AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association

April 26, 2004

In This Edition:

U.S. GO NEWS Feng Yun In Hoboken Tonight; Grand Rapids Tourney Postponed; Yu Tops In Toronto; Nelson Victorious In Vermont; Wanna Host A Go Congress?; BGA Members Welcomed; Wilcox Releases Sector Fights; Goodell Redux
WORLD GO NEWS China And Korea To Battle It Out In Prestigious Ing Cup Semi-Finals; One Season Ends, Another Begins; Shiu Wins First Durham Go Tournament; Other World Go News In Brief
GAME COMMENTARY: Female Meijins, An Opening Problem And A Quiz
YOUR MOVE: Shuko's Dictionary
THE TRAVELING BOARD: Report from Shanghai
LESSONS FROM NEWBIES
GO CLASSIFIED
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
ATTACHED FILES: 2004.04.26.go4go.commentary.sgf; 2004.04.26 Ing championship Cha Vs Zhou.sgf; 2004.04.26.Kiseido Opening Problem.sgf; 2004.04.26 Nakayama NS-6.pdf

U.S. GO NEWS

FENG YUN IN HOBOKEN TONIGHT: Feng Yun, 9P will lecture tonight at the Hoboken Go Club. The lecture runs 7-11P at the Howe Center Building on the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Info: Larry Russ; 201-216-5379; lruss@stevens-tech.edu Directions: http://personal.stevens.edu/~lruss/Directions.htm

GRAND RAPIDS TOURNEY POSTPONED: The May 8 Grand Rapids Go Tournament is being rescheduled, reports David Hast of the Grand Rapids Go Club. "We overlooked a major event in downtown Grand Rapids that day which brings tens of thousands of people into the vicinity of our tournament site," says David. "Traffic, parking, etc. will be very difficult that day." The tournament will be moved back to either May 15 or 22; look for an announcement soon.

YU TOPS IN TORONTO: Zhiqi Yu, 7d won the Toronto Open, held April 17-18. His perfect 6-0 result earned him the top honors and the $350 first-place prize. "Advertising in the E-Journal resulted in 15 players from the USA making the trip to Toronto which greatly improved the competition," reports organizer Frank Monks. Fifty-six players participated, including 32 at the dan level.
Complete results: Championship (Open Section): 1st: Yu, Zhiqi, 7d (Canada); 2nd: Kim, Young, 6d (CA); 3rd: Sedgwick, James, 6d (Can); 4 Dan to 3 Dan: 1st: Wong, Vincent, 4d (Can); 2nd: Yan, Calvin, 4d (Can); 3rd: Guo, Jared, 3d (Can); 2 Dan to 1 Dan: 1st: Galfaso, Lucas, 1d (US); 2nd: Rosenblatt, Greg, 2d (US); 3rd: Weldon, Alex, 2d (Can); 1 Kyu to 9 Kyu: 1st: Frankel-Goldwater, 6k (US); 2nd: McDermott, Tom, 6k (Can); 3rd: Saiyan, Aleks, 2k (Can); 10 Kyu to 28 Kyu: 1st: Sun, Cody, 18k (Can); 2nd: Lipatov, Peter, 11k (Can); 3rd: Davis, Steven, 17k (US).

NELSON VICTORIOUS IN VERMONT: Wayne Nelson, 1k, won first place in last weekend's Vermont Spring Go Tournament, held April 25 in, Middlebury, VT. Ten players participated, reports TD Peter Schumer. Bill Arrand, 2k and Mark Hopkins, 2k, tied for 2nd place and 4th place was won by John Elder, 7k.

WANNA HOST A GO CONGRESS? Although many go players are already making plans for this year's annual US Go Congress in Rochester, NY HTTP://WWW.EMPTYSKY.ORG/TOURNAMENT.HTML
and a few are thinking about next year's in Tacoma, WA, new Congress Liaison Bob Barber is already looking ahead to 2006 and beyond. "It is our fervent hope to keep having Congresses for decades," says Bob. "Of course, this means that some group of folks must step forward and declare that they are interested." Anyone who'd like to discuss the possibility of hosting a future Congress can contact Bob at komoku@earthlink.net

BGA MEMBERS WELCOMED: We're very pleased to welcome a new group of E-Journal readers, members of the British Go Association. As a gesture of friendship and to enhance the interaction between the American Go Association and the European go community, we are now offering the full Members' Edition of the weekly AGA E-Journal to BGA members. We look forward to the comments and views of our friends in the UK, as well as expanded news from that vibrant go community. Similar discussions are underway with several other national go organizations and we'll keep you posted as they come online as well.

