News from the American Go Association
January 16, 2006
Volume 7, #6
FENG YUN 9P & MINGJIU JIANG 9P TWO-PEAT IN OZA
OZA OPEN RESULTS
OZA EAST TOP WINNERS
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY
LUO XIHE UPSETS LEE CHANGHO IN SAMSUNG
GU LI TOP DOG IN CHINA
RUI NAIWEI NARROWLY LOSES IN WORLD WOMEN'S TEAM CUP
CHO U DETERMINED TO RECLAIM HONINBO
CALENDAR
ATTACHED FILES: 2006.01.14 Oza NYC Round 3 Board 1 Feng Yun-Huiren Yang Comments by Feng Yun.sgf; 2006.01.16 Pro Game, Samsung Finals, go4go.sgf
FENG YUN 9P & MINGJIU JIANG 9P TWO-PEAT IN OZA: Feng Yun 9P and Mingjiu Jiang 9P swept to their second Oza championships Sunday with perfect 6-0 scores. Feng Yun's defense of her 2004 Oza East title was dominating, with the only potential upset coming in her Round 3 game against Huiren Yang 1P, who held a small but solid lead late in the game but then slipped under intense time pressure and lost by a substantial margin. Lu Wang also looked to have a chance in the final round when Feng Yun went into byo yomi for the first time in the tournament, but she only needed one of her five time periods to read out the winning sequence. Mingjiu Jiang beat both 2005 U.S. Open champion Xuefen Lin 1P and 2005 U.S. Masters champion Jie Li 9d in winning his second Oza West title. The Feng Yun-Huiren Yang game is attached and the Feng Yun-Lu Wang game is posted online at http://www.usgo.org/news/ where you can find all the NYC Day 2 Board 1 & Board 2 games, including Zhaonian Chen's 44-move loss to Feng Yun. We hope to have some of the Oza West games available soon; stay tuned. Tournament support and prizes thanks to sponsors Toyota/Denso, Kiseido, Samarkand, Slate and Shell, Viz Media and Yutopian Enterprises.
OZA OPEN RESULTS: East: 1st: Feng Yun 9P; 2nd: Yupei Xiong 7d; 3rd: Huiren Yang 7d; 4th: Lu Wang 7d; 5th: Ke Huang 7d; 6th: Young Kwon. West: 1st: Minjiu Jiang 9P; 2nd: Jie Li 9d; 3rd: Xuefen Lin 1P.
OZA EAST TOP WINNERS: These are 1st-place winners in the non-Open sections of the Oza East; all place-winners in both Oza East and Oza West will be posted online later this week at http://www.usgo.org/news/ Oza East Division winners: A: Xil iang Liu 4d; B: Li Chen 3d; C: Keving Shang 3k; D: Yang Xu 6k; E: Jason Ho 18k.
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY: Kudos to the chief Oza organizers, three-peaters Roy and Mary Laird in New York City and first-timer Ray Kukol in Las Vegas. The TDs were Chuck Robbins in New York and Jeff Shaevel in Vegas. Game recorders in New York were EJ Managing Editor Chris Garlock and John Pinkerton; technical IT support was provided by Jon Hilt. Special thanks to tweet at IGS.
LUO XIHE UPSETS LEE CHANGHO IN SAMSUNG: Luo Xihe 9P of China has defeated Lee Changho 9P of Korea to win the 10th international Samsung Cup. This is the first time Lee has been beaten by a non-Korean in a major international tournament (he has been beaten by Lee Sedol 9P and Cho Hunhyun 9P under such circumstances). The upset in the final was no fluke, as the twenty-eight year old Luo worked his way there through the very top ranks of Korea's pros, beating the currently ranked top four Koreans: Choi Cheolhan 9P, Lee Changho 9P, Lee Sedol 9P, and Cho Hanseung 8P respectively. He also defeated another formidable Korean, Song Taekon 7P. Oddly, Luo was never paired against one of the Japanese players or another of the Chinese in the final tournament. The decisive game included an extended ko fight that resulted in a very unusually long game of 360 moves. We have attached an SGF file of the game for your enjoyment, courtesy of the go4go.net site.
GU LI TOP DOG IN CHINA: Gu Li 7P, currently the number one player in China, is getting off to a remarkable start in 2006, the Year of the Dog in the Chinese calendar. Li began with an international title, defeating the remarkable teenager from Japan, Iyama Yuta 7P, in the Japan-China Agon Cup on January 10th. Then, on the 12th, he handily defended his Mingren titl e against challenger Yu Bin 9P, winning the third straight game for a complete shut-out victory. Next, on the 14th, he bested Liu Shizhen 6P in the 11th NEC Cup in China, for his third title acquisition in less than a week. There were four rounds in the NEC Cup and Gu won all four games by resignation. With three other Chinese titles -- the Chinese Agon, the Tianyuan and the Xinren Wang -- Gu may well be China's top dog for a while yet.
RUI NAIWEI NARROWLY LOSES IN WORLD WOMEN'S TEAM CUP: Park Jieun 6P defeated Rui Naiwei 9P by just 1.5 points in the final round of the 4th World Women's Team Cup (the Jeongganjang), which began on January 16th in Shanghai. Rui had won the last game in the second round by defeating Korea's Lee Yeongsin 4P, but came up just short against Park, the last member of the Korean team, who defeated Rui in a ten-game match a couple of years ago. This leaves one J apanese team member, Koyama Terumi 5P, whom Park will play next. The winner of this match must then face the remaining two Chinese players, Xu Ying 5P and Ye Gui 5P, so the Chinese still have the edge in the tournament. The Chinese won this Cup last year, and the Koreans won it the two prior years.
CHO U DETERMINED TO RECLAIM HONINBO: Last year Takao Shinji 9P took the Honinbo title in Japan away from Cho U 9P, who had held it for the previous two years. The League to determine the challenger for Takao is well underway now, and Cho is clearly determined to earn the chance to recover the title. After four of the seven rounds, Cho is the only player with a perfect 4-0 record. Two players are at 3-1: Yamada Kimio 9P, who was defeated by Yoda Norimoto 9P but has not yet played Cho U, and Hane Naoki 9P, the current Kisei, whom Cho defeated earlier. Besides his obvious strength in recent times, Cho has the a dvantage of being the youngest player in the League at 25, though not by much. Two others are in their twenties. The oldest two, in their forties, are O Rissei 9P and O Meien 9P. O Meien is already out of the running with an 0-4 record. O Rissei is at 1-2, with a fourth round game against Yoda Norimoto 9P still to play.
January 21: Richmond, VA
Slate & Shell Open
William Cobb wmscobb@comcast.net 804-740-2191
January 21: Kalamazoo, MI
Kalamazoo's 4th Tournament
Benjamin Schooley benjaminschooley@hotmail.com 269-672-7466
January 21: Boulder, CO
Rocky Mountain Winter Go Tournament
David Weiss dweiss51@yahoo.com 720-904-3524
January 22: Iowa City, IA
Iowa Snow Grade Tournament
Jacob Uptain muchodelcrazy@yahoo.com 319-329-5344
February 4: Piscataway, NJ
Feng Yun Go School Monthly rated tournament
Feng Yun GoLesson@yahoo.com 973-992-5675
February 5: Seat
tle, WA
Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley jon@airsltd.com 206-545-1424
February 17-18: Black Mountain, NC
Ice Station Zebra: White snow, Black Mountain
Paul Celmer pcelmer@earthlink.net 919-779-7925
Published by the American Go Association
Managing Editor: Chris Garlock
Assistant Editor: Bill Cobb
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