AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association

May 3, 2004

In This Edition:

U.S. GO NEWS: Shuko's Basic Tesuji Available Soon; Grand Rapids Tourney Set; EJ Goes Down Under; GoGoD Showcases Utaro; Desperately Seeking 2006 Host; AGA Membership Streak Snapped, Barely
WORLD GO NEWS: An Cho-Yeong Wins BC Card Cup; New SuperGo Tournament Begins In China; Hungarian Pocsai Wins Omejc Memorial; John Power Reports; Other World Go News In Brief
GAME COMMENTARY: Two Amateurs, Three Life And Death and A Starpoint Joseki Lesson
GO REVIEW: SmartGo
GO CLASSIFIED:
CALENDAR OF EVENTS:
ATTACHED FILES: 2004.05.03.Liping Huang on 1 dan game; 2004.05.03 Yang May Beginner Problem; 2004.05.03 Yang May Intermediate Problem; 2004.05.03 Yang May Advanced Problem; 2004.05.03 Furuyama Lesson #12

U.S. GO NEWS

SHUKO'S BASIC TESUJI AVAILABLE SOON: Players interested in the famous Dictionary of Basic Tesuji by Fujisawa Shuko will be pleased to hear that Slate & Shell is working on a translation of this stupendous work. The first volume of the translation (Tesuji for Attacking) will be available at this year's Go Congress in Rochester.

GRAND RAPIDS TOURNEY SET: The Grand Rapids Go Club Tournament originally scheduled for May 8 has been rescheduled for May 15 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Info: David Hast 616-791-8929 or djhast@yahoo.com

SARATOGA WINS 1ST CALIFORNIA HS TOURNEY: Saratoga High School
took first place in the first California High School Goe Tournament, held April 25 in Menlo Park, California, reports Mingjiu Jiang. The event was sponsored by the ING's GOE FOUNDATION; photos http://www.GoMasters.com Complete results: 1st: Saratoga High School; 2nd: Aragon High School; 3rd: Lowell High School; 4th: Bellarmine College Preparatory; 5th: Mission San Jose High School; 6th Gunn High School; 7th: George Washington High School; 8th: Monta Vista High School.

EJ GOES DOWN UNDER: The American Go E-Journal this week welcomes Australian Go Association members, who now receive full Members' Edition of the weekly AGA E-Journal as a gesture of friendship and to enhance the interaction between the American Go Association and the world go community. "I'm sure this will be a very effective move in strengthening ties between our players," says National Secretary Neville Smythe, who adds that the Australian Go Association is "eager to welcome US players who are visiting Australia to play in our clubs and tournaments!" We look forward to expanding our coverage of Australian go news in future editions. Meanwhile, find out more about the other AGA at http://www.australiango.asn.au/

GOGOD SHOWCASES UTARO: The latest update to the GoGoD Encyclopaedia and Database software has now been issued after major new acquisitions and developments caused a slight delay. " We have teamed up with Go World and extended our cooperation with the Nihon Ki-in," reports GoGoD's T. Mark Hall. "Our encyclopedia is being used by the Baduk Faculty at Myunggi University, we have commissioned a senior pro in China to write exclusive game commentaries and our data is now being used in research by several major IT companies and universities." The latest update showcases Hashimoto Utaro in a database of sgf games that is now almost 28,000. "We believe go is on the verge of zooming up from its current plateau in the west," says Hall. "We and our many contributors are delighted to be part of that movement." For more info, email tmark@gogod.demon.co.uk or check out http://www.gogod.demon.co.uk

DESPERATELY SEEKING 2006 HOST: The US Go Congress is the splashiest event of the go year in the Americas. Nine days of non-stop go, playing old and new friends, professional instruction every day, and much more. This year the Congress is in Rochester, NY; check it out at http://www.gocongress.org Next year's Congress is scheduled for Tacoma, WA, but "It's not too early to think about 2006 and beyond," says Congress Liaison Bob Barber. "We've not missed a year since the beginning, but there have been some last-minute nail-biting years, so, I'm broadcasting this message now to find if there might be some interest in your area to host a future Go Congress. We did it here in Chicago in 2002. Sure, it was a lot of work, but also great fun. And we discovered hidden talents in many of our local go players." Contact Bob at komoku@earthlink.net or call 773-467-0423.


AGA MEMBERSHIP STREAK SNAPPED, BARELY: The American Go Association's unprecedented streak of monthly membership increases was snapped last month, but just barely. After 22 consecutive months of increases that saw membership in the American Go Association rise by over 500 members, total membership decreased by 3 in April. Full membership was actually up slightly last month, while sponsors, sustainers and life members held steady, but there was a slight drop in Limited members. Total membership in the American Go Association is now 1,992.


