AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association September 8, 2003 In This Edition: U.S. GO NEWS: New Resources For Young Players; Going Underground WORLD GO NEWS: Soweto Go; Hennie Groot Lipman Wins Cornish Handicap; Samsung Cup Under Way; Yashiro To Challenge Kobayashi For Female Honinbo; Kansai Kiin's First Female 8 Dan; Zhou Takes Asian TV Cup Tournament; Other Asian Go News In Brief GAME COMMENTARY: Battle of the Tengens YOUR MOVE: Navy Site Exposes Monitor Hoax; 7/31-8/7=2004; More Congress Photos Posted Online HARD TIMES ON THE GOBAN GO CLASSIFIED CALENDAR OF EVENTS U.S. GO NEWS NEW RESOURCES FOR YOUNG PLAYERS: The Youth Outreach Mini-grant program, an exciting program aimed at taking new youth players up to full board, tournament play within one year is now open for business. If you are working with players high school age or younger, this could be a resource for you. For information, email youth.grant@usgo.org or click the Youth Outreach Minigrants button on the AGA’s home page at http://www.usgo.org GOING UNDERGROUND: Madison go addict Eric Piotrowski has created a cartoon introduction to go featuring the cast of the underground comic, 11:59, reports Anton Ninno. Check it out at http://www.garrisonmedia.com/wwgo.html WORLD GO NEWS SOWETO GO: A tournament held recently in Dobsonville, Soweto (South Africa) drew 13 players, including seven children. See for yourself at http://www.aggressivehosting.net/~jewel/jleuner/photos/southafrica_august03/ HENNIE GROOT LIPMAN WINS CORNISH HANDICAP: Twelve players took part in the Cornish Handicap Tournament on Saturday, September 6th in Penzance. Winner of the Go Bowls trophy on 4.5/5 was Hennie Groot Lipman (2 dan Netherlands). Many players scored 3/5 to be second, of whom the prize winner was a junior player Jonathan Englefield (11 kyu High Wycombe). Twenty players took part in the Cornwall Tournament on Sunday. Winner of the Devon Go Stone for the first time was Simon Goss (2 dan) who beat fellow Bracknell player Ian Marsh (1 dan) in the final. Last year's winner was third, Alistair Wall (4 dan Wanstead). The player winning a wooden stone was Jake Finnis (16 kyu). - from BGA News SAMSUNG CUP UNDER WAY: The 8th Samsung Cup, being played in Korea, got underway last week with 32 players, including Rui Naiwei 9p and Jiang Zhujiu (Jujo) 9p. Rui lost her first round game to Wang Yuhui 7p of China. Jujo lasted until the second round, defeating Liu Jin 8p of China in the first round and then losing to Yamada Kimio 8p of Japan. The eight players in the best of three quarter finals to be played in October are Cho Hunhyun 9p (Korea), Cho Chikun 9p (Japan), Yi (Lee) Changho 9p (Korea), Xie He, 5p (China), Hu Yaoyu 7p (China), Yi Setol (Lee Sedol) 9p (Korea), Park Yeonghun 4p (Korea), and Yamada Kimio 8p (Japan). You can download the game records at http://www.kyoto.zaq.ne.jp/momoyama/news/5sm/5sm.html . YASHIRO TO CHALLENGE KOBAYASHI FOR FEMALE HONINBO: Yashiro Kumiko 5p played White and defeated Yoshida Mika 7p (now 8p see below) by 9.5 points on September 4th to win the right to challenge Kobayashi Izumi 5p for the 22nd Female Honinbo title in Japan. - reported by Dennis Hardman. KANSAI KIIN'S FIRST FEMALE 8 DAN: Yoshida Mika, one of Japan's most successful women go professionals, was recently promoted to 8 dan after advancing to the final round of the 2nd Kansai Lady's Igo Tournament on August 24. Yoshida, who is affiliated with Kansai Kiin, one of Japan's two premier professional go associations, held the Female Honinbo title for several years in a row and becomes one of only three women to reach the 8 dan level in Japan. - reported by Dennis Hardman. ZHOU TAKES ASIAN TV CUP TOURNAMENT: Playing white, Zhou Heyang 9p of China defeated Minuru Tomoyasu 9p of Japan by resignation in the final of the 15th Asian TV Cup tournament held in Seoul on September 7th. Zhou, who becomes only the second Chinese player to win this tournament, also won game 3 of the China Japan Cyberspace 5x5 Team Match held on August 25th. Minuru