News / Articles

CHOI WINS FIRST GAME OF CHINA-KOREA TENGEN: Choi Cheolhan 9P of Korea has snapped his recent losing streak by taking the first game against Gu Li 9P of China in the 9th China-Korea playoff between national Tengen title holders. Details in Monday's edition.
  
LEE CHANGHO TAKES TENTH STRAIGHT WANGWI TITLE: Lee Changho 9P defeated Ok Teukjin 2P to take the 39th Wangwi title by a score of 3-1 and set a new record by winning this title ten years in a row. Details in Monday's edition.

CONGRESS UPDATES: With just over two weeks until the U.S. Go Congress, organizer Steve Stringfellow reports that there's an opening for an assistant Tournament Director for the US Open for Thursday-Saturday; email him at director@go2005.org if you're interested. Also, anyone who wants weeklong dorm/wireless internet access ($92.50 for the week) needs to let him know asap. For the latest list of registrants (457 as of yesterday) go to http://www.usgo.org/congress/index.asp where you'll also find the Top Ten Reasons to Go To The US Go Congress, one of which is the North American Ing Cup (see below for profiles of some of this year's competitors).

MAEDA TO VISIT DC AREA: Ryo Maeda, 6P from the Kansai-Kiin, will visit the Metro Washington area July 28-30. The NOVA club will host Maeda on the Thursday, July 28; contact Alan Abramson, allango@igc.org for details. Maeda will participate in simuls at the Greater Washington Go Club on Friday, July 29, reports club president Haskell Small. "I hope as many as possible will attend this event, a rare opportunity to witness professional thinking up close," says Small. Maeda will play simultaneous games at 8P at the club; participants will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis ($10 to play, free to watch). RSVP to haskellsmall@starpower.net or call 202-244-4764. Small is also organizing a dinner beforehand with Maeda; RSVP him no later than Wednesday night (be sure to indicate if you're responding for the dinner and/or to play in the simul). The visit will wrap up with an appearance at the Baltimore Go Club on Sunday, July 30; contact Keith Arnold, hlime81@comcast.net f or details.

GOGOD FEATURES ATOM BOMB GAME & MORE: The Summer 2005 update of Games of Go on Disk (GoGoD) is now available, reports T. Mark Hall. "This edition has 32,370 professional games and is backed by a massive encyclopedia of tournament data, features, commentaries, photos and reference tools covering all aspects of go." Of special interest is an extensive feature on go in wartime Japan, as this August is the 60th anniversary of the famous atom-bomb game. "GoGoD was asked to produce background material for a special exhibition on this game at the Imperial War Museum in London," explains Hall. See http://london.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conEvent.650  An even longer feature covers larger-than-life go hero Inoue Genan Inseki. GoGod surveys the world of Edo go, covering gambling go "and oddities such as the first case of someone jailed for copying game records." Also included are newly-discovered games by old masters suc h as Genan, Shuwa and Jowa, adding to GoGod's collection of historical games. "However, the main focus this year has been on filling gaps in modern games - many from obscure sources - and the bulk of the additions has been there," says Hall, who adds that "an unusually large amount of tournament data" has also been added. Check it out at http://www.gogod.demon.co.uk/

MORE NOTES FROM YOUTH CAMP WEST: West Coast Youth go campers have had a busy week, reports organizer Jon Boley. A rigorous schedule of lessons with Mingjiu Jiang, 7P, Jin Chen, Yoshi Sawada and Maeda Ryo 6P has been broken up with field trips to the Planetarium "atop the hills in Berkeley," soccer games, hikes and Capture the Ball. "Mingjiu's lessons included a focus on joseki choices, while Jin Chen was teaching tsume go, and Maeda introduced the concept of liberty races," reports Boley.

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS:
- 2004 CONGRESS FIGURE PRELIM ONLY: The $7,000 profit figure we reported in our item on the 2004 Go Congress finances (2004 Go Congress Back In Black, 7/18 EJ) was a preliminary estimate; the final accounting is being carried out by AGA Treasurer Ulo Tamm, who will issue a final report at this year's Congress.
- MORE BEST-DRESSED BRITS: Kirsty Healey and Matthew Macfadyen shared Best-Dressed Pair honors with Jackie Chai and John Johnstone at the recent British Pair Go Championship (Regan And Cocke British Pair Go Champs 7/18 EJ).
- EURO DATE CONFUSION: The BGA KGS Tournament ran June 1-30, not January 6 through June 30 (BGA KGS Tournament Completed 7/11 EJ).

WEEKEND GO ACTION: Austin, TX
July 23: Austin, TX
Austin Summer Go Tournament
Michael Heinich 512-505-0055 mheinich@yahoo.com

UY WINS ALERT READER: Justin Uy of Hoffman Estates, IL is this week's Alert Reader winner, winning a $10 go vendor gift certificates for spotting our Alert hidden in last week's game commentary. Winners are drawn at random from those who correctly report the Alerts. Keep a sharp eye out in all our game attachments; you could be a winner too!

