AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association November 3, 2003 In This Edition: U.S. GO NEWS: Membership, Readership Up Again; Ratings Updated; Yuan Zhou at GWGC; Board Members to Face Recall Vote; Garlock Tops Empty Sky; Photo Of The Week WORLD GO: Late Breaking News; O Meien Holds in Oza, Yamashita Upsets in Tengen: Honinbo Title Holders Link Stones; Koreans Eliminate Opponents in 8th LG Cup; Kobayashi Makes It 2:1 in Women's Honinbo; Other Asian Go News in Brief GAME COMMENTARY: Different Takes HARD TIMES ON THE GOBAN GO REVIEW: Counting Liberties and Winning Capturing Races GO CLASSIFIED CALENDAR OF EVENTS U.S. GO NEWS MEMBERSHIP, READERSHIP UP AGAIN: Membership in the American Go Association hit yet another new high last month, increasing to 1,897. This was the 17th consecutive monthly membership increase and positioned the AGA to breach the 2,000 mark for the first time ever in November. The membership increases continue to track the steady growth in E-Journal circulation, as well, which is now fast approaching 6,000 weekly readers. RATINGS UPDATED: Updated ratings for tournaments reported through the end of October are now posted at http://www.usgo.org/ratings.asp. The following events were included in this update: Florida Open Championship, Orlando, FL, July 2003; Chicago Fall Handicap Tournament, IL, September 2003; Joe Schoenfield Memorial Marathon, Durham, NC, September 2003; Massachusetts Go Association Fall Handicap Tournament, MA, October 2003; Dote Memorial, San Francisco, CA, October 2003; Feng Yun Team & Self Paired Tournaments, Piscataway, NJ, October 2003; Pumpkin Classic, Arlington, VA, October 2003; UPS Fall Tournament, Tacoma, WA, October 2003. If you played in a tournament that you think should have been included but is not in this list, please contact the tournament organizers and ask them to send us their data. Tournament data for rating should be submitted by e mail to ratings@usgo.org. The next scheduled ratings update will be December 1. - reported by Paul Matthews, Ratings Statistician YUAN ZHOU AT GWGC: Yuan Zhou 7d continues his regular first Friday teaching sessions at the Greater Washington Go Club this coming Friday, Nov. 7 at 8:30P in the basement of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Church, 9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda. Bring game records to participate ($5), or observe for free. Don't have a game? Come early (official opening time 7P) to play and record a game. - Haskell Small; haskellsmall@starpower.net BOARD MEMBERS TO FACE RECALL VOTE: The four AGA Executive Board members who recently voted to oust AGA President Chris Kirschner now face a vote on their own futures. Last Wednesday, AGA Secretary Susan Weir informed Acting Board Chair Bob O'Malley and President Dee Dee Eckles that the required number of AGA chapters had submitted petitions calling for a recall of Board members O'Malley, Chen-dao Lin, John Stephenson and David Dinhofer. AGA Database Manager Sam Zimmerman, who has supervised past AGA elections, has been asked to oversee this one as well, and is expected to announce a voting plan and timetable soon. In related news, Weir also reported that 32 chapter representatives have now signed onto the open letter urging the Board to reconsider the October 16 decision to replace Kirschner. GARLOCK TOPS EMPTY SKY: Former Rochesterian Chris Garlock 2d won last weekend's Empty Sky Go Club Ing Tournament in Rochester, New York. Thirty-four players competed in the 5-round event November 1-2, which was organized by ESGC President Greg Lefler and directed by Chuck Robbins (who, despite driving all the way up from Lancaster, PA, generously byed himself out two rounds to keep the field even). "We'd like to thank the Ing Foundation for its support," said Lefler. "Using the Ing grant for prizes allows us to use the registration fees for discounts for students, morning refreshments, etc. We really appreciate it...thanks!" Complete results: SECTION A (1d-3d) - 1st: Chris Garlock, 2d, $90; 2nd: Chuck Robbins, 3d, $80; 3rd: Jia Yu, 2d, $70. SECTION B (1k-4k) - 1st: Nathan Curtis, 4k, $65; 2nd: Saul Lapidus, 1k, $55; 3rd: Jim Fienup, 3k, $45. SECTION C (7k-10k) - 1st: Yuan Yuan Wang, 9k, $65; 2nd: Ed Brannin, 7k, $55; 3rd: William Baretsky, 8k, $45. SECTION D (12k-15k) - 1st: Scott Agnew, 12k, $65; 2nd: Ben Spillers, 12k, $55; 3rd: Carrie Gustavson, 13k, $45. SECTION E (16k-26k) - 1st: Becky Mulligan, 18k, $65; 2nd: Stephen Ranger, 20k, $55; 3rd: Steve Person, 18k, $45 PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Be the first to name the players in the Go Photo of the Week on the AGA's homepage at http://www.usgo.org/ and win a prize! Email us at journal@usgo.org WORLD GO LATE BREAKING NEWS: In game 1 of the finals of the 9th Korean Women's Kuksu, Cho Hyeyeon 4p defeated Rui Naiwei 9p by a half point, taking a 1 to 0 lead in the best-of-3 series. You can download the game record at http://www.kyoto.zaq.ne.jp/momoyama/news/kr/fk/fk.html . O MEIEN HOLDS IN OZA, YAMASHITA UPSETS IN TENGEN: The first games of the best of five Oza and Tengen title matches were played on October 30th with the title holder winning one and the challenger winning the other. In the 51st Oza, title holder O Meien 9p played Black and defeated challenger Cho U 9p by resignation. In the 29th Tengen, current title holder Hane Naoki 9p, playing White, lost to challenger Yamashita Keigo 9p by 1.5 points. Yamashita's win comes on the heals of his 4:1 loss to Yoda Norimoto 9p in the most recent Meijin title match. Cho U, on the other hand, could be a bit distracted by his recent engagement to Women's Honinbo title holder Kobayashi Izumi (see story below). Game records can be found at http://www.go4go.net. - reported by Dennis Hardman HONINBO TITLE HOLDERS LINK STONES: Men's Honinbo title holder Cho U 9p and Women's Honinbo title holder Kobayashi Izumi 5p have announced that they will be engaged to be married on November 9th and will marry in the spring of 2004. Cho, born in 1980 in Taipei, China, defeated Kato Masao 9p in July of this year to become the current Honinbo and also became the youngest 9 dan pro. Kobayashi, born in 1977 in Tokyo, Japan, is the eldest daughter of Kobayashi Koichi 9p and the late Kobayashi Reiko 7p. Her grandfather was the legendary Kitani Minoru 9p. - reported by Dennis Hardman KOREANS ELIMINATE OPPONENTS IN 8TH LG CUP: On October 28th, in Shanghai, Koreans Mok Chin seok 7p, Cho Han seung 6p, Yi (Lee) Ch'ang ho 9p, and Won Seong chin 5p overpowered their opponents to take all four semi final spots in the 8th Annual LG Cup World Baduk Championship. In this quarter final round, both Wang Lei 8p and Chang Hao 9p of China were defeated by their younger Korean opponents, Mok and Won respectively. This will be the fourth year in a row that a Korean player has won this championship. All European, Japanese, and North American players were eliminated in the first round in June. The semi finals will take place on February 9th in Cheju Do, Korea and will pit Ch'ang ho against Seong chin and Han seung against Chin seok. - reported by Dennis Hardman KOBAYASHI MAKES IT 2:1 IN WOMEN'S HONINBO: The third game of the 22nd Women's Honinbo was played on October 29th in Tokyo, with Kobayashi Izumi 5p (playing White) winning against Yashiro Kumiko 5p by 7.5 points. Kobayashi now leads the best of five title match 2:1. The next game will be held on November 5th, again in Tokyo, and can be viewed live at HTTP://www.nihonkiin.or.jp. - reported by Dennis Hardman OTHER ASIAN GO NEWS IN BRIEF (compiled from HTTP://www.kyoto.zaq.ne.jp/momoyama/news/news.html) - China: 9th NEC Cup 2nd round complete, best 4 decided for semi finals. - Japan: Meijin Yamada enters into Meijin league. - Japan: Honinbo 1st round completed. - Korea: Women's Myeongin: Cho Hyeyeon challenges Rui Naiwei again. - China: HaoMao Cup Team standings; 1 Chongqing, 2 Shanghai 3 Shangdong 4 Beijing (Daixing). reported by Dennis Hardman GAME COMMENTARY: Different Takes Even the pros disagree. In today's commented game several Chinese professionals analyze the October 28 LG Cup Quarter Final between Chang Hao, 9P and Won SeongJin, 5P and find plenty to argue about. Won defeated Michael Redmond 9p to make the quarter finals, and he defeats Chang Hao 9p in this game to go on to the semi-finals, where he will face Yi (Lee) Changho 9p of Korea. Today's commentary is taken with permission from http://www.gogameworld.com, a subscription service that supplies commented pro games. Today's bonus file is a problem is selected from Volume III of "Learn to Play Go" by Janice Kim, published by Good Move Press and available from http://www.samarkand.net 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 HARD TIMES ON THE GOBAN By Joel Turnipseed At an early lesson, I asked James Kerwin 1P whether he preferred that I call him "Mr. Kerwin," "Jim" or the traditional "Sensei." He turned the question around, "What would you like to call me?" A part of me deeply wanted to call him "Sensei," but only if compelled to, since the rest of me found the idea risible. I am a child of DIY, early 80s Minneapolis punk, and hey, in the Marine Corps I had been a corporal three times and a lance corporal four. So I call him "Jim." Which isn't to say that I don't blush when he rails at me, or that I didn't feel deep pride when he finally moved me down from nine stones to eight. His authority is a given, a part of the deep eros between master and disciple that is ineradicable by even the deepest of ironies-such as that between Socrates and his interlocutors in the Platonic dialogues. Or in Toshiro Kageyama, one of the writers I spend plenty of time with in the form of his "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go." I love this pithy charmer from one of his teachers: "I know Kajiwara lost, but the way you play is so asinine that it makes your opponents light-headed, that's all." We crave resistance. Ultimately, this is