AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association

September 6, 2004

In This Issue:

U.S. GO NEWS: American Go Titles Posted Online; On The Rise; Band Of Four
WORLD GO NEWS: Japan Strikes Out Again In Samsung; Chinese Dominate World Youth Championships; Chinen Kaori 3p Challenger For Women's Honinbo; Taranu Wins In Brno; Mind Sports Olympiad Includes Go
GAME COMMENTARY: A Concealed Dagger
GO REVIEW: The Nihon Ki-in Fuseki Small Encyclopedia
MY CORNER: Report from the President
GO CLASSIFIED
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
ATTACHED FILE(S): 2004.09.06.Go World 93 Game.sgf; 2004.09.06.Yang Puzzle.sgf

U.S. GO NEWS

AMERICAN GO TITLES POSTED ONLINE: A new listing on the American Go Association’s website attempts to provide a definitive record of American go tournament title holders. The listing, at http://www.usgo.org/usa/titles.asp, is divided into six areas: Professional Titles, Invitational Titles, National Titles, Youth Titles, Major Local Titles, and Other Local Titles. The distinction between Major and Other Local Titles is based on tournaments in which American Go Tournament Circuit (AGTC) points can be earned. American Go Tournament Circuit events, which include up to three tournaments per region plus the US Open, are those in which top winners earn points that count toward admittance into the North American Fujitsu Qualifying Tournament. Representatives to the World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC), which is sponsored each year in Japan by the International Go Federation, are chosen on the basis of points accumulated by top winners in the US Open. Comments are welcome as we expand and refine this listing. To be included in this listing, tournaments must be AGA rated and reported in the American Go E-Journal; to be reported, send tournament data to ratings@usgo.org and winner reports to journal@usgo.org

ON THE RISE: We’re very pleased this week to introduce a new regular feature in which we highlight those players whose rating has significantly increased. While individual ratings tend to fluctuate somewhat over time (especially in the lower ranks), we feel confident predicting that the players who make this list are ones to watch. Our thanks to AGA Ratings Statistician Paul Matthews for his hard work and guidance. For this listing, we include those players (and their current rating) whose rating increased by 1.0 or more between the end of July and the end of August: Tang, Curtis 7.3; Quizon, Juan Pablo 4.2; Yu, Jia M. 4.0; Rosenblatt, Gregory 4.0; Gu, Jason 3.5; Shen, Cherry 2.5; Ku, Lawrence 1.9; Cheng, Michael Jay 1.9; Casanta, Nicole 1.3; Samuel, Michael 1.1; Xu, Tom -1.1; Stevenson, Michael L. -1.2; Lee, Chul Choo –1.3; Guo, Yao -1.4; Bazzano, Justin -2.1; Kiguchi, Christopher -3.2; Ravich, Jess M. -3.3; Beck, Jared -3.4; Stone, Geoffrey -3.5; Hwang, Kevin -4.1; Lucotte, Matthieu -5.1; Manka, William -5.8; Frankel-Goldwater, Lee -6.2; Spoering, Ryan -6.2; Slater, Charles -6.7; Agnew, Scott -7.5; Vogel, Jeffrey -8.3; Mell, Joshua -8.5; Sobolowski, Chris -8.9; Hsu, Ed -9.2; Irgang, Mark -9.4; Duell, Matt -10.1; Parry-Hill, Jeremiah -10.3; Wilcox, Christie -10.4; Burrall, Karoline -10.9; Colburn, Steve -11.7; Wilcox, Kian -11.7; Davis, Steven -12.1; Ho, Gordon -13.1; Turkewitz, Lev -13.2; Sira, Chris -13.3; Wentzell, Adam -13.5; Chang, Vincent -15.9; Messenger, Josh -16.0; Lamenzo, Mike -16.3; Benthem, Nick -19.1; Young, Bruce -19.1; Wadja, Alan -19.2; Von Elbe, Aria -19.4; Benthem, Martin -20.6; Takehara, Keiju -22.4; Sun, Stanley -24.2; Yuan, Chrystal -24.9; Chen, Selina (Jun-Yi) -25; Wang, John-27.3; Klock, Gordon -27.4; Dinhofer, Elka -35

