AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association

September 13, 2004

In This Issue:
WORLD GO NEWS: Ishida Defeats Redmond; Chang Hao Prevents All Korean Ing Cup Final; Lee Changho Slipping=3F; Honinbo League Finalized; Mind Sports Olympiad Set For Prague; Englefield Wins In Penzance; Manning Wins Devon Go Stone
PRO REVIEW: Current US Men Professionals
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
ATTACHED FILE(S):2004.09.13 Joey Hung Commentary.sgf; 2004.09.13 Furuyama Lesson #21

U.S. GO NEWS

COLORADO GO HEATS UP: Colorado is turning into a hotbed of go activity, reports local organizer Paul Barchilon. =93Local stars include 15 year old 7-dan Zipei Feng, who was trained professionally and has moved here from China. Janice Kim 3P has recently moved here as well, and we have no less than three 7-dans, headed up by Jung Hoon Lee.=94
     The Boulder Go club started a Children‘s Go club in April and has up to 18 kids attending weekly, as well as miscellaneous parents. Barchilon runs the club with David Weiss on Sundays at the Boulder Public Library.  =93The appearance of Hikaru no Go in English gave us a great window for introducing go to kids,=94 says Barchilon, who says the library was =93thrilled=94 to host the club. =93They have already discovered that Shonen Jump and anything manga or anime have the highest circulation of  any of their materials.=94
     Last Saturday, September 11th, the Boulder Club organized a simultaneous match with Zipei Feng at the Boulder Library. =93We had 20 players and about 12 spectators, most of whom were new to go. Media coverage was excellent,=94 Barchilonsays; the event was covered in Westword and The Boulder Daily Camera, whichran a full feature on the event and the children‘s Go club. =93Zipei won an impressive 14 out of 20 games, defeating two out of three Dan players and12 out of 17 Kyu players.  One game involving a long ko fight was declared a draw as the library was closing.=94 Those defeating Zipei were Erwin Yu 3d, Ron White 2k, Paul Barchilon 3k, Kris Nuttycombe 3k and Allen Mann 6k. Adrian Fan received the draw.

TSAI WINS DOTE MEMORIAL TOURNEY: Tiffany Tsai 3d was the top winner in the Dote Memorial Go Tournament held September 4-5 in San Francisco, CA. Forty nine players participatedand Tony Zhang won the Dote award for best year-long performance. The full winner=92s report: 5D-2D DIV: 1st: Tiffany Tsai 3d; 2nd: Matthew Burrall 5d; 3rd: Minyong Li 2d; 1D-2K DIV: 1st: Dave Marvit 2k; 2nd: Eric Branlund 2k; 3rd: Lawrence Ku 1d; 3K-7K DIV: 1st: Frank Berkenkotter 3k; 2nd: Tony Zhang 4k; 3rd: Thos Rike 5k; 8K-15K DIV: 1st: Ariana Tsai 11k; 2nd: Eddie Sonnenblick 8k; 3rd: Linden Chiu 12k; 16K+ DIV: 1st: Julie Burrall 19k and Toby Chang 24k (tie); 3rd: Isabel Kwan 22k
- reported by Steve Burrall

NEW CLUB IN ONEONTA, NY: A new Upstate New York go club is being organized in Oneonta, reports James Beickert. =93I am starting a go club through SUNY Oneonta that will be open to students and the public,=94 says Beickert. =93We have not yet been officially recognized by the collegebut we are meeting and gaining interest in the meantime and as soon as we are organized we would definitely like to gain AGA chapter status.=94 The nascent club is meeting on the SUNY Oneonta campus in the Hunt Union Lobby on Monday‘s at 7P; for more info email OneontaGoClub@gmail.com

SIX FOR THE ROAD: Six kyu-level players are now committed to making shodan by next year=92s US Go Congress. =93I got into go after hearing about the manga, Hikaru No Go, but it quickly became an obsession of its own,=94 says seventeen-year-old Adam Bloom 7k, who=92s been playing for just over a year. Matt Luce 10k is a sophomore Chinese major at Oberlin College in Ohio.=93I fooled around with the game in high school but only started studying last February,=94 Matt says. =93I went to China last summer for two months to teach English and play as much go as possible. The Oberlin Go Club recently became an AGA chapter in the AGA and is thriving.=94 This semester 65students signed up for Matt=92s student-taught class on go. To help our growing Shodan By The Congress band, the E-Journal has arranged for professional analysis of their games, which will be presented in future editions of the E-Journal as we follow the progress of Adam, Matt, Aria, Stephen, Mark and Josh. You too can take the Shodan Challenge by emailing us at journal@usgo.org

NEW BOOK APPLIES GO TO LIFE: A new book exploring the underlying principles of go and its strategic applications for life has just been released by Simon & Schuster=92s Free Press. In =93The Way of Go,=94Former insei Troy Anderson applies go=92s core strategies to wide-ranging challenges in business, politics, sports, war and martial arts. Anderson, aformer senior executive at Red Herring and Industry Standard magazines, is currently a knowledge management expert at the Fannie Mae Foundation. Chris Kirschner, former President of the American Go Association calls =93The Way of Go=94 =93a refreshingly dynamic approach to evaluating and devising responses to problems that inevitably present themselves amidst a dearth of information, time, and immediately available resources.=94 Available in bookstores; For Anderson=92s blog on go and its relationship to other topics, go to http://www.wayofgo.com

