News from the American Go Association
September 10, 2005
Volume 5, #79
In This Issue:
LATEST GO NEWS: Lousiville Sponsors 1st Internet Tourney; Kobayashi Koichi Wins Historic 1,200th; Cho U 1-0 In Meijin Defense; National Assembly Highlights; Tabony Wins Alert Reader; Coming Up Monday
GAME COMMENTARY: The 74-Minute Move and Chopping Onions
GO REVIEW: Contemporary Go Terms
GO CLASSIFIED
ATTACHED FILES: 2005.09.10 Go World #104, Cho U-Yoda.sgf; 2005.09.10 Kaz Lesson #40.pdf
LOUSIVILLE SPONSORS 1ST INTERNET TOURNEY: Registration is now open for the First Annual Louisville Go Club Internet Go Tournament. The registration deadline is October 1 ; entry fee is $5. "The tournament is open to all members of the LGC Meetup site (http://go.meetup.com/25) and residents of the Ohio Valley Area," says Louisville Go Club chapter rep Edward Hammerbeck. "This event is intended for amateurs so we are restricting entries to players 1 kyu and below." First prize is a $25 gift certificate to Slate and Shell; register at http://www.louisvillego.org/tourney.html .
KOBAYASHI KOICHI WINS HISTORIC 1,200TH: Kobayashi Koichi 9P has won 1,200 games as a pro, a historic feat previously accomplished only by Kato Masao 9P, Rin Kaiho 9P, and Cho Chikun 9P. It took Kobayashi 38 years to win the 1,200 games.
CHO U 1-0 IN MEIJIN DEFENSE: Cho U 9P, currently considered the top player in Japan, is in the process of defending his Meijin title against Kobayashi Satoru 9P, in which Cho has just won the first game. Ch
o will now also have to deal with Yamashita Keigo 9P who has become the challenger for his Oza title. Details on Monday.
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY HIGHLIGHTS: Changes in bylaws, chapter voting rights and membership fees were among the actions taken at the annual National Assembly at the 2005 U.S. Go Congress, reports President Mike Lash. All the proposed changes to the AGA bylaws were approved by wide margins, who notes that "the percentage of e-votes cast out of the number eligible (approximately 30%) was not much different than the percentage when we used paper ballots. However, electronic voting is virtually free and much more efficient. We anticipate more voting participation over time." Highlights of the changes include a new position of Executive Vice President to act as the President's second and to act for the President when absent, fixed 2-year terms for the President, Secretary and Treasurer, and the title of "Regional Vice President" has been replaced with "Regiona
l Directors" who represent the respective electorates.
Changes to chapter voting rights include: only 2 full members are now required for a chapter to have a vote, Youth and Life members are considered Full members and in a milestone change, the general membership acquired the right to popular vote, instead of through the Chapter Representatives, for the single Director-at-Large on the Board.
Chapter representatives - after lengthy debate - approved the following changes in AGA membership fees and categories, which took effect September 1: The Youth category was expanded by increasing the age of a youth member to 22 (the fee remains $10 per year); the annual fee for limited members (non-youth or non-foreign) was raised from $10 to $15 per year; The annual foreign members fee was dropped from $45 to $30 and they will receive the annual yearbook on a CD, not the hardcopy, unless they wish to order a
nd pay for it separately.
TABONY WINS ALERT READER: Charles J. Tabony of Austin, TX is this week's Alert Reader winner, winning a $10 go vendor gift certificates for spotting our most recent Alert hidden in a 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!
COMING UP MONDAY: Keith Arnold on "My First True Teacher"; Jan-Willem Bouman reviews gobase.org PLUS all the latest go news!
GAME COMMENTARY: The 74-Minute Move and Chopping Onions
Yoda Norimoto 9P spent an hour and fourteen minutes on move 33, the longest in today's game commentary on Round 3 of last year's Meijin title match between Yoda and Cho U. See how Yoda tries to use the whole board and avoid giving Cho an obvious invasion point. The commentary is taken by permission from Go World #104,
Summer 2005, which was translated from the November 2004 issue of Go World Monthly.
Today's bonus file is Kaz Furuyama's "Tesuji 139: Make Your Opponent Cry Like He Was Chopping Onions." Read it and weep.
GO REVIEW: Contemporary Go Terms
by Chihyung Nam, Professor at the Baduk Dept. of Myong-ji University in Seoul, Korea
Oromedia Publications; available through www.slateandshell.com
Hardback 325 pp; $40
Reviewed by Peter Shotwell
This book, the result of a painstaking year of preparation, is a response to the confusion surrounding many go terms. Contemporary Go Terms translates almost 350 concepts of Japanese, Chinese and Korean go into 450 English terms, with glossaries for each language to tie things together.
&nbs
p; Although it could have used some more editing, Contemporary Go Terms will be a handy addition to the library of anyone who wishes to intelligently teach, learn or play go cross-culturally, since all terms are both romanized and put into the characters of the various languages. It also makes one aware of concepts that have names in Asian languages, but none in English. For example, "Farmer's Hat" -"Three stones connected in a line with one on top" - may seem a little strange until one realizes it is a direct translation from Korean with equivalents in Chinese and Japanese, although none that is regularly used in English. The discussion adds, "It is bad shape because it is a combination of two empty triangles," so this might be a useful word to add to one's stock of foreign go terms, although it is not necessary in English.
Contemporary Go Terms could also be useful to anyone who wants to explain the game
in English to non-native speakers, or youngsters who might forget or can't understand the Japanese terms we habitually use. For example, although "sente" is listed, one looks in vain for "sabaki" in the English section. So, when the Japanese glossary is consulted, one finds it listed as "break through," which is the literal meaning in Korean, although we usually think of it as "playing lightly." Similarly, one also learns that, while "sente" means the roughly the same thing in all four languages, "sabaki" translates from Japanese as "handling skillfully," while "Shinogi" means "to survive or to withstand."
In short, this book is a pioneering effort to document what each of the four cultures are thinking about when they look at the wide variety of go patterns
GO ONLINE: The "Capture Go" Master
By Roy Laird, www.usgo.org webmaster
&nb
sp; Japanese 9P Yasutoshi Yasuda looks at go from a fundamentally different point of view. Traveling to schools, senior centers, and institutions for the disabled in Japan, he has used go as a medium to reach all kinds of people, and to help them connect with each other. His method is "Capture Go", a simplified version he created that is employed by many Western teachers, reflecting his belief that you don't have to know about seki to have fun on a go board. He describes his thinking in the recently published monograph, "Go as Communication" (available from Slate and Shell at http://www.slateandshell.com/libraryprod.asp?SSKey=SSYY101). (You can download a printable brochure, designed for teachers, that explains Yasuda's approach from http://www.usgo.org/resources/downloads/capture_go_for_kids.pdf.) Whether or not you adopt
his methods, "Go as Communication" is a must-read for anyone serious about teaching go.
Now you can also learn more about Yasuda sensei through the eyes of Jean DeMaiffe, who traveled with him and studied his methods in 2001. Her essay, "A Trip with Yasuda Sensei" is now available for free download at http://www.usgo.org/teach/methods.asp, along with various other instructional methods and aids. If his unusual ideas inspire you, check out some of other materials you'll find here that can help you spread go in your community!
PLAYERS WANTED, Union County, NJ: There are clubs in Hoboken and New Brunswick, each about 45 minutes away, but nothing in the middle. Looking for players in Westfield/Clark/Rahway and nearby for in-person play, and the possibility of starting a new chapter. I'm a beginner so
far, probably
around 18k. Contact: Matthew_Wiener@merck.com
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