WILCOX RELEASES SECTOR FIGHTS: Bruce Wilcox's Go Dojo has just released its latest installment, this one on "Sector Fights." The 1,900 page Dojo installment is "primarily about strategy," Wilcox tells the E-Journal. "Sector Fights happen throughout the opening and midgame and their results are crucial." An interactive tutorial software program (Windows/WINE) Dojo targets 4 grades of students ranging from 20 kyu to top amateurs who "play along with original players in games with ‘Live action testing’ of your understanding in whole board game contexts. You follow move for move, guessing the right move for your level of understanding and seeing where the original players got it right or so very wrong." $35 (30 euros or 20 pounds sterling) via cash, check or http://www.paypal.com (sent to brucewilcox@bigfoot.com). Send cash or checks to 1169 Laurel Lane, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. http://webpages.charter.net/suewilcox/

GOODELL REDUX: Anyone wishing to make a donation in memory of longtime go promoter John Goodell (whose death was reported in last week's EJ) may do so to the American Go Foundation: http://www.usgo.org/agf/

WORLD GO NEWS

CHINA AND KOREA TO BATTLE IT OUT IN PRESTIGIOUS ING CUP SEMI-FINALS: After three rounds, it is down to the final four in the quadrennial Ing Cup played in Shanghai, China this past week. This 5th Edition of the Ing Cup began on April 20th with 16 invited players including the usual crop of great Asians and representatives from Europe (Alexander Dinerstein 1d) and North America (Ch'a Min-su 4d, aka Jimmy Cha). Both the European and American players were eliminated early along with Korean Yi Se-tol 9p (Lee Sedol), Japanese veterans O Rissei 9p and Cho U 9p, and the Chinese star Gu Li 7p. The second round, in which eight more players were seeded, saw other masters fall including Yamashita Keigo 9p and Otake Hideo 9p. Round three on April 24th saw further trimming, most notably the elimination of Korean great Yi (Lee) Ch'ang-ho 9p by none other than 19 year old Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 8p, the player who has stripped Yi of two major titles in the last year. The semi-final round will be played (according to http://www.go4go.net) in Guiyang City, Peng Quan's home town, later this summer, and will feature best-of-three matchups between China's Chang Hao 9p and Korean teen Song T'ae-kon 6p, and China's Peng Quan 5p and rising star Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 8p. The Ing Cup, originally started in 1988 by Taiwanese industrialist, Ing Chang-ki, is one of the richest tournaments in professional go with a first prize purse of $400,000. Game records and details on tournament matchups can be found at http://igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp For a first-hand view of the tournament, see AGA President Chris Kirschner's report below: THE TRAVELING BOARD, Report from Shanghai.

ONE SEASON ENDS, ANOTHER BEGINS: Although the 2003/2004 Toyota-Pandenet European Go Tour just finished in Paris, before players in Europe had a chance to catch their breath, the 2004/2005 season began. This year the first stop on the tour was the 16th Lado Omejc Memorial held on April 23rd-25th in tourist center, Bled, Slovenia. The Memorial was sponsored by the Go Association of Slovenia in cooperation with the Go Club Kranj. Tournament results were not available at presstime. The 2004/2005 Toyota-Pandenet European Go Tour has 11 more stops including Amsterdam and Hamburg in May, Bucharest and Belgrade in October, and finishing up with London (December), Velden, Austria (March 2005), and the final in Paris over Easter weekend. For more information about the Tour, go to http://www.european-go.org/toyotatour