LATEST MASTERGO FEATURES TENUKI METER: MasterGo has just released the latest version of the professional go gamesoftware, which now includes 25,435 games. One new feature is a =93TenukiMeter - Joseki Search=94 which indicates the likelihood that someone playedtenuki in a given position, providing a good indication that the joseki hasended or can be interrupted. MasterGo also now has five players who have over 1,000 games in the database and upcoming releases project that Kato Masao, Takagawa Kaku, Kobayashi Koichi, Sakata Eio, and Fujisawa Shuko will soon join this list. While Japanese pro games continue to dominate the MasterGo database with 12,386 games, there are also 5,350 Chinese games and 5,522 Korean games. Check out the free demo or get the upgrade at http://www.mastergo.com/download.asp

YEARBOOK CD BETA TESTERS SOUGHT: The E-Journal‘s 2004 Yearbook CD is shaping up and we=92re looking for some betatesters to make sure the CD will work with as many operating systems and internet browser combinations as possible.  Linux and Mac OS users are especially needed.  If you would like to help, please send an email to Michael Heinich at mheinich@yahoo.com

CORRECTIONS:
- FengYun=92s website is now at http://www.fygc.com (Current US Women Professionals, 08.30.04)
- Thomas Hubert, who won two rounds in the recent World Youth Goe Championships, is from France, not Germany, as we reported last week (Chinese Dominate World Youth Championships, 9/6/04).


WORLD GO NEWS

ISHIDA DEFEATS REDMOND: Ishida Akira 9p defeated Michael Redmond 9pby 6.5 points in a game in Preliminary Round A of the 30th Gosei Tournament in Japan on September 2nd.
- reported by Kaz Furuyama

CHANG HAO PREVENTS ALL KOREAN ING CUP FINAL: By defeating Song Taekon 7p of Korea by 4.5 points to win his semifinal match 2-1, China‘s Chang Hao 9p prevented another all Korean finals in the 5th Ing Cup. At thesame time, Choi Cheolhan 8p of Korea prevented an all Chinese finals by defeating Peng Quan 5p by 12.5 points to win the other semifinal match by thesame 2-1 score. The North American representative, Jimmy Minsoo Cha 4p was defeated by 3.5 points in the first round by Zhou Heyang 9p of China, who lost to Peng Quan in the third round. All the game records can be downloaded at http://igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp/ig.html

LEE CHANGHO SLIPPING=3F There are several international titles in professional go nowadays, and at the end of the 2003 cycle, four of them were held by Lee Changho 9p of Korea. However, he has already been eliminated in the 2004 competitions for two of those titles, namely, the Ing Cup and the Toyota-Denso Oza World Cup. Moreover, he lost in the third round of the Fujitsu last Spring, and in the first round of the Samsung Cup earlier this month. However, he will be playing Lee Sedol in the quarterfinals of the LG Cup in October, and he is matched with Zhou Heyang 9p of China in the finals of the Chunlan Cup. Lee will also play in the new J.P. Morgan Cup, and he did win the 1st Qinda Cup in June, defeating Kong Jie 7p of China and Yoda Norimoto 9p of Japan. So he shouldn‘t be thought of as a has-been yet, but he may not continue to dominate the international scene as he has in the recent past.

HONINBO LEAGUE FINALIZED: The final two places in the 60th Honinbo League to decide the challenger for title holder Cho U 9p have been settled. Both went to players who have not been in the league before. Han Zenki 6p defeated Kobayashi Koichi 9p by 3.5 points for the first big achievement of his career and promotion to 7p. Han is from Taiwan and a disciple of Oeda Yusuki 9p. He is in his twenties; for a picture see http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/htm/ki000342.htm . The other player is So Yokoku 7p, from Guangzhou, China, who beat Kono Rin 7p by 2.5 points in the decisive game. So won the King of the New Stars title last year, and is also in his twenties. For a picture see http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/htm/ki000330.htm . The other six players in the league are Yoda Norimoto 9p, Mimura Tomoyasu 9p, O Rissei 9p, Cho Sonjin 9p, O Meien 9p, and Takao Shinji 8p. -reported by John Power on the Nihon Kiin‘s home page.