the basis of our great desire for human teachers, as against all the possibilities in books. Books can give you an idea -- even a very good one -- but they cannot show up your misapprehensions or provide you with the ability to react to resistance to that idea. The ancient Greeks distrusted the written word for this very idea: it's fixity meant it was unable to pay attention to the moment at hand. Kerwin and I once talked along these lines after a lesson, and his words apply to much more than go: "Any move that isn't perfect is a mistake. Go is the pursuit of perfection. If you think of variance from perfection, 30 kyu is very wide. as you get better, the gap gets smaller. A top level player is concerned with these variances - mistakes -- in a way that may not be perceptible. If you listen to their criticism, it's very harsh and seems a bit curious. But it is only by investing in that difference that you get to their level. In this way, a go player's struggle is with himself, his habits. Habit is by nature an imperfect action -- it must be to function in complex world -- perfect is being fully attuned to what is actually going on." How lucky I count myself then, to have a teacher who does not fall into his habits with me, but instead pays attention to my own incomprehensions, struggles and wrong headedness, drawing me toward previously invisible nuances and new lines of thinking. How I honor my teacher is shown, not in the names I call him, but in the manner in which I strive to alter my play and my self. GO REVIEW: Counting Liberties and Winning Capturing Races By Richard Hunter Published by Slate & Shell reviewed by Dennis Hardman This book deals with the rather narrow (but valuable) techniques of winning localized life-and-death fights occurring between groups of stones where it is a race to see which group lives and which group dies. The book describes the basics of what actually counts as a liberty, categories of liberties (e.g., inside vs. outside), how these liberties figure in the fight, and the types of fights that can occur (Type 1, Type 2 with a Ko on the outside liberties, etc.). It provides the reader with "formulas" for evaluating a fight without having to explicitly read out every line of play. The trick is to correctly count the number and type of liberties to determine the type of fight so that one can ultimately apply the "formula". Later chapters show how the techniques are used in realistic fighting situations, and provide about 50 problems and several commented professional games to drive the concepts home. Well written and nicely laid out, I would recommend this book to players of all strengths, particularly those with a mid-kyu ranking. However, this book should be valuable to even the strongest player because, as the preface points out, "Many players, even quite strong ones, have a poor grasp of these fundamentals." http://www.slateandshell.com/ GO CLASSIFIED FOR SALE: 10mm agate stones and marble bowls. Both are Chinese, but the stones are rounded on both sides unlike the typical Chinese stones that are flat on one side. Used twice. James Johnston Boise, ID; Alkora_Tokyo@hotmail.com (10/27) FOR SALE: 7mm glass stones & half-inch folding board, both Japanese. $45, plus shp. Will sell separately. Anton Ninno, Syracuse, NY: antonninno@yahoo.com (10/20) WANTED: Hackensack, NJ area go players of moderate to high strength willing to do a demonstration some time later in the school year. milkyway_locomotive@yahoo.com (10/20/) WANTED: Look for go/weiqi/baduk players in the Schaumburg IL area who can teach a beginner (like me) or maybe hold regular sessions in Barnes and Noble, Schaumburg Library or Caribou coffee. I'll help in forming a club in the area. Email asian_dude@yahoo.com (10/13) WANTED: Professional go player and American Go Journal contributing editor James Kerwin is now accepting game records for a new E-Journal feature. Kerwin will review selected games online with both players and the game, with commentary, will then appear in the E-Journal. There is no cost to players, but at least one must be a member of the American Go Association. Please send .sgf game records to E-Journal Assistant Bill Cobb at wmscobb@comcast.net (10/6) 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 November 8: Davis, CA Davis/Sacramento Quarterly Tournament Fred Hopkins 916 965 0478 November 9: Lancaster, PA Hobgoblin's Self-Paired Go tournament Sam Zimmerman szimmerman@wareunl.com November 15 & 16: College Park, MD 15th Mid Atlantic Regional Go Championship Ken Koester 412 267 0487 kkoester@riva.net http://www.wam.umd.edu/~smount/MidAtlantic.html November 15 & 16: Houston, TX 2003 Houston Go Club Fall Tournament Mike Peng 281 228 4233 pmpeng@swbell.net November 22: Princeton, NJ Princeton Fall Self Paired Rick Mott 609 466 1602 rickmott@alumni.princeton.edu January 17 19, 2004: Evanston, IL James Kerwin Workshop Mark Rubenstein 847 869 6020 mark@easyaspi.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