AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association

June 28, 2004

In This Edition:

U.S. GO NEWS: 400 To Attend Go Congress?; Huang Tops In Rocky Mountain Tourney; Another Dimension Of Go; Meeting Up For Go; Journal Seeks Reviewers
WORLD GO NEWS: Cho-Yoda Battle Backstory; Cho Chikun Wins One; Qiu Jun A Rising Star; School Go Challenge A Success In UK
YOUR MOVE: Readers Write
GAME COMMENTARY: Nie Still Sharp
THE EMPTY BOARD: The Full Board
GO REVIEW: Online Lessons
GO CLASSIFIED
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
ATTACHED FILES: 2004.06.28.Nie-Chang.go4go.sgf; 2004.06.28.Furuyama Lesson #16.pdf


U.S. GO NEWS

400 TO ATTEND GO CONGRESS? With an astonishing 363 registrants already (including 151 first-timers), the 2004 U.S. Go Congress continues on pace for the biggest ever. Set for July 31-August 8 in Rochester, New York, the Congress features major tournament play, lectures and simuls with visiting professionals, plenty of casual play and much more. Organizers are especially proud that there are no dorm-style accommodations this year, as the event is being held at a hotel on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology and all rooms have a private bath. Attendees can share with up to three others and pay as little as $180 for the eight days (plus other applicable fees). There are three trips planned for Wednesday, the traditional “Day Off” (though for the hard-core there’s the Die Hard tournament too): trips to Niagara Falls, Letchworth State Park the Corning Glass Museum and the Rockwell Museum of Western Art. More info or register at http://www.usgo.org/congress/index.asp

HUANG TOPS IN ROCKY MOUNTAIN TOURNEY: Undefeated Guoming (Alan) Huang won the June 19 Rocky Mountain Summer Tournament, reports organizer Ulo Tamm. “Thirty-eight players fought for trophies and other prizes in the four sections” of the Denver, Colorado event. “Notable was that our youngest player, Amara Sailing, 9 years old, won her first tournament game.” The event was directed by Stu Horowitz.
      Winners: Open section: 1st: Alan Huang; 2nd: Zipei Feng; Section A (2d-8k): 1st: Rim Chung; 2nd: Stu Horowitz; Section B (9k-21k): 1st: Jasmine Sailing; 2nd Dennis Hardman; Section C (22k-35k): 1st Josh Messenger; 2nd: Griffin Sailing.

ANOTHER DIMENSION OF GO: “Imagine if the Game of Go were let free of its’ two dimensional confinement.” For go players bored with billions of possibilities on the plain old 19x19 board, Freed Go lets you play go on a Sphere, a Torus, a Mobius Strip and more. Part of Lewey Geselowitz’ collection of standard 2D games expanded into the 3rd dimension and beyond, Freed Go is a complete go application with all the rules and features you need to play a real game. Check it out at http://www.usgo.org/resources/internet.asp#Go_in_print under “Variations and Unusual Rule Sets” or at http://plaza.ufl.edu/lewey/lc/freedgo.html

MEETING UP FOR GO: With 40 sign-ups, Bangkok, Thailand leads 100 cities worldwide as sites of Go MeetUps, which use the popular Internet service to arrange Meetups with other local go players to play, teach or talk strategy. New York City is second with 32 and many of the remaining cities are in the U.S. The next Go MeetUp is Saturday, July 10 at 2P; we’d be interested in hearing reports from previous Go MeetUp attendees on what your experiences have been like. Check for a Go MeetUp near you at http://go.meetup.com/

JOURNAL SEEKS REVIEWERS: The E-Journal is looking for reviews of the following books: Hikaru no Go, Volume 1 of the Shonen Jump graphic novel, published by VIZ, LLC; Essential Joseki, by Naiwei Rui, published by Yutopian Enterprises; How to Play Handicap Go, by Yuan Zhou, published by Slate & Shell. Reviews must be 200 words or less. If accepted, reviewers receive a $25 go vendor gift certificate. Reviews of other go books and products will also be considered, but the books above receive top priority. Send to us at journal@usgo.org