SHIU WINS FIRST DURHAM GO TOURNAMENT: As quoted from http://www.britgo.org: "38 players attended the first Durham Go Tournament (April 17th and 18th), which was held to celebrate 10 years of Durham Go Club. Appropriately, the club's founder Simon Shiu (4 dan Bristol) was the winner, with 6/6. Second was Gang Xiong (2 dan Durham) with 4/6. Also on four wins were Alan Thornton (2 dan St Albans), Paul Taylor (1 dan Cambridge), Daniel Gilder (3 dan Manchester), William Brooks (1 kyu Cambridge), Claas Roever (3 kyu Dublin), Chris Morris (6 kyu Durham), Celia Marshall (11 kyu Isle of Man), Russell Haswell (15 kyu Newcastle) and James Liu (21 kyu Durham). The 13x13 tournament was won by Peter Nuttall (19 kyu Durham) with 4 wins, on a tie break from William Brooks. The lightning tournament was won by Matthew Holton (2 dan Teesside) with 3 wins. Durham Go Club also took the opportunity to publicly express their gratitude for a bequest of Go equipment and books they received earlier this year after the sad death of Brian Wilson, a keen local go player."

OTHER WORLD GO NEWS IN BRIEF
(compiled from various sources)
  - China: 17th Mingren - 12-year old 5d amateur, Wu Shuhao, qualified for preliminary tournament via the internet, defeated Zhou Bo 5p, Liu Jing 8p, and Wang Yao 5p, and is now in the 2nd round of the final knockout tournament (gobase.org).
  - Japan: 43rd Judan-sen (challenger's league) - Women's Honinbo Kobayashi Izumi 6p defeats Michael Redmond 9p in first round of the 3rd Preliminary tournament.
  - Scottland: 2004 Scottish Open - Scheduled for July 10th and 11th at the University of Edinburg.
  - International: 2nd Toyota and Denso Cup - World Go OZA - Players advance in the Japanese preliminary including Yuhki Satoshi 9p, Sakai Hideyuki 6p, and Awaji Shuzo 9p.
  - Korea: 23rd KBS Cup - Cho Hanseung 7p and Cho Hunhyun 9p join Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 8p as winners in the third round.
  - Korea: 4th Pro Senior - Kim Il-hwan 9p ties best-of-three with Jang Sooyoung 9p at 1:1.
  - Korea: 14th BC Card Cup (New Star) - An Cho-yeong 8p evens the score in the title match against 17 year old challenger Lee YeongKu 3p. Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 8p was eliminated in the first round by Yun Junsang 2p.


GAME COMMENTARY: Female Meijins, An Opening Problem And A Quiz
Today's game commentary is from the second game from the 16th Japanese Female Meijin title match, featuring Inori Yoko, 4p against Kobayashi Izumi, 5p. Kobayashi wins by resignation in just 96 moves and holds on to her title. This commentary comes from the http://www.go4go.net site, a subscription service for games commented by Alexandre Dinerchtein 1p.
Bonus file #1 this week is an opening problem from "Five Hundred and One Opening Problems, vol. 1 of Master the Basics," by Richard Bozulich, published by Kiseido (http://www.kiseidocom) and used by permission.
Can you guess the strengths of the players in this week's installment of What's Wrong With That Move? Are they professionals or amateurs, and, if amateurs, what rank?
        To view the attached .sgf file(s), simply save the file(s) 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

YOUR MOVE: Shuko's Dictionary
"In recent issues you have mentioned Fujisawa Shuko's Dictionary of Tesuji, but not where to find it," writes Michael Quintero. "I found it at Richard Bozulich's Kiseido store: http://kgs.kiseidocom/

THE TRAVELING BOARD: Report from Shanghai
By Chris Kirschner

KIRSCHNER, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN GO ASSOCIATION, WAS IN SHANGHAI APRIL 18-26 FOR THE FIRST ROUND OF THE ING CUP, AS A GUEST OF THE ING FOUNDATION.

