Sunday May 31, 2020
“There’s an amusing Go reference in the latest Order of the Stick, a Dungeons and Dragons style strip I’ve followed for years,” reports Mark Gilston. The storyline involves one of the characters finding a Go stone, whereupon another character recognizes it as a piece from a lesson that devolved into some confusion over what the game of Go was called in the vein of Abbot and Costello’s Who’s on First? Read it here.
Sunday May 31, 2020
The twelfth annual North Carolina workshop with Yuan Zhou was moved online this year and successfully held Sunday, May 24th. Zhou’s lecture included a pro game review discussion the influence of AI on professional play, as well as reviews of games that the ten workshop participants had played with each other in preparation for the day. “Teacher Zhou put special emphasis at understanding joseki in light of new insights from AI, including new ways to look at the double approach against a stone at the corner star point,” reports a workshop participant. “‘We can learn from AI, but AI can’t talk. We still need humans to interpret, and understand the Go truths.’ Yuan said.”
Participants report that while there were some technical difficulties to be ironed out, the online format was successful. The workshop was sponsored by the American Go Foundation and the Triangle Go Group of North Carolina. Read a full report of the workshop and Zhou’s biography here.
–report and photo provided by the Triangle Go Group
Saturday May 30, 2020
by Keith L. Arnold, hka, with Patrick Bannister
May was dominated by Rin Kaiho’s defense of the Honinbo Title against challenger Sakata Eio. Already down a game, Sakata lost a bitter half pointer in the second game (top right) on May 7-8.
Those of you fortunate enough to travel (travel, I remember travel) to Japan will recognize this drawing (top left) – on May 8 the Nihon Kiin unveiled the plans for its “new” headquarters.
In the middle of the month Rin and Sakata squared off again (bottom right), and with a third straight loss on May 15-16, Sakata’s back was against the wall.
As of May 21, Fujisawa Shuko was leading the Meijin League (bottom left), with a 4-1 record, thanks to Takagawa Kaku’s victory over Kajiwara Takeo, giving them both matching 4-2 records.
Finally, the May 27 game brought the swiftest of ends to Sakata’s Honinbo challenge, losing in four straight games.
Saturday May 30, 2020
For this Sunday’s live game commentary on Twitch (8p EDT; note new time!), Michael Redmond 9P – hosted by E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock — will review Pandanet’s “Golden Panda Cup” final-round game between Ichiriki Ryo — one of the top up-and-coming young players — and Shibano Toramaru, who won the prestigious Meijin tournament in 2019 at age 19, becoming the first teenager to achieve one of the seven major Japanese titles. Pandanet hosted the the “Golden Panda Cup”; Golden Panda is also what they called the player with the most wins, thus knocking out the most opponents.
AlphaGo vs. AlphaGo; Game 41: Michael’s mom and some exciting fighting
Friday May 29, 2020
Michael Redmond 9p, hosted by the AGA E-Journal’s Chris Garlock, reviews the 41st game of the amazing AlphaGo vs. AlphaGo selfplay games. The 50-game series was published by Deepmind after AlphaGo’s victory over world champion Ke Jie 9p in May 2017.
In this commentary, originally broadcast live on the AGA’s Twitch channel on April 26, Redmond talks about a special video his mother made about the first time a young Michael met Kaoru Iwamoto, “who did so much to promote go overseas.” Today’s game starts with the Chinese Opening, “which is a little unusual for AI’s, we’ll see a few 3-3 invasions and of course some exciting fighting involving some groups where you’ll be wondering if they’re dead or alive.”
Also, tune in this Sunday on Twitch at 7p EDT for another live commentary, this one on the Ichiriki-Shibano game from Pandanet’s recent “Golden Panda Cup”
AG #41 produced by Stephen Hu, Allen Moy and Chris Garlock
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