BAND OF FOUR: Josh Gum 14k has signed onto the Shodan By The Congress challenge, joining Aria von Elbe 19k, Stephen Bazzone 15k and Mark Penner 7k. Josh has been playing for about a year, and though he admits he’s been “stalled around 11kyu on KGS” for the last month, he’s says “I'll be studying and practicing with my goal of becoming a shodan by next Go Congress,” August 6-15 in Tacoma, WA. You too can take the Shodan Challenge by emailing us at journal@usgo.org and we’ll follow your progress over the next year, along with Aria, Stephen, Mark and now Josh.
 

WORLD GO NEWS

JAPAN STRIKES OUT AGAIN IN SAMSUNG: China and Korea, who dominated the Samsung Cup qualifying rounds, have now virtually shut out Japan entirely, defeating two of the three Japanese seeded players in the early rounds of the tournament. There are 32 players in the first round of the Samsung Cup, half of whom are seeded. The race for the other 16 spots is open to all pros, but they must pay their own expenses to compete. This year there were 295 participants in the qualifying tournament, mostly Koreans (the tournament is held in Korea), but with 61 Japanese, 35 Chinese, and 17 Taiwanese, so surviving requires four or five consecutive wins. For the third year in a row, none of the Japanese made it into the first round of the Cup, but there were three Japanese seeds: Cho Chikun 9p, Hane Naoki 9p, and Yamashita Keigo 9p. Of these, only Cho won in the first round on September 1st. After the second round on September 3rd, the remaining eight players are Wang Xi 5p of China (who defeated Cho Chikun), Song Taekon 7p of Korea, Lee Sedol 9p of Korea, Wang Lei 8p of China, Zhou Heyang 9p of China, Park Yeonghun 9p of Korea, Gu Li 7p of China, and Choi Cheolhan 8p of Korea. The semifinals will be held on October 6th and 7th. Game records can be downloaded from http://igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp/ss.html . For more details about the tournament see John Power's column at http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/topics2004/brandnew-e.htm

CHINESE DOMINATE WORLD YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIPS: The World Youth Goe Championships were held in Vancouver, Canada at the end of August. As might be expected, they were dominated by young Chinese players who already had professional ranking, followed by strong Koreans. In the senior section Lingyu Gu of China was undefeated, beating Korea's Kipyo Hong in the final. Japanese and Taiwanese players were third and fourth, followed by Russia's Ilia Chikchine and Czechia's Ondrej Silt, both of whom are 5 dan and won 3 of 5 games. Germany's Thomas Hubert won 2, but Floris Barthel of the Netherlands failed to win a game. In the junior section, Jung-Hwan Park of Korea beat Yulin Tong of China to take first place. The player from Hong Kong was third and the Japanese fourth. Mateusz Surma of Poland won 2 games and Thomas Debarre of France won 1 game.
- reported by BGA News

CHINEN KAORI 3P CHALLENGER FOR WOMEN'S HONINBO: Chinen Kaori 3p defeated Izawa Akino 3p on September 3rd to become the challenger for the Women's Honinbo in Japan. The current title holder, for the last three years, is Kobayashi Izumi 5p, who is also the current Women's Meijin. A picture and some biographical details for Chinen can be found at http://www.gogameworld.com/gophp/playerinfo.php?id=166 . The same for Kobayashi, who has amazing connections in the world of Japanese go, is at http://www.gogameworld.com/gophp/playerinfo.php?id=84 . The best-of-five title match will begin on September 29th.