GAME COMMENTARY: Two Ko's and a Whole Board Problem
        Rui Naiwei 9P gets in trouble early in today's game commentary, taken from her game last month against Yun Junsang 4P in Round 4 of the Chinese City League B. "Yun Junsang 4P is really strong at fighting," notes Alexandre Dinerchtein 1P, who provides the commentary for this short but exciting game, which includes two tough ko's.
        Our bonus file this month is a Whole Board Problem taken by permission from Go Review, the English language go magazine published by the Nihon Kiin from 1961 to 1977.
         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

US GO CONGRESS PREVIEW: 2005 Ing Cup Player Profiles
        The North American Ing Cup, held each year at the U.S. Go Congress, features 16 of the strongest amateur players in North America battling it out for cash prizes and bragging rights for one of the top U.S. titles. In addition to the strong field, the Ing offers something of an endurance challenge to the players, who also compete each morning in the U.S. Open, another top U.S. title. The E-Journal plans to provide expanded coverage of the Ing this year, with updates, photos and games posted online as well as in the EJ. We're also pleased to offer mini-profiles of some of this year's players and hope provide more next week, as well as interviews with them as the tournament unfolds.
      JOEY HUNG 8d has been playing for for more than 20 years. The 29-year-old lives in Fremont, CA where he teaches go teacher and does e-commerce work. He won the 2003 Ing Cup. Hobbies include sports, reading, investments and business.
      THOMAS HSIANG 7d has been playing go for 40 years. The 56-year-old college professor teaches electrical engineering at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY. He's won the Ing Invitational twice, the US Open three times and the North American Fujitsu once. His hobbies include go and music. Thomas' favorite thing in go is being "Ahead in semeai by one liberty, of course."
      TREVOR MORRIS 6d (2005 Ing alternate) has been playing for 25 years. The 36-year-old computer programmer hails from Boyds, MD. He took 2nd place in the 1 kyu division at the second U.S. Go Congress, won the 1991 Quebec Open, the 1991 and 2005 NOVA Cherry Blossom Tournaments, and 2nd place in the 6 dan division at the 20th U.S. Go Congress. His hobbies include contributing to GNU Go, the free go playing program. Trevor's favorite reason for playing go: "It's fun and challenging."

GO ONLINE: Web Site Updates
by Roy Laird
        Recent updates to www.usgo.org include a clickable American go map, links to three new vendors with unique products, an article by a team of Microsoft programmers who are studying go, and a walk down memory lane.
        The new map makes finding an AGA chapter or go club as easy as clicking on http://www.usgo.org/usa/chapclub.asp  Just choose the state where you'd like to play and up pops a list with contact info. The clickable map is a dramatic improvement, thanks to the efforts of Sergej Zoubok, with help from Chuck Robbins. And when you do show up at a chapter or club, be sure to let them know you found them on our site! NOTE: any updates should be reported to database@usgo.org
        We're finding more and more makers and distributors of go equipment these days, often because they ask us for a link. That's how we found out about GoFigure, a German company at http://www.gofigure.de/en/ that seems to specialize in boards and stones made from the light, fine-grained wood of the beech tree. Firebrand Chess at http://www.Firebrandchess.com/ sells equipment for various games, and they're expanding their go inventory. One item that caught our eye is a floor board with collapsible legs. On the cyber-side, MoyoGo http://www.moyogo.com/, like GoGod and Master Go is a game-based analysis tool. Users compares their games to a database of over 190,000 records. They must be on to something, because their Bayesian move prediction system has captured the attention of Thor Graepel and his colleagues at Microsoft UK. See their paper at http://www.moyogo.com/gopat-draft.pdf for more information.
         History buffs and researchers can find lots to get excited about on our site. There's the E-Journal archive at http://www.usgo.org/EJournal/archive/EJarchive.asp, and the archive of material from old American Go Journals at http://www.usgo.org/AGJournal/. (The archive of Journal covers alone is worth the click.) Various archival materials can be found at http://www.usgo.org/org/index.asp And of course there's the AGA Historical Archive at http://users.erols.com/crhutch/agagobib.html, Now it turns out that there's even an archive of the web site itself! Go to www.archive.org and put our URL in the "Search" window, and you'll find doz ens of snapshots of the site dating back to 1997. Our thanks to Steve Stringfellow for spotting this link!

GET LISTED & BOOST TURN OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach over 7,000 readers every week! List your Go event/news In the E Journal: email details to us at journal@usgo.org

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, go to http://www.listlynx.com/MailUser1.asp 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