WORLD GO NEWS

AN CHO-YEONG WINS BC CARD CUP: In Game Three of the best-of-three match, An Cho-yeong 8p played White and forced 16 year old Lee Yeongkyu 3p to resign after 180 moves, thus winning the 14th BC Card Cup with an overall score of 2:1. According to http://www.gogameworld.com, this is An's second major tournament win; his first was the 1st New Stars Best Ten in 1997. He has also played in the 1st, 3rd, and 6th Samsung Cup tournaments, and the 3rd LG Cup. For his part, Lee Yeongkyu has been picking up steam as a new professional. He took second place in last year's BC Card Cup and has made a respectable showing in recent Samsung, Kiseong, and LG Cup tournaments. After this win, An will no longer be allowed to play in the BC Card Cup due to his number of years as a professional player. Game records can be found at http://www.go4go.net
- reported by Dennis Hardman

NEW SUPERGO TOURNAMENT BEGINS IN CHINA: According to http://www.gogameworld.com, the 1st Taida Cup SuperGo tournament will take place in Tianjin, China in June. This brand-new tournament will pit single players from China, Japan, and Korea against each other in a single elimination format. Yi (Lee) Ch'ang-ho 9p will represent Korea, Yoda Norimoto 9p will represent Japan, and Kong Jie 7p, after defeating Gu Li 7p in the last round of the Chinese preliminary, will represent China. All three players stand to make some cash -- the champion's prize is $20,000, the runner-up prize is $15,000, and the prize for third place is $10,000.

HUNGARIAN POCSAI WINS OMEJC MEMORIAL: Last weekend, the first stop of the 2004/2005 Toyota-Pandanet European Go Tour in Bled, Slovenia saw Tibor Pocsai 6d of Hungary take the win, with Ondrej Silt 5d of Czechia second, and Vladimir Danek 6d and Radek Nechanicky 6d tied for third. Nechanicky won last year's tour and seems to be getting off to a good start with this first tournament. The next stop on the tour is the Croatian Open in Zagreb on May 15-16 followed closely by the 33rd Amsterdam Go Tournament on May 20-23. For more information on the Toyota-Pandanet tour, go to http://www.european-go.org/toyotatour
- reported by Dennis Hardman

JOHN POWER REPORTS: Go journalist John Power provides several interesting updates in his column at the Nihon Ki-in web site, http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp
- Toshimitsu, age 80, resigns as Chairman of Nihon Ki-in Board after five years of service.
- Japanese representatives in opening rounds of the 9th LG Cup (to be played in Seoul on May 18-20) include Hane Naoki Kisei, Cho U Honinbo, O Rissei Judan, Yamashita Keigo 9p and O Meien 9p.
- Catalin Taranu 5p has taken a year's leave of absence from his career as a professional at the Central Japan branch of the Nihon Ki-in in order to return home to Romania. He plans to spend the year teaching go.
- Michael Redmond's recent results: On 19 April, Michael played two games in the Preliminary A of the 11th Agon Kiriyama Cup, defeating Ishida Akira 9p by resignation in the morning and beating Takao Shinji 8p by 3.5 points in the afternoon. On 22 April, however, he played Kobayashi Izumi 5p, Women's Honinbo and Meijin, in the final section of the 43rd Judan tournament, losing by resignation.
- reported by Dennis Hardman

OTHER WORLD GO NEWS IN BRIEF
(compiled from various sources)
  - United Kingdom: London International Match - "Out of Town" team, headed by David Ward 4d and Jim Clare 3d, won.
  - Finland: Po Go Open 2004 - Won by Esa Seuranen 1d with Antti Holappa 1d taking second and Mikko Berg 2k taking third.
  - China: CCTV Cup - Gu Li 7p defeats Yu Bin 9p to continue dominating all major Chinese lightning tournaments.
  - Taiwan: 3rd Tianyuan (Tengen) - Lin Zhihan (title holder) loses first game of best-of-five to Zhou Junxun (Taiwan-Kiin Cup). Junxun will be representing Taiwan in the next round of Fujitsu.
  - Korea: 9th Chunwon (Tengen) - Cho Hun-hyeon 9p and Mok Chin-seok 9p advance to first round.
  - Korea: 23rd KBS Wang tournament - Yi (Lee) Ch'ang-ho 9p has his "first win against Rui Naiwei 9p in eight years" to advance to the semi-final round.
- reported by Dennis Hardman