The big news is that Jimmy Cha, the U.S. representative to this year's Ing Cup, lost his first-round game by 3 points to Zhou Hayang 9p of China, who also won his next game, defeating Otake Hideo 9p of Japan.. Cha's game was an exciting one in which he had a very good position after capturing a good-size invading group, but his opponent managed to handle a complex endgame a bit better and pulled it out (see attached game file: 2004.04.26 Ing championship Cha Vs Zhou)
Meanwhile, my own "peak" experience so far is the obligatory defeat by a 7-year-old. At the other end of the age spectrum, Go Seigen is in attendance, a striking sight. His age is certainly showing, but he seems to be having a lot of fun, particularly when you see him talking over opening positions with pros (see the AGA homepage for a photo of go: http://www.usgo.org/index.asp).
At the start of each round, there is a great milling of photographers in the playing room. The pros arrive, sit at their table and impassively allow pictures to be snapped by pro and amateur shutterbugs alike. When the second player arrives there is a minimal greeting, usually silent, though it is difficult to be sure amidst the cacophony of circling photographers.
Shortly, each player flips the stone container built in on each side of the game table and designed to ensure the presence of exactly 180 stones of each color. The person with the white stones takes out a handful, the other selects either one or two stones, to select color.
Play begins immediately, and differences of style are immediately apparent. Some games will have half a dozen stones on the board within a minute or two, others may still have only a single stone. The cameras continue to swirl about, a vortex forming at one high-interest game, then moving on to another, miraculously avoiding bumping players or game tables, but often each other.
After a few minutes, the signal is given, and all leave for the analysis room, where large TV sets line one side of the room, each displaying one game. In the middle is a row of tables lined up with the TV sets so it is easy to replicate each game on screen and experiment with variations.
One of the most enjoyable sights is watching pro analysis of a game in progress. A game is chosen, a board set up and vigorous analysis and debate begins. The seated players are usually dominant, but often a standee will reach in, grab stones and make a point. Long sequences are hypothesized, analyzed, accepted, or rejected and removed to investigate another possibility. Not withstanding the obvious language barrier, the pace of analysis is so rapid that I think any amateurs would be hard-pressed to keep up.
Interestingly, the actual players frequently come up with plays never considered by the professional analysts. This doesn't mean their moves are necessarily bad, it merely demonstrates the magnitude of difference between watching and actually playing. The tension and intense focus stimulates a much higher level of creativity in the competing players.
When such a play occurs, it induces an immediate outburst of frenetic analysis by the pros who suddenly realize they have entirely missed an important element in the game, which is often true even if the move turns out to be a mistake.
It is of course, a pure joy to watch this process, even with limited understanding. In fact, it is such a good natured, joyful process that feeds off the pleasure of continual discovery that one could easily imagine non-players becoming entranced just seeing the interactions between the analysts.

LESSONS FROM NEWBIES
by Adam Marquis

To hear of an influx of young go players far away in Japan is one thing, but to experience it is another thing altogether. I used to worry whether Hikaru no Go's popularity would prove a boon or a curse for the go community. Logging into KGS to find people with names like "Hikaru8392" spamming the main room with "NE1 TEACH ME NOW?" gave me serious doubts about a youthful crowd coming in. Recent experience, however, has dispelled these doubts entirely.
At a "Learn to Play Go!" panel in a cavernous workshop room at Anime Boston 2004 on April 10, co-presenter David Dawidowitz and I worried we'd gotten too large a space for the small number we expected to show up. We targeted those who had heard about the game but not yet played and they trickled in at first, filling the front rows of the room. At half capacity I began to worry, at nearly full I had to send for more chairs. In the end the workshop was packed, standing room only. When I asked how many had played a game of go before, several hands raised, but when I asked how many had seen Hikaru no Go; the room became an uncountable sea of hands.
I'd expected a small number of people with a passing interest in the game, and I initially thought I'd merely gotten a larger turnout of that crowd. But the intent faces in the audience, the salient, thoughtful questions, and even some who were taking notes or videotaping all convinced me that what I was looking at was really a treasure trove: dozens and dozens of people eager to learn and play go. So heartened were we by the response that David and I offered to return for teaching games the next evening and following morning. There, the enthusiasm of new players would continue to surprise me.
The way these new players dealt with their mistakes shamed this "experience" player. Errors were met, not with embarrassment or anger, but with the joy of adding a new trick to one's repertoire. They learned from the mistake and played elsewhere, continuing the game calmly. Players set against one other were respectful of their opponents, from youngest to eldest. I realized that many of these people were already go players in manner; apparently Hikaru no Go communicates the culture of the game quite well.
(Marquis is a 4-kyu who plays at the Western Massachusetts Go Club. )

