News from the American Go Association
February 27, 2006
Volume 7, #18
ZHAONIAN CHEN WINS NEW JERSEY OPEN
YUTOPIAN PUBLISHES GO CULTURE BOOK
SO MANY TOURNEYS, SO LITTLE TIME
FREE BOOK FOR NEXT 20 CONGRESS SIGN-UPS
FREE GO WORLDS
YODA UPSETS LEE TO WIN NONGSHIM FOR JAPAN
LEE SEDOL LEADS 1-0 IN MAXIM CUP DEFENSE
REDMOND WINS SPOT IN JAPANESE OZA
GU LI UNDEFEATED IN 2006
EVIDENCE OF GO AS A RIGHT-BRAIN ACTIVITY
MISSED LONELY HEARTS
YUAN ZHOU AT GWGC FRIDAY
CALENDAR
ATTACHED FILE(S): 2006.02.27 Nongshim, Lee-Yoda, Go News.sgf
ZHAONIAN CHEN WINS NEW JERSEY OPEN: ZhaoNian Chen 7d won the 2006 New Jersey Open Championship yesterday, defeating 2nd-place winner Kevin Huang 8d in the fifth and final round to complete a 5-0 sweep. The 71 players was the largest East Coast tourney turnout since the Oza in early January, but TD Rick Mott reported that it was down from historic highs the previous two years. The tournament was organized by the Princeton Go Society; TDs were Rick Mott and Paul Matthews. Board 1 games in rounds 1, 2, 4 and 5 were broadcast live on IGS; thanks to the EJ's John Pinkerton for recording the games, as well as taking photos. Game records and photos can be found at http://www.usgo.org/news/ Look for a full game commentary in Friday's Member's Edition.
Winner's Report: 1st: ZhaoNian Chen 7d; 2nd: Kevin Huang 8d; 3rd : Carson Tu 7d ; 5-out-of-5 game winner: Sean Li 21k; 4-out-of-5 game winners: Joe Maia 2k ; Yang Xu 4k ; Samuel Zimmerman 4k; Anthony Schoenacher 5k; Peter Zhang 5k; Zaher Nazif 7k; Jonathan Hilt 17k. Jeff Denis won the Bob Ryder Memorial Beginner's Prize.
YUTOPIAN PUBLISHES GO CULTURE BOOK: The E-Journal has learned that Yutopian has published a new book: WeiQi in Culture, Volume One: Introductory Teaching Lectures by Wu SongSheng 9 dan. This is a general introduction to go and its connections with culture and character building. www.yutopian.com
SO MANY TOURNEYS, SO LITTLE TIME: March is a tournament player's dream, with no less than ten tournaments scheduled and an event every single weekend of the month. Plus, the 2nd Kato Masao Memorial Series kicks off at the end of the month on KGS. Check out the schedule in the Calendar section, below, or online at http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.asp
FREE BOOK FOR NEXT 20 CONGRESS SIGN-UPS: The first 20 people to register between now and March 8 will have their choice of a free copy of either Volume 1 or 2 of Yilun Yang's Go Puzzles, reports 2006 Congress organizer Paul Celmer. "We are proud to report that Go Congress registrations are coming in at a pace that is one month ahead of last years' Congress in Tacoma. If past is prologue, we are in for a big event in 2006," says Celmer. "Thanks to Slate and Shell Publishing for donating the books," adds Celmer, "Our goal for the 2006 Congress is ambitious: we want to not only host a memorable event that breaks Congress attendance records, but we also want to create a unique environment that captures the warmth, hospitality, and special camaraderie that is the hallmark of both our local Triangle Go Group and U.S. Congresses of the past. Locating the Congress literally on the side of a mountain, complete with a beautiful cool stream running through the middle of the site, is a good start. Having a dedicated and experienced staff of 26 volunteers already in place (and the list is growing!) will also help ensure that all registrants have a fantastic time." Info and registration at http://www.gocongress06.org/ (NOTE: this book offer is for United States registrants only; "We will offer promotions later for overseas registrants," promises Celmer)
FREE GO WORLDS: Join the AGA - or renew your membership - and get a free copy of Go World! The English-language quarterly from Kiseido that provides in-depth coverage of top tournament games along with a wealth of terrific instructional material, Go World magazine has been publishing since 1977 and remains a unique English language window into the game, people, culture and art of go. Join the AGA -- or renew your membership - during the month of March, and you'll get a free copy of Go World 77 (Summer 1996)! Join now at http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp PLUS: Sign up for two years and get two back issues and you can triple the fun by signing up for three years (we'll throw in three issues)! Find out more about Go World -- and see some of the fabulous art that graces the cover of each issue -- at http ://www.kiseido.com/go_world.htm#GWS Special thanks to Richard Bozulich, Kiseido and all the good folks at Go World for helping make this special offer possible.
YODA UPSETS LEE TO WIN NONGSHIM FOR JAPAN: Yoda Norimoto 9P of Japan made history last Friday when he forced Lee Changho 9P to resign in the final game of the Nongshim Cup tournament, winning the Cup for Japan. Korea has dominated the international Nongshim (Spicy Noodle) Cup, a five-member team tournament between Japan, Korea, and China, since its beginning in 2000 because Lee -- the top player on the Korean team -- had never been beaten in this tournament, racking up fourteen victories. Yoda was the fifth man on the Japanese team: in his first game, he defeated Cho Hanseung 8P of Korea, who had