yang's monthly life and death problems, an original set of three ranging in difficulty from beginner to intermediate and advanced. Look for the solutions next week! 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 MOMENTS IN GO HISTORY: A Memorable Act of Chivalry In 1931, Shin Kato (1891-1952) was the first person to earn a 7 dan rank in the now defunct Oteai system at the Nihon Kiin. Eight years later he was about to make 8 dan; all he needed to do was win the right to play the white stones and then win his game against Suzuki Tamejiro 7 dan. Suzuki was ill when it came time for the game, which meant that Kato was assured of a win by forfeit, but the colors still had to be decided. Kato guessed incorrectly whether the handful of stones (nigiri) was odd or even, so he got the white stones. However, Kato refused to win his promotion by a forfeit and insisted on waiting until Suzuki had recovered. When they finally played the game, Suzuki won, so Kato stayed a 7 dan. In 1942, because there had been no 8 or 9 dans for some time, Kato was promoted to 8 dan by decree, along with Suzuki and Segoe Kensaku, the other two senior members of the Nihon Kiin. - from Go Review 10, X (October 1970) GO CLASSIFIED 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 August 2-10: Houston, TX U.S. GO CONGRESS http://www.houstongoclub.org/USGC2003/intro.html August 16-25: Manchester, England Mind Sports Olympiad +44 1707 659080; entries@msoworld.com August 30-September 1: Montreal, Canada 26th Canadian Open Go Championship Steven Mays smays@videotron.ca September 20: Durham, NC Third Annual Joe Shoenfield Memorial Marathon Go Tournament Paul Celmer pcelmer@earthlink.net September 21: Hoboken, NJ Hoboken Fall Tournament Larry Russ 201-216-5379 lruss@stevens-tech.edu 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 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: 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 mailto:journal@usgo.org