MIND SPORTS OLYMPIAD SET FOR PRAGUE: The fourth Mind Sports Olympiad international game festival will take place October 2-10 in Prague. There will be more than fifty tournaments in games from Abalone to Z=E8rtz and everything in between. Register before September 20th and qualify for a reduced entry fee of up to 20% off. Details at http://www.hrejsi.cz

ENGLEFIELD WINS IN PENZANCE: Young Jonathan Englefield 9k of Wycombe beat Elinor Brooks 6k of Swindon in the final to win the Cornish Handicap Tournament in Penzance on September 4th. There were 13 participants.
- reported by BGA News
 
MANNING WINS DEVON GO STONE: Toby Manning 3d from Leicester defeated Ian Marsh 1d of Bracknell in the final to win the Cornwall Tournament on September 5th, taking the Devon Go Stone for the first time. Mark Todkill 6k from North London and Peter Fisher 5k of Leicester both received a wooden stone for their perfect 3 of 3 records. There were 18 players in the tournament.
- reported by BGANews

GAME COMMENTARY: Joey=92s School In Session
     Today=92s game commentary is by Joey Hung, the 7-dan who won the Ing Cup at the US Go Congress in 2003 and teaches go in the San Francisco area (www.egogames.com). The game is between a 2 kyu and a 3 kyu player on the turn based server, Dragon Go Server, http://www.dragongoserver.net
 Today=92s
bonus file is the latest lesson from Kaz Furuyama, a follow-upon several recent lessons on handling attachments.
     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

PRO REVIEW: Current US Men Professionals
This is the second in a series aimed at helping our readers become more familiar with the pros who are currently active in the world. We covered women pros in the US last time, this time we list the men.
- YILUN YANG 7p moved from China to the US in 1986. He was an active pro in China, winning several national championships and participating in the China-Japan go competitions. He does frequent workshops in the US and has taught hundreds of players worldwide by mail and via the Internet and has many devoted, long-time students. Yang took second place in the 2004 American Ing Pro Cup. His finals match with Feng Yun 9p in that tournament is commented by Feng Yun in the E-Journal for August 3, 2004. Yang has published many go books in English, most recently Fundamental Principles of Go (Slate & Shell). Other books include Whole Board Thinking in Joseki, vols 1 and 2 (Fourth Line Press), Ingenious Life and Death Puzzles, vols 1 and 2 (Yutopian), Rescue and Capture (Yutopian), Mistakes in Joseki (Yutopian), and Yilun Yang=92s Go Puzzles, vols 1 and 2 (Slate & Shell).Yang regularly does game commentaries for the E-Journal and has created many life and death problems for AGA journals.
- MINGJIU JIANG 7p came to the US from China in 2000 and lives in the San Francisco area, where he runs a large go school and gives lessons over the Internet (see http://www.gomasters.com/index.php=3Fid=238 for pictures). Jiang was active as a pro in China, twice playing in the China-Japan competitions in Japan. He has published several books in Chinese and one in English: Punishing and Correcting Joseki Mistakes (Slate & Shell). Jiang wonthe western Toyota-Denso Oza in the US in 2004, losing to Yoda Norimoto 9p in the first round in Japan. He also represented the US in the 2002 LG Cup. Jiang was second in the 2003 American Ing Pro Cup and third in 2004. His game with Feng Yun 9p in the latter is commented by Feng Yun in the E-Journal for August 2, 2004, and his game with Yilun Yang 7p is commented by Yilun Yang in the issue for August 4, 2004. He and Guo Juan 5p run a continuing lecture series on KGS.
- HUIREN YANG 1p came to the US in 1994 and has lived in the Boston area since 1995. He is an active go teacher and lecturer and represented the US in the 17th Fujitsu Cup in 2004, losing to Wang Lei 8p of China. His commentary on the game was published in the E-Journal for June 14, 2004. Yang took fourth place in the American Ing Pro Cup at the Congress in Rochester, NY, in 2004. His game with Yilun Yang in that tournament is commented by Yilun Yang in the E-Journal for August 1, 2004. Yang placed third in the Ing Pro Cup at the 2003 US Go Congress. He was also an active teacher in China where many of his students became professionals.
- JAMES KERWIN 1p is the first Westerner to win pro status at the Nihon Kiin (in 1978). He wentto Japan after finishing college and because a professional shodan four years later. Before returning to the US he won the 1 dan division of the 4th Kisei preliminary tournaments. Kerwin has been a major force in the development of go in the US, offering many workshops around the country over the years, writing articles in the AGA journals, teaching lessons via the Internet, and participating in US Go Congresses. He published a commentary on a 9x9 game in the E-Journal for December 29, 2003, and an analysis of the taisha joseki in the issue for January 5, 2004. Kerwin lives in Minneapolis andhas many devoted students among US players.


GO CLASSIFIED

BOOKS, EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE, ETC:
FOR SALE: 7mm moon grade slate and shell go stones in original Japanese maker=92s box. Free plastic gosu included. For more information, including pictures, contact Dave at maino@psu.edu  (9/13)
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 PLAYERSWANTED:
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 playingand 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.  The “Village Go Club” meets in Manhattan on Wednesday nights.  Our club is largely beginning players, but all levels are welcome. kerry@nyu.edu
TX: Richardson; go club meets at InfiniTea, located on the SW intersection ofCoit and Cambell, 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=3F 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 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

October 3:  Hoboken, NJ
Hoboken Fall Tournament
Larry Russ 201-216-5379 lruss@stevens.edu

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

GET LISTED & BOOST TURN OUT! Got an upcoming event=3F Reach over 7,000 readers every week! List your Go event/news In the E Journal: email details to us at MAILTO:journal@usgo.org

Published by the American Go Association

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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