TARANU WINS IN BRNO: Catalin Taranu 5p of Romania won the Toyota-Pandanet Tournament in Brno, Czechia, this past weekend with a perfect score of 6 wins. Cristian Pop 7d of Romania was second, losing only to Tibor Pocsai 6d of Hungary. Guo Juan 5p was third, losing only to Taranu and Pop. Also winning four games were Gheorghe Corn Burzo 6d of Romania, Mero Csaba of Hungary, Radek Nechanicky 6d of Czechia, and Ondrej Silt 6d of Czechia. Tyler Sellon 1k of the US placed 54th with 3 victories. There were 160 participants. For the full results see http://www.czech-go.net/toyota2004/results.php

MIND SPORTS OLYMPIAD INCLUDES GO: The Mind Sports Olympiad, held in Manchester, England from August 21-30, included four days of go events. The Northern Go Tournament had twenty participants and the gold medal winner was Carl-Johan Ragnarsson 3 dan of Lund, Sweden, who was undefeated. In second place was Erik Yangran Zhang 3 dan of Manchester at 5 of 6 and third was Tim Hunt 3 dan of Milton Keynes with 4 wins. Carl-Johan also won the gold in the ten player 13x13 tournament, in which Tim Hunt was second again and Ian Davis 4 kyu of Belfast was third. The lightning tournament was won again this year by Piers Shepperson 5 dan of Slough, and Carl-Johan was second, winning his third medal overall. Third in the lightning was Paco Garcia de la Banda 4 dan of Spain. There was also a rapid play tournament, which was won by Xiaoming Xie 3 dan of Manchester on tie break from Tim Hunt 3 dan of Milton Keynes, who also won three medals. Third was Kunio Kashiwagi 1 dan of Manchester on tie break from Simon Goss 2 dan of Bracknell.
- reported by BGA News

GAME COMMENTARY: A Concealed Dagger
     Today’s game commentary is the exciting final round of the 14th Fujitsu Cup, played between Cho Hunhyeon 9p and Choe Myeonghun 8p on August 4, 2001 at the Nihon Kiin in Tokyo. Look for White 74, which “was stabbed into the board like a concealed dagger.” The game commentary is taken from Go World #93 (Autumn 2001) by permission. Go World is a quarterly go magazine published by Kiseido (www.kiseido.com). It contains commented pro games, world-wide pro news, and instructional material aimed at amateurs. The commentary is from Paduk magazine, September 2001, and was translated by Franz-Josef Dickhut, a German 7 dan.
     Our bonus file this week is a problem taken from Yilun Yang's Go Puzzles, volume 1: Life and Death by the Numbers (http://www.slateandshell.com) and used by permission. The book contains life and death problems based on the shapes of the numbers. This is puzzle number 8; Mr. Yang estimates the difficulty level at 10 kyu.
     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: The Nihon Ki-in Fuseki Small Encyclopedia
Yutopian, 251 pp.
Reviewed by Chris Sobolowski 8k
     For the go player lamenting “To think I played Black 3 without thinking, time and time again,” the Fuseki Small Encyclopedia can help correct that particular error. In almost a thousand diagrams, this book walks the reader through the beginning of over a dozen fuseki strategies and their most common variations. Nirensei , sanrensei, Chinese, Kobayashi, perpendicular 3-4, opposing 3-4, star-and-3-4...  even Shusaku and Takemiya's Cosmic style are presented. And each section outlines White's common replies as well as where to strike if White slips up.
     Two diagrams a page demonstrate, usually in less than a dozen moves, where the direction of play is for Black in a given fuseki, and how to employ it effectively in actual play. Over a hundred fuseki from professional games are included, providing a sense of what a truly effective, even beautiful, opening is really like.  As I slink into the single-digit kyus I've found this book has come at the perfect time, for a firmer grasp of the opening is essential to improving my game.  A great book to have on hand for quick reference, anyone who plays a fair number of games without handicap will benefit immensely from this book.

