AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association August 6, 2003 In This Edition: FENG YUN ING PRO CUP CHAMP LI TO DEFEND ING AMATEUR: CONGRESS UPDATES - LI & HUANG PERFECT IN US OPEN - MICSA BLAZING TRAILS IN SELF-PAIRED - 13x13 TOURNAMENT - IN THE CHILDREN'S ROOM - 9x9 TOURNAMENT - CRAZY, MAN, JUST CRAZY FENG YUN ING PRO CUP CHAMP: Feng Yun 9P, won the 2003 AGA/ING Pro Cup Tuesday morning, defeating Mingjiu Jiang, 7P, and collecting the $2,500 first place prize. Jiang took second and $1,500. In third ($600) was Huiren Yang 1P, who nudged out Yilun Yang 7P by just one point, Yang's second 1-point loss in the ING Cup. Yang's fourth-place finish earned him $400. - reported by Bill Cobb LI TO DEFEND ING AMATEUR: Defending Ing Amateur Champion Jie Li 6d will going for a repeat Wednesday night when he takes on Joey Hung 6d in the final round. Li defeated Moon Chong Kim 6d by a comfortable 21-point margin and is now 3-0. Joey Hung beat Ned Phipps 6d. Hung studies with Jie Li, so the championship play-off between teacher and student should be interesting. In other third-round results, Ke Huang 6d defeated Yuan Zhou 6d and Yongfei Ge 6d beat Michael Zeng 6d. In the battle of the Lees, Jong Moon Lee 6d prevailed over Jung Hoon Lee 6d, while Lianzhou Yu 6d won over Thomas Hsiang 6d. And in the father-son showdown, I-Han Lui 6d defeated his son, Eric Lui 6d, while James Sedgwick 5d beat Jon Boley 6d. - reported by Bob Barber CONGRESS UPDATES LI & HUANG PERFECT IN US OPEN: Maintaining his perfect record in tournament play this week, Jie Li 6d has notched three straight wins in the U.S. Open to add to his three victories in the Ing Amateur. Nipping at his heels, however, is Ke Huang 6d who is also undefeated in the U.S. Open. The two top players join 32 players in the field who are 3-0 going into the mid-week break on Wednesday. The Open resumes Thursday with Round 4 and continues through Saturday. - reported by Joe Carl MICSA BLAZING TRAILS IN SELF-PAIRED: Action in the Self-Paired Tournament continues to be light with just 150 games played as of noon Tuesday. In fact, the three top contenders for the Dedicated award (most games played) account for nearly a third of all self-paired games. Longtime followers of this popular event won`t be surprised that 1 kyu Martin Lebl leads for Dedicated with 17 games (yesterday`s E-journal mistakenly gave Lebl`s rank as 8 kyu). Lebl also leads in Sensei (14 games vs. weaker players) and Hurricane (9 wins). Lebl is tied with 3 dan Joanne Phipps for Straight Shooter: each has defeated 5 consecutive ranks. But Lebl has dropped from the top spot as Champion, not even appearing in the top three. The current Champion is Dan Micsa, 3 dan, who has won 6 more games than he has lost. Micsa also currently holds the no. 1 position for the Keith Arnold category, having beaten 7 kyu level opponents. Chelsea Dinhofer, 20 kyu, has leaped into first for the Grasshopper award, improving her provisional rank by a whopping seven stones. And Justin Chiang, 14 kyu, is the new Optimist, with his provisional rank falling two stones. Most Faithful is Hiroshi Yuyama, 3 dan, whose provisional rank has risen just 0.0312 stones. Wrapping up today's Self-Paired roundup is the current Philanthropist, 3 dan Horst Sudoff, with 9 losses. - reported by Jeff Miller 13x13 Tournament: We have one correction and the latest results: Anderson Mills 14k won his table, not Hunter Peress, as previously reported. Hunter was second and moved on to the playoffs when Anderson was not available. In the Kyu section, David Rhode 14k and Shenxiong Xie 23k survived and are in the finals. In the Dan section, Kory Stephens 3d and Kohan Lin 1d are in the finals. - Michael Heinich IN THE CHILDREN'S ROOM: The Children's Room is once again a whirlwind of young go activity as several dozen youngsters gather to learn and have fun every day in-between (and sometimes during) regular Congress activities. When not occupied with "official" duties, many of the professional players can often be found in the Children's Room, teaching the enthusiastic new generation of go players. Among the many daily activities are mini-tournaments, including: CHILDREN'S 13x13: Winners in this 4 round round-robin were Lionel Zhang 4k (8 years old); Felix Chao, 17k (15); Jackie Yuan, 17k (17); Shengxiong Xie, 23k (11) and Stanley Sun, 29k (7). CHILDREN'S 9X9: Winners in this 4-round round-robin were Ed Kao 6d (a 22 year old ringer but a favorite among the kids); William Zhou 6k (10); Karoline Burrall 17k (14); Christopher Vu 20k (16) and Crystal Yuan 27k (15). - reported by Jim Bonomo, Asst TD 9x9 TOURNAMENT In the Dan section, Kory Stephens 3D (Wow both 9x9 and 13x13) and Terry Fung 3D are in the Finals. In the Kyu Section, Russ Williams 5k, Stephen Sun 6k, Rachel Small 16k and Stanley Sun 29k have won their games and moved on. - reported by Michael Heinich CRAZY, MAN, JUST CRAZY: If it's Tuesday night at the Go Congress, it's Crazy Go night when anything (and everything) goes. How do you keep track of all the variations? Easy, says Director Terry Benson, "It's crazy". Twelve variations were on offer, half of them with alternative rules or multiple players. Four-color go features four players each with a different color while Zen Go is a real mind-bender with three players with alternating colors so you never play the same color twice in a row. Joker Go uses a deck of cards with various go shapes, while the very name of Binary Triple Progressive Go seemed to scare away any players. In Rengo Kriegspeil two teams of two players play blindly, only told where they moved and if the move was illegal. Standard go is a breeze after this! There were also many different kinds of boards using standard rules, including a large 23x23 board, a hex board with 3 lines per intersection instead of the regular four and spiral go using a ci! rcular board. The strangest must be the popular 3D go, where a hanging lattice work of wires allows you to hang your stones on intersections. And for the Ultimate Go Board, try putting four boards together to make a 39x39 board, including the shared edges. With 1,521 possible places to play, players seemed to tire out before finishing and just passed the running game to whomever wanted to give it a try. - reported by Michael Heinich E-JOURNAL GO CONGRESS EDITION STAFF: Chris Garlock, Bill Cobb, Bob Barber, Joe Carl, Mike Heinich, Jeff Miller. FORMATTING NOTE: We apologize if there are formatting problems with the Congress Edition of the E-Journal, which is filed from a Palm PDA.