was a surprise finalist, having defeated last year's Asian TV Cup winner, Lee Changho, in this year's semi final round. Competitors in the Asian TV Cup are finalists from other television broadcast tournaments in China, Japan, and Korea. The Asian TV Cup uses a "fast game" format where each player is given 30 seconds per move with 10 minutes thinking time to be used in 1 minute units at the player's discretion. Game results can be found at http://www.gogameworld.com. - reported by Dennis Hardman OTHER ASIAN GO NEWS IN BRIEF compiled from www.kyoto.zaq.ne.jp/momoyama/news/news.html China: NEC, 1st round finished, Hu Yaoyu & Xie He winners. Korea: Dream League, Park Land team leads 2 0. Japan: Honinbo, Yoda Norimoto enters final challenger round. China: Mingren, Yu Bin and Qiu Jun advance in semi final round. The Asian go tournament scene can be viewed at the above address. - reported by Dennis Hardman GAME COMMENTARY: Battle of the Tengens Today’s game commentary is Round 1 from the Chinese Tengen vs Korean Tengen special match. Black is Gu Li, 7D from China, who is currently ranked the #1 Chinese pro. White is Song Taekon, 5D from Korea. The commentary is by Alexandre Dinerchtein 1p and is used by permission, from his subscription service for commented games at http://www.go4go.com The solutions for this month’s tsume-go problems (see attached) from Yilun Yang will be published next week. Happy solving meanwhile! BONUS FILE: We’re very pleased to offer our readers a special bonus this week, a kyu v. kyu game featuring E-Journal columnist Joel Turnipseed and thoroughly commented by his teacher Jim Kerwin, 1P. To view the attached file(s), simply save the file to your computer and then open it 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 YOUR MOVE: Readers Write NAVY SITE EXPOSES MONITOR HOAX: “Sorry, Milt et al, I believe you have been spoofed,” writes Roy Laird in response to recent E-Journal reports of go being played by sailors on the USS Monitor in 1862. “Anton Ninno found the best quality original I've been able to track down, at the Navy's own web site. Click on http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/monitor.htm and you can download a 113K image. It's the fifth image from the bottom of the page. Blow it up and look closely, and you will see that they are indeed playing checkers. All the pieces are dark, and the sailor is pushing a pip forward with his middle finger, not holding a go stone.” 7/31-8/7=2004: “I've heard that the next US Go Congress will be in Rochester,” writes Pete. “Do you have any idea of the exact dates yet? I know it's early to be asking, but every summer I have a potential conflict between a big math meeting and the Go Congress. Sometimes they run consecutively and I go to both, other times I have to choose. In any event, the math meeting is in Providence from August 11 - 15 next summer. So I'm writing so that I can plan ahead accordingly.” Looks like we’ll be seeing Pete in Rochester: organizer Greg Lefler reports that the 2004 Go Congress will be held July 31st August 7th. MORE CONGRESS PHOTOS POSTED ONLINE: Speaking of the Congress, Eric Osman has published photos from the 2003 U.S. Go Congress at http://cgibin.rcn.com/ericosman/goCongress2003/index.html HARD TIMES ON THE GOBAN by Joel Turnipseed I was trying to explain go to a writer friend the other day -- insurmountably, it was over the phone -- but I didn't give up until I'd tried to explain tesuji, which I described as a clever sequence of moves, adding, "one that can easily be screwed up if played in the wrong order." She said, "Oh, you mean like putting together IKEA furniture? I totally get it." What was much easier to explain was my excitement over recent rapid improvements. I had gone from a 6k to 4k on KGS in just a couple weeks. I got so cocky I even played a 1d straight up on IGS (and barely lost). I was feelin' it. And then all of a sudden I wasn't winning. I had really been hammering on my openings, reading professional games and all the other