AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association

August 3, 2004

Special U.S. Go Congress Edition:
ING CUP UPDATE
LI, WANG & TANG CONTEND IN U.S. OPEN
PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING: Kerwin On Life And Death
LEBL DOMINATING SELF-PAIRED
ATTACHED FILE(S): 2004.08.03 AGA-ING Pro Cup Round2 Feng-YYang; 2004.08.03 Ing Amateur Round 1 Yu-Hung

NOTE: Due to technical difficulties beyond our control, our email server is sending double copies of the E-Journal this week. We apologize for this annoyance; please be assured we are working to get the problem fixed as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!

ING CUP UPDATE: Just four players are undefeated after Monday night92s second round of the North American Amateur Ing Cup: Yongfei Ge, Jong Moon Lee, Jung Hoon Lee and Jie Li. Tonight92s semi-final round will be closely watched to see who moves into contention for the final on Wednesday night. As a special bonus we92re pleased to present the first-round game between 2003 Ing winner Joey Hung and Lianzhou Yu as an attachment to today92s EJ. The full winner92s report from Monday night: Jie Li beat Yuan Zhou; Yongfei Ge defeated Lianzhou Yu; Jong Moon Lee won over Curtis Tang; Jung Hoon Lee beat Xiaoying Huang; Joey Hung defeated Jin Chen; Thomas Hsiang won over Eric Lui, Edward Kim beat Richard Liang; Xenos Khan defeated I-Han Lui. In an interesting note, every game except Lui-Khan was won by resignation (only four of Sunday92s games were resignations).
- reported by Joe Carl.

LI, WANG & TANG CONTEND IN U.S. OPEN: Although current U.S. Open champion Jie Li scored a third straight win (defeating Joey Hung) this morning in his quest to retain his title, hot on his trail are Lu (Jeffrey) Wang (d. Xuefen Lin) and young Curtis Tang (d. Yongfei Ge), who are also undefeated after three rounds. In other top board results, Jung Hoon Lee triumphed in the battle of the Lees, beating Jong Moon Lee, Edward Kim defeated Ron Snyder, Yuan Zhou won over Lianzhou u, Mozheng Guan defeated I-Han Lui, Zhaonian Chen beat Rui Wang, Minshan Shou won over Eric Lui and Thomas Hsiang won against Jin Chen. Round four of the 6-round Open takes place Thursday, after the traditional mid-week Day Off for local excursions.

PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING: Kerwin On Life And Death
Whether your stones are dead or alive is not important, according to U.S. pro James Kerwin. 93What92s important is whether they92re effective,94 Kerwin said in a lecture Monday. 93Dead stones can be extremely effective, while live ones can have little impact.94 So, Kerwin says, don92t worry about whether your stones are alive, ask instead if they92re doing anything useful.
- reported by Bill Cobb

LEBL DOMINATING SELF-PAIRED: Martin Lebl continues to rack up impressive margins as he holds onto his lead in five of the thirteen Self-Paired Tournament categories. After two days of play, nearly 200 games have been played in this continuous event. Lebl92s only threat seems to be Christopher Kiguchi, who92s just a few games behind in the competition for the Straight Shooter (player with most wins against players of consecutive ranks); Kiguchi has taken over the lead as Champion, but holds just a one-game edge there over William Phillips.
       Monday night leaders: Champion: CHRISTOPHER KIGUCHI; Giant Killer: NICOLE CASANTA; Sensei: MARTIN LEBL; Philanthropist: MARTIN LEBL; Grasshopper: ALBERT GUO; Straight Shooter: MARTIN LEBL; Hurricane: MARTIN LEBL; Kyu Killer: JOHN PAUL RODMAN; Dedicated: MARTIN LEBL; Faithful: PAUL BENSEN; Optimist: WILLIAM CUSHING.
- reported by Bill Saltman

GAME COMMENTARY:
Today92s game commentary, from Monday morning92s Round 2 of the 2004 AGA/ING Pro Tournament Finals, is a real nail-biter between two top-notch U.S. professionals, Feng Yun 9P and Yilun Yang 7P. If you watched their game in the AGA/ING Pro Qualifiers, you92ll recognize the opening, which is identical, but things develop differently very quickly, including a possible new joseki and a fight that breaks out in the middle of the board that92ll have you on the edge of your seat as you try to figure out if White can pull two eyes out of thin air. The game is up in the air right down to the very end, when its decided by the smallest possible half-point margin.
As a special bonus, we92re also including the first-round North American Amateur Ing Cup game between 2003 Ing winner Joey Hung and Lianzhou Yu; although we haven92t had a chance to get it commented yet, we think you92ll enjoy watching to hotly-contested battle down to a 3-point win
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


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