News from the American Go Association
June 3, 2005
In This Issue:
LATEST GO NEWS: Huang Tops In Colorado Open; Liu Xing Defeats Gu Li In CCTV Cup; Ok Dunjin Challenges For Wangwi; 239 Sign Up For Go Congress; Elections To Be Held For 3 Board Positions; Easing The Path To Shodan; On The Rise; Weekend Go Action: Chicago & Seattle; Domedion Wins Alert Reader
GAME COMMENTARY: Using Influence & A Common, Serious Mistake
GO REVIEW: Kogo's Joseki Dictionary
ATTACHED FILES: 2005.06.03 Shodan Challenge, Boley on Chong-Boley.sgf; 2005.06.03 Furuyama Lesson #35.pdf
HUANG TOPS IN COLORADO OPEN: Alan Huang 7d took top honors in the May 28th Colorado Open. Forty four players participated; full report in Monday's edition.
LIU XING DEFEATS GU LI IN CCTV CUP: Gu Li 7P, currently the leading Chinese pro, was defeated by Liu Xing 7P in the 17th Chinese CCTV Cup on Tuesday. It's Liu's first title. Details in Monday's issue.
OK DUNJIN CHALLENGES FOR WANGWI: A relatively unknown Korean pro, Ok Dunjin 2P (also written Ok Teukjin/Teuchin) has won the challenger's spot in the 39th Korean Wangwi tournament. The current title holder is Lee Changho 9P. Details in Monday's issue.
239 SIGN UP FOR GO CONGRESS: With more than two months yet to go, 239 go players have already signed up for this year's Go Congress in Tacoma, WA August 6-14. More details in Monday's edition, plus look for a special Congress Edition soon!
ELECTIONS TO BE HELD FOR 3 BOARD POSITIONS: Nominations are now open to fill three AGA Directors whose terms end on December 31, 2005. The positions are Western Region Director, Central Region Director and Eastern Region Director; each term runs for two years. Nominations may be made by any full member of the AGA and must be accompanied by a notice that the person nominated has read the AGA by-laws and agrees to stand for election. Nominees must have been a full member of the AGA for one year at the time of taking office (1/1/06). Nominations will close on June 14, 2005 and may be sent to Samuel E. Zimmerman, 2005 Election committee: szimmerman@ctipc.com Ballots will be sent to chapters in early July and counted (and the results announced) at the Go Congress in Tacoma, WA in early August.
EASING THE PATH TO SHODAN: Karen Plomp 12k will find the path to shodan just got a little easier with her free copy of SmartGo:Combo, go study software that includes 30,281 professional games. Plomp is one of 23 Shodan Challengers, kyu-level players who have publicly accepted the challenge of trying to achieve 1-dan by this year's U.S. Go Congress in Tacoma, Washington. "Thanks for the Smartgo Combo! I am sure it will help me on my way to shodan," says Plomp, who has improved an impressive seven stones since taking the Shodan Challenge earlier this year, going from 14k to 8k. The E-Journal is now accepting Challengers for the 2006 Congress; we'll be following the progress of each Shodan Challenger and have arranged for opportunities to improve, including professional game analysis, simuls with top amateur players and drawings for free go study software. Want to take the Challenge? Please let us know what your current playing strength is (AGA rating, or online rating), how you got started playing go and why you're interested in the Challenge. Email us at journal@usgo.org
ON THE RISE: Congratulations to the following up-and-coming players, who have improved at least 1 stone during the past three months: Allen, Nathan -11.2; Aristy, Juan -12.7; Arnold, Scott 4.0; Bacon, Bob -11.2; Bengtson, Matthew -8.3; Blake, Nicholas -8.4; Boyer, Geoff -19.1; Bozik, Nick -30.9; Brown, Linda -14.6; Burrall, Julie -16.4; Carlson, Tom -18.5; Carter, Lannie 1.6; Chang, Kevin -6.5; Chang, Toby -19.5; Chen, Owen 4.1; Chen, Shan -4.3; Chen, Yu 1.4; Chiu, Linden -3.0 ; Choi, Jae-Hyun -16.4 ; Clark, Jane -21.6; Clarke, Joshua -24.0; Edson, Sandra -8.7; Fang, Hui -4.2; Ferguson, Robert -13.9; Ganguli, Mark -12.2 ; Grenier, David -11.9; Guo, Albert -2.7; Gustavson, Carrie -9.8; Haldeman, Kurt -18.5; Hess, Michael -7.1; Hoover, Nick -2.3; Hop, Jonathan -8.2; Jaqua, Daniel -11.7; Kataman, George 1.5; Keaton, Rodney 2.5; Lampe, Rob -17.1; Ledru, Nicolas -24.8; Lin, Jessica -17.3; Liu, Zack -13.9; Man, Wai Cheung -6.2; Markowitz, Jonathan 1.8 (Shodan Challenger