GAME COMMENTARY: Two Amateurs, Three Life And Death and A Starpoint Joseki Lesson
Today's game commentary is by Liping Huang 4p, who lives and teaches in the Chicago area. The game between two amateur 1 dans was played on http://www.dragongoserver.net, the turn based go web site.
As usual the first week of the month, we present three life-and-death problems by Yilun Yang, ranging in difficulty from beginning to advanced. Look for the solutions next week.
Last but not least is another lesson in "Fundamental Matters" from Kazunari Furuyama, who takes a look at star point joseki this week.
        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

GO REVIEW: SmartGo
By James Kerwin, 1P

If you want to improve at go, a good editor is an essential tool for efficient and effective study. The most valuable thing you can do, other than taking lessons, is review your own games. For this purpose, Anders Kierulf's popular game editor SmartGo is an outstanding program. I have used various game editors for years to teach and study and SmartGo has become my favorite game editor and I now use it almost exclusively. While all game editors are now powerful, SmartGo has features that put it significantly ahead of the pack. Here are three of my favorite features.
Once I have studied or commented a game, I often jump through the game to quickly review it. Sometimes I use the Find tool to jump from comment to comment or variation to variation. While all game editors have Find tools, SmartGo makes it possible to mark a game position at a particular move. There are a number of special-purpose markers but mostly I use two general markers, the checkmark and the hotspot. In SmartGo one can use the Find tool to search for these position markers, which is a fast and powerful way to quickly review games. For example, in game commentaries I mark key moments with the 'hotspot' marker. My student can use the Find tool to find hotspot positions and immediately find the most important points of the game. Then he/she can go back and review all the comments at leisure. Another powerful use of this combination is marking a game position and a superior variation position with a marker such as a checkmark, which I often do in workshops. Using the Find tool I can flip between the two positions. The difference between the game result and the variation result, and the improvement of the variation really jumps out when shown this way.
Another feature I have come to love is the ability to group games into collections. Instead of opening one game at a time, one can open a collection containing a number of games. For example, I create a collection for each pro tournament, for each of my students, and a collection of problems and examples for each workshop I give. This is much more convenient and efficient than managing separate files. But more important, one can use the Find tool to search the entire collection. One could make a collection of all the games one played at a workshop or tournament. After the first review, one could search the collection for a marker such as the 'hotspot' and quickly review the key points of all the games in the collection. Or one could quickly review all the example positions and problem positions from a workshop.
SmartGo's editing is highly efficient, thanks to context menus. With other programs one must move the mouse pointer outside the board area to make a menu choice, such as Add Variation or Add Letter. Then one moves the mouse pointer back to the board to add the variation or letter and then one must move the pointer once again to choose a different tool. In SmartGo these chores can be done without ever moving the pointer off the board. Just put the pointer on the place one wants to mark and Right-Click. This brings up a context menu next to the location and one can choose Add Variation, or Add Letter, or whatever right there. Click on the choice in the context menu and it's done. Although there's only a small gain in time each time you use this feature, when commenting a number of games these gains add up significantly.
These are just a few of the many features in a game editor, and depending on your intended use, another editor may be better for you. We are fortunate these days that there are now a number of excellent game editors. If you are mostly interested in playing, for example, you will probably be satisfied with a free editor such as cgoban, the client program for kgs. Many Faces is another I have used which is quite good. A viewer-only version of Smartgo is free, the editor is $29 and the combined editor and player is $59. You can get the program at http://www.smartgocom
(Kerwin is a professional 1-dan and longtime American go instructor)


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)


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. (4/28)


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)

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

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

May 8 & 9: Rochester, NY
Empty Sky Spring Tournament 2004
Gregory L. Lefler 585-424-2269 glacticjoke@hotmail.com
http://www.emptysky.org/tournament.html

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

May 15: Grand Rapids, MI
Grand Rapids Go Club Tournament
David Hast 616-791-8929 djhast@yahoo.com

May 22-23
Houston Spring Go Tournament
Michael Rouen 281-481-4196 mandmrouen@SBCGlobal.net
http://www.houstongoclub.org/

May 29: Piscataway, NJ
2nd Annual Feng Yun Youth Tournament
(0pen to players under 18)
Feng Yun 973-618-1821 Golesson@yahoo.com
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/fengyun/FY_Go_Center/FYGT2004.htm

May 29: Davis, CA
Davis/Sacramento Quarterly Tournament
Fred Hopkins 916-548-8068 cfredhop@msn.com
http://www.dcn.davis.caus/~jdnewmil/go/

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

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

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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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