GO CLASSIFIED: BOOKS, EQUIPMENT, ETC

WANTED: Copies of Go Monthly Review. 1960 1-12; 1961 1-4; 1965 1; 1968 1, 4, 5, 8, 12; 1969 1; 1971 1. Willing to pay a reasonable price. Contact T Mark Hall at tmark@gogod.demon.co.uk or at the US Congress at Rochester. (4/19)

AVAILABLE: Elegant kaya table gobans(thickness varies from 33mm to 69mm) and exquisite 7 inch japanese kaya goban with legs. Also I have kaya bowls. jade stones, marble stones, agate stones and double convex yunzi - best stone in China. More items will be added on regular basis. I teamed up with www.go4go.net and apermanent webpage has been set up at http://equipment.go4go.net Please contact Rui Wang at ruiwang@isi.edu if you have any questions. (4/9)

WANTED: Go Reviews, older complete years, 60's & 70's. Send info on condition and price to flynp1@comcast.net (3/29)


GO CLASSIFIED: GO PLAYERS WANTED

AUGUSTA, GA: Wesley Stewart, ICANSEEYOU7687@comcast.net Looking for go players of any strength; if I can find enough, I would gladly start a chapter.

NEW JERSEY SHORE: Contact Iangershman@hotmail.com (3/29)

HARRISON NY: Mauricio Aguirre; maguirrel@hotmail.com (3/29)

STATE COLLEGE/CENTRE COUNTY, PA: (Penn State University, UP Campus). A small unofficial club has started with only five or so members, looking for more people to expand the club. Contact djs443@psu.edu for more information. (3/29)

Got go stuff to sell, swap or want to buy? Do it here and reach nearly 7,000 Go players worldwide every week at Go Classified! Listing are free and run 4 weeks; send to us at journal@usgo.org


GO CLASSIFIED: GO TEACHERS

6D TEACHES ONLINE: Cornel Burzo, 6d, online go tutoring on the IGS. More info at http://www.golessons.com (4/26)


CALENDAR OF EVENTS

May 2: Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424 jon@seattlegocenter.org
http://www.seattlegocenter.org/

May 2: Southern California Go Club Monthly Ratings Tournament
Joe Cepiel 310-823-4760
Chris Hayashida chris.hayashida@earthlink.net

May 8 & 9: Rochester, NY
Empty Sky Spring Tournament 2004
Gregory L. Lefler 585-424-2269 glacticjoke@hotmail.com

May 15: Arlington, VA
May Madness
Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@worldnet.att.net

May 29: Piscataway, NJ
2nd Annual Feng Yun Youth Tournament
(Open to players under 18)
Feng Yun 973-618-1821 Golesson@yahoo.com
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/fengyun/FY_Go_Center/FYGT2004.htm

May 29 & 30: Baltimore, MD
31st Maryland Open
Keith Arnold 410-788-3520 hlime81@comcast.net

June 3-6: Round Top, NY
Guo Juan Workshop at The Woodlands
Jean-Claude Chetrit 718-638-2266 zorglub@brooklyngoclub.org
http://brooklyngoclub.org/cgi-bin/disp_topic.iphtml?topic_id=188

June 24-27: Hackensack, NJ
2004 New Jersey Yang 7p Go Workshop
John Stephenson 201-612-0852 jcs@wingsgoclub.org
http://www.wingsgoclub.org/Yangworkshop.asp

June, July, August: KGS or Yahoo
2004 3rd RSC Team Youth Go Cup
Christopher Vu wasonlyyesterday@yahoo.com
www.geocities.com/seaottergoclub/RSC.html
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 31

This is a digest of events for the next month only; for a complete
listing see the Tournament Calendar on the AGA website:
http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.asp

For the European Go Calendar see
http://www.european-go.org/TOURNAMENTS/TListbyDate.htm

GET LISTED & BOOST TURN OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach over 6,000 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 the AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL may be reproduced by any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source. PLEASE NOTE that commented game record files MAY NOT BE published, re-distributed, or made available on the web without the explicit written permission of the Editor of the E-Journal. Please direct inquiries to journal@usgo.org

Articles appearing in the E-Journal represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the American Go Association.

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:
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