individual things I was supposed to do. I got bummed out. I stopped playing for a couple days. The problem was that my higher rating didn't seem to be telling me much about my actual understanding of the game. Worse, I was trying to tie my study to my ranking. Real mastery apparently comes not only with a lot of loss and frustration, but must also grow organically. If you substitute "go game" for "novel," and swap various go concepts for the literary ones, you could do no better than be chided by Henry James, as he did one of his contemporaries who argued that the Art of Fiction could be taught to anyone. After all, who couldn't learn narrative (fuseki), dialogue (joseki), and incident (tesuji)? Henry James' reply is definitive: "A novel is a living thing, all one and continuous, like any other organism, and in proportion as it lives will it be found, I think, that in each of the parts there is something of each of the other parts." So, it's back to the goban and it's 361 intersections--each as filled with the possibility of failure as with profit. Somehow, in the seven hundred or so games I have left to play in my quest for shodan, I must trust that the tumblers of understanding will finally come together with a resounding click, unlocking an understanding that will resonate on the board as I play that perfect move. - Joel Turnipseed, 5k, is author of BAGHDAD EXPRESS. Check out his game with a 6k in the attached game commentary by James Kerwin 1P. GO CLASSIFIED WANTED: Moving to the Spokane, Washington area for college, and want to get in touch with go players, especially any with connections to Whitworth College Sean R; weyounsix@hotmail.com WANTED: Anecdotes about how a particular strategy, go problem or set of moves may have surfaced in your life away from the go board. Recently, when discussing a particular go strategy or problem with a friend in the middle of a difficult life problem, I was surprised how easily I could relate the go problem as an analysis or analog of my friend’s problem. Please email any anecdotes to ddinhofer@msn.com WANTED: Interested Go players from the Guam area to form Guam's first local go club for fun, teaching and tournaments. Please contact Ed at: edp96912@yahoo.com WANTED: Beginning players in Santa Clara, California. Tired of playing only on the computer, I'd like to meet up with an actual human sometime for evening/weekend games. Lenny: briandamage@att.net WANTED: Moving to Callao, Virginia soon and would like to get in touch with go players on the Northern Neck. Contact Bob at shinebob@verizon.net AVAILABLE: Lessons from an IGS 5d. 30k-1d welcome; visit http://www.angelfire.com/oh5/icarii First lesson free. WANTED: Players in Kodiak, Alaska. Contact Seth Minyard at Sethdid@hotmail.com or 907-486-5284 for more information about times, dates and locations. WANTED: Players in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Wayne Page, wdpage@pinn.net 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 September 13: Denver, CO Fall Classic Eric Wainwright 303 534 1515 ewainwright@crystalball.com September 13: Livermore, CA Vintage Go Event S.C. Herric 925 423 7458 herrick4@llnl.gov September 20: Durham, NC Third Annual Joe Shoenfield Memorial Marathon Go Tournament Paul Celmer pcelmer@earthlink.net September 20: Tacoma/Parkland, WA Tournament at Pacific Lutheran Univeristy Mike Malveaux 253 906 0095 tacomagofiend@yahoo.com http://www.hilltopgo.com/evrep/plufall2003/ September 21: Hoboken, NJ Hoboken Fall Tournament Larry Russ 201 216 5379 lruss@stevens tech.edu http://attila.stevens tech/edu/~lruss/hoboken_spring_tournament .htm September 28: Amherst, MA Western Mass Fall Go Tournament David Dawidowicz 413 546 0095 ddawidow@student.umass.edu http://www.cookwood.com/personal/go/wmgt/2003fall.html October 10 13: Roundtop, NY Guo Juan Workshop Jean Claude Chetrit zorglub@brooklyngoclub.org October 17 19: Germantown, MD James Kerwin Workshop Gordon Fraser 301 540 2640 gordon@wui.com 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