); May, T. J.-26.4; Merlis, Charles -9.7; Moseson, Richard -6.4; Nahabedian, Mark -11.5; Oto, Robert 6.2; Payne, Jason -10.1; Penner, Mark -6.0 (Shodan Challenger); Perrin, Alan -1.5; Plomp, Karen-12.1 (Shodan Challenger); Pollio, Tim -5.9; Preuss, Jason -19.9; Robbins, Charles 4.8; Rommel, Robert 2.0; Royce, Liam -20.1; Rushton, Drew -11.8; Russ, Larry -4.3; Sailing, Amara -33.4; Sailing, Jasmine -10.4; Schneider, Aniket 2.5; Schooley, Benjamin -14.3; Sira, Christopher -8.7; Small, Elizabeth -14.0; Smith, Daniel -11.2; Strohmann, Thomas -7.6; Su, Kevin -14.8 ; Sun, Siyang -34.2 ; Sun, Stephen 3.0; Sutton, Charles -9.0; Tao, Albert -12.5; Tobias, Mike -8.9; Trieu, Nicholas -14.0; Tsai, Ariana -6.6; Tsutsumi, Akira -6.6; Turkewitz, Lev -12.2; Tyson, Terry -8.6; Van, Eric -12.8; Viola, Pierre -19.3; Wong, Joshua -15.6; Wong, Justin -21.8; Woodcock, Tim -11.6; Wu, James -14.6 ; Xu, Wenjie 5.4; Xu, Yang -6.1; Yang, Jack 5.2; Yeo, Sukwon -25.2; Yi, Su -1.9; Young, Bruce -11.1; Z
hang, Peter -10.4; Zhang, Tony 1.6; Zhou, Kevin -3.5; Zuerlein, Keith -21.6
NOTE: ratings are updated continually; for the latest ratings check http://www.usgo.org/ratings/RatingsQuery.asp?
WEEKEND GO ACTION: Chicago & Seattle
- June 4: Chicago, IL
Summer Tournament
Bob Barber 773-467-0423 komoko@earthlink.net
- June 5: Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424 jon@seattlegocenter.org
DOMEDION WINS ALERT READER: Jeffrey Domedion of Media, NY 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: Using Influence & A Common, Serious Mistake
"In a five stone game, White is behind in influence," says Jon Boley 6d in today's game commentary, adding that "Black has to learn how to use this influence to create territory." Boley's commentary includes some fairly detailed variations as he takes a look at how Shodan Challenger Edward Chong 13k handles this influence. There's plenty to learn here for anyone who either gives or gets handicap stones.
In today's bonus file, Kaz Furuyama reviews "a common, serious mistake." Watch out for the variation that can make White sick!
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
GO REVIEW: Kogo's Joseki Dictionary
Reviewed by Philip D. Waldron 6d
Whatever their strength, every go player has had the experience of encountering a new joseki variation or forgetting an old one. When that used to happen to me, my first instinct was to start flipping through the pages of my joseki dictionary. These days however, I just load Kogo's Joseki Dictionary on my computer. Kogo's is a massive electronic joseki collection compiled by Gary Odom of Portland, Oregon. It contains nearly 7000 joseki variations, ranging from sequences from the days of Shusaku to New Fuseki experiments with the 5-5 and 6-4 points. The bulk of the material in Kogo's appears to be compiled from the various English language joseki references, evidently supplemented by other sources. Kogo's Joseki Dictionary is freely distributed on the Internet as an SGF file, for which there are any number of freely available viewers. Coming in at less than 1 MB, the file is easy to transport by floppy or email. The dictiona
ry is a good deal more portable than the paperbacks it replaces, and seeing players consult it at tournaments on their Palm Pilots (between rounds, one hopes!) is now a common sight.
Good as it is, using Kogo's is not without difficulties. Notably absent in the collection are the numerous star point josekis that figure so prominently in modern go. Navigating the multitude of variations can also be a chore on SGF viewers with poorly designed user interfaces, and some viewers print warnings about Kogo's slightly nonstandard file format. The largest shortcoming I have found, however, is a limitation of the electronic medium. Being able to see only a single board position at a time on the computer screen makes it difficult to browse though many joseki variations for a desired result. For that, having a paper reference with many diagrams per page is still the way to go.
Overall, Kogo's Joseki Dictionary is an invaluable resource for go players. It is fast and convenient, and the price can't be beat. While it will never replace my dead-tree joseki collections, there is no reason it shouldn't be part of every player's library.
Kogo's Joseki Dictionary can be downloaded at: http://waterfire.us/joseki.htm
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Editor: Chris Garlock
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