MY CORNER: Report from the President
By Michael Lash
     As promised, this is the first of my monthly columns intended to keep members of the American Go Association and the E-journal readership up to date on AGA business and activities. I was honored to be chosen as the new President of the AGA at the recent US Go Congress in Rochester. During the Congress I spent the majority of my time meeting new people and learning about the AGA at more than 30 meetings during the course of the week.
     Witnessing the great enthusiasm at the Go Congress among the hundreds of go players in attendance, it’s obvious to me that this is a tremendously opportune time to embrace the incredible energy in our community. Go is entering the mainstream of public awareness in the United States and we are clearly on the cusp of a surge in interest and membership that could add a huge volume of activity in tournaments, promotion and sponsorships.
     The AGA Board’s top priority is to double the AGA membership over the next five years and my job is to help accomplish that goal. To achieve this, I plan to turn to volunteers from the ranks of the AGA; some have already stepped up and are generating innovative and interesting ideas. The first part of the plan is to add new dimensions to AGA membership, making it more attractive and worthwhile to be a long term, paying and active member. I will share these new ideas as they develop. My other priorities include a national program for teaching people how to be Tournament Directors so we can organize AGA-rated tournaments anywhere any time, standardizing AGA tournament rules so a tournament in Portland, Maine is the same as in Portland, Oregon, introducing organized league play,   creating a States Championship tournament, and implementing improvements to upgrade the AGA’s administrative operations.
     And this month we have already planted the seeds for next summer’s youth go camps on both the East and West coasts. Anyone interested in supporting either one in any way should contact me right away. These are exciting times for the AGA and there is a great deal going on both domestically and internationally. I invite you to send me your thoughts, especially on what you think will make the AGA a more responsive, professional, and valuable national organization that all go players will want to join. Write to me at president@usgo.org

GO CLASSIFIED

BOOKS, EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE, ETC:
WANTED: Copy of Handicap Go, the seventh, out-of-print book of the Elementary Go Series. Willing to pay reasonable price; please contact hilarne@netscape.net (8/8)

INSTRUCTION, TEACHERS:
- IGS 5dan offers one FREE LESSON for those thinking about getting a teacher. For more information contact icarii@zoominternet.net for more details or to schedule the lesson. (8/30)
- Joey's Go School: Joey Hung AGA 8d is teaching at San Francisco Bay Area. Find out more about Joey's Go School At 510-659-8220, egogames@yahoo.com or http://www.egogames.com  (8/23)

GO PLAYERS WANTED:
AK: Juneau, Alaska ; stevekrall@yahoo.com (8/23)
AL: Birmingham or Hoover: email goboard@bellsouth.net I'm about 5k; any level is welcome. (9/6)
AZ: Phoenix, AGA 5d looking for go players; michaelscai@yahoo.com (8/23)
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: Northern Illinois, Gurnee area. Any rank, age, or shoe size welcome. Looking for friendly or teaching games. Contact (15 kyu) Joe at nothing217@comcast.net (9/6)
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)
MA: North Shore (Hamilton); for playing and possible chapter.  Email glen@organicdesign.org
NY: Go players in New York City.  Our club is currently looking for more members.  The "Village Go Club" meets in Manhattan on Wednesday nights.  Our club is largely beginning players, but all levels are welcome. Feel free to contact Kerry for more information at kerry@nyu.edu
TX: Go club meeting at InfiniTea, located on the SW intersection of Coit and Cambell in Richardson, Wednesdays 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! Listings are free and run 4 weeks; send to us at journal@usgo.org

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

September 11:  Livermore, CA
Vintage Go Event
Steve Herrick 925-516-2617 (evenings) herrick4@llnl.gov

September 18:  Chicago , IL
Wife Appreciation Tournament
Bob Barber 773-467-0423 komoku@earthlink.net

September 18 & 19:  Los Angeles, CA
Cotsen Open & Handicap Tournaments
310-473-5873 GoTournament@thelec.com
http://www.thelec.com/go.html

September 25:  Durham NC
4th Annual Joe Shoenfield Memorial Marathon Go Tournament
Paul Celmer pcelmer@earthlink.net
htttp://www.trianglegoclub.org

October 3:  Hoboken, NJ
Hoboken Fall Tournament
Larry Russ 201-216-5379 lruss@stevens.edu
http://personal.stevens.edu/~lruss/hoboken_fall_tournament.htm

October 3:  Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424 jon@seattlegocenter.org
http://www.seattlegocenter.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

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
journal@usgo.org