Washington DC is famous for its cherry blossoms, which attract tourists to the nation’s capital
every Spring. The National Go Center joins the festivities each year with a tournament at the NGC as well as a booth at the Sakura Matsuri festival in downtown DC.
Thirty three players turned out for the tournament last Saturday, April 22nd. The top performer was AGA newcomer Chenyu Zhang (4D) with a perfect 4-0 score. Other 4-game winners were Richard Duan (2D), Chang Xu (2D), and Arthur Wang (10K). Richard has also recently started a go club at his school in Virginia with 14 interested students at their first meeting last week.
Three-game winners included Eric Yang (1D), James Bonomo (2K), Barreal Anderson (3K) and Ken Rossato (6K). "We would like to give a special shout out to the group of six players who came down for their annual trek from Stony Brook University" said TD and AGA President Gurujeet Khalsa. "It was great to see former AGA presidents Phil Straus and Allan Abramson as well."
The Sakura Matsuri festival on April 15-16 was thronged with very large crowds again this year, and hundreds stopped by to learn and play go at the NGC booth.
photos: top: NGC tournament: Chenyu Zhang (front left), Chris Kim (front right), Richard Duan (back left), James Funk (back right); photo by Chris Garlock.
Bottom: Teaching at the DC Sakura Matsuri: Bin Duan, Patrick Sun, and Richard Duan; photo by Gurujeet Khalsa.