WORLD GO NEWS

CHO-YODA BATTLE BACKSTORY: We reported last week that Cho U won for the fourth game in the 59th Honinbo title match to take a 3-1 lead over challenger Yoda Norimoto. Now we’ve got more details on that game from John Power, as reported on the Nihon Kiin home page. The fourth game occurred in the town of Koya which is a center of the Buddhist Shingon sect. The party on the evening beforehand started with an impressive performance of chanting by Buddhist monks, and the game was played in the Sojiin, a temple where the final rounds of the 3rd Honinbo match were held in 1945. This was the Honinbo during which the famous atomic bomb game occurred in Hiroshima. The players were Iwamoto Kaoru and Hashimoto Utaro. Both Yoda and Cho have been traveling a lot, and Cho in particular seemed to be affected, having just lost five games in a row. However, Cho recovered his form in this fourth game of the match, negotiating his way through some very challenging middlegame fighting. Yoda played well, making some surprising tenuki for the sake of rapid development, but he miscalculated at one point in the late middle game. He made a couple of moves in the center that were intended to threaten one of Cho's groups, but Cho ignored them and later was able to settle the group skillfully when Yoda attacked it. That was the decisive element in the game. Since then, Yoda has won the fifth game in the match, making the score 3-2 in Cho's favor. The next game will be on July 8th and 9th. You can download the game records at http://www.go4go.net/english/bytournament2.jsp?id=50

CHO CHIKUN WINS ONE: Cho Chikun 9p, who has been on something of a losing streak lately, won his quarter finals game against So Yohkoku 7p in the challenger's tournament for the 30th Tengen in Japan. Played on June 24th, Cho won by 7.5 points playing Black. On the same day, Yamashita Keigo 9p won a second round game against Komatsu Hideki 9p, who had defeated Michael Redmond 9p in the first round.

QIU JUN A RISING STAR: The 7th New Star Match, which is a face-off between the Chinese and Korean New Star champions, was won by Qiu Jun 6p of China over An Choyeong 8p of Korea, 2-0 on June 25th and 26th. Qiu Jun, winner of the 2004 Chinese New Stars tournament, is in his early twenties. He won the Chinese national championship at the age of 16, setting a record as the youngest ever. He is the current holder of the Mingren title in China and is the youngest ever for that as well. He defeated Zhou Heyang 9p to take that title. An Choyeong is a couple of years older. He was the 1st SK New Pro Stars Best 10 champion in 1997 and, of course, won the Korean New Pro King tournament in 2004. You can download the game records at http://www.go4go.net/english/bytournament2.jsp?id=52

SCHOOL GO CHALLENGE A SUCCESS IN UK: The UK Go Challenge 2004 has been entered by twenty-two schools that have played qualifying rounds. So far the largest participation was at Loughborough with eighty players. Altogether it appears that four hundred children have taken part. The national finals will be held in the Renold Building at UMIST in Manchester the weekend of July 11th and 12th, and it has already been decided to repeat the Challenge in 2005.
- reported by BGA E-News

YOUR MOVE: Readers Write

HUTCHINSON SCIENTIFICALLY ABSURD: “I can't believe you actually gave recognition to Craig Hutchinson's fantasy about the origin of go (NEW ORIGINS OF GO PROPOSED, 6/21/04),” writes Roland Crowl. “Drawing attention to a scientifically absurd cult contention does a disservice to the Journal and the AGA.”


GAME COMMENTARY: Nie Still Sharp

Today’s game commentary is from last month’s first-round game from the 17th Chinese Mingren, in which 51-year-old Nie Weiping 9p defeats Chang Hao 9p, who is in his late twenties. Nie went on to defeat two more top young players (Shao Weigang 9p and Liu Shizhen 6p) and win a spot in the finals of the challenger's match. He will face Gu Li 7p who is also in his twenties and currently number 1 in China. Nie was the top Chinese player in the 1980s and early 1990s, but poor health and an active social life have made it difficult for him to stay at the top. The comments are by Alexandre Dinerchtein 1p and are taken by permission from his web site at http://www.go4go.net, which is a subscription service for commented pro and amateur games, as well as a free source of much information about current happenings in the world of go.
Also included this week is the latest lesson from Kaz Furuyama, who this week turns his usual keen eye on the one-space jump, the knight’s move and the solid extension.
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

THE EMPTY BOARD: The Full Board
By William Cobb
If a game starts with the board empty, does that mean the board is full when the game is over? And if so, with what?
When a thing is empty, there is something missing that it can be filled with. If a glass is empty, for example, you can pour in a liquid until it is full. If a room is empty, it can be filled by moving in people or furniture. But what is missing from the board at the start of a go game?
You might think that what is missing at the start of a game is stones, and on one level that is true. However, we don’t fill up the board with stones, so that must not be it. (If you’re counting Ing-style, you do fill the board with stones, but that’s after the game has been finished; it’s not part of the game.) So, filling the go board is about something other than simply placing stones on the board.
What is missing at the start of a game is not stones. The board is empty when neither player controls any of the intersections. Eliminating that condition is what the game is about, and placing stones on the board is simply the means of accomplishing that end.
The process of the game is a negotiation to determine who will control which intersections. When every intersection is definitely controlled—that’s when the board is full and the game is over, regardless of how many stones are on it. Go is not a game of stones, it’s a game of control.
The Empty Board #39; Past columns are archived at http://www.slateandshell.com/billcobb.asp

GO REVIEW: Online Lessons
Reviewed by Gordon Fraser
      Taking lessons from a professional or stronger player is a good way to get better understanding and appreciation of go, to get insight into your own game, and to see ways you can improve. But time and location issues can make lessons problematic for many of us. Fortunately, there are a number of go players, both professional and strong amateurs, who offer go lessons on the Internet.
I take lessons with Yilun Yang, 7 dan on KGS (http://www.kiseidocom); I find KGS to be a good place to take lessons because it has a number of features that facilitate both delivery of the lesson and the saving of the contents of the lesson for later review. The format of a lesson is student- and teacher-specific. My lessons are two hours long with each hour split between playing the beginning of a game and discussion of the game. KGS facilitates this format because Mr. Yang is able to replay the game for the discussion. Our dialog, comments, and the variations all become part of the game record that can be saved using the Options>Save feature of the KGS client. I can then replay the lesson complete with comments and variations for later study and review.
For those interested in taking lessons on-line, the AGA provides a partial list of professionals who give lessons at http://www.usgo.org/usa/pros.asp, some of whom are on the Internet. This list does not list all of the pros, nor is this list complete, but it’s a good place to start.


GO CLASSIFIED

BOOKS, EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE, ETC:

WANTED: A version of "How To Play Go" specifically designed for American fans of Hikaru No Go manga and anime. We're doing a fan con in August and need a tailored and canned prezo to fill half of a one-hour slot. (6/22) dbogie@idahopower.com

WANTED : Looking for a copy of "The Breakthrough to Shodan", by Naoki
Miyamoto. Please contact Maurice at maurice033@hotmail.com (6/7)

AVAILABLE: Fridgego limited-edition 9x9 magnetic go set for fridge/filing cabinet. $18 + shipping; available late 2004/early 2005, but reserve sets by email now; first come, first served: Peter Wendes; pwendes@hotmail.com You can check out Fridgeplay's range of games & artwork at http://www.fridgeplay.com (5/31)

WANTED: Modern Joseki and Fuseki Vols 1 and 2. CT Campbell; ccamp81318@aol.com (5/31)

TEACHERS & STUDENTS:

AVAILABLE: Lessons online with Cornel Burzo, 7d AGA, 6d EGF and IGS 6d*, for details http://www.golessons.com (6/21)

WANTED: Go teacher. Prefer in person in NYC area, will consider online. Currently 9 kyu on KGS. Please contact rberger6@nyc.rr.com with rates and experience. (6/7)

WANTED: Go teacher in the Hagerstown, MD area (midway between Baltimore MD and Chambersburg PA). E-mail gryxzl@msn.com (5/31)

WANTED: Anyone in the Bridgeport, Connecticut area interested in getting involved in a program to teach go to children. Please contact Jonathan Glass at jglass@georgicacapital.com for more information. (5/17)


GO PLAYERS WANTED:
FL: Jacksonville; Gohan6412000@yahoo.com (6/14)
FL: Jacksonville; regular, live game sessions. Contact BjornTFoss@comcast.net (5/31)
GA: Augusta; for playing and possible chapter; email Wesley Stewart at ICANSEEYOU7687@comcast.net (5/31)
IL: Downers Grove; 23k willing to play with anyone who wants a friendly game or will teach those in the area who want to learn. e-mail Kevin Steinbach at elpollomariachi@comcast.net (5/31)
KS: Looking for players in Kansas (especially the Wichita area); contact Ted Dover at tsgtdover@carrollsweb.com (6/28)
TX: Go club meeting at InfiniTea, located on the SW intersection of Coit and Cambell in Richardson, goes from 7P until midnight. If you have boards of your own, please bring them; any rank welcome. Jeff Heckman, acedetone@yahoo.com



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

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

July 10: Austin, TX
Austin Go Club Annual Tournament
mheinich@yahoo.com

July 11: Boston, MA
MGA Summer Handicap Tournament
Zack Grossbart 617-497-1232 zack@grossbart.com

July 11: Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424 jon@seattlegocenter.org
http://www.seattlegocenter.org/

July 11: Lancaster, PA
Lancaster Self Paired Tournament
Sam Zimmerman 717-892-1249 szimmerman@wareunl.com

July 17: Arlington, VA
Congress TuneUp
Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@worldnet.att.net

July 24: San Francisco, CA
Northern California Open Go Tournament
Danny Swarzman 415-221-7194 northern@stowlake.com
AGTC Event
http://www.sfgoclub.com

August 1-7: Rochester, NY
20th US Go Congress
Greg Lefler 585-278-0705 congress@usgo.org

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:
Editor: Chris Garlock
mailto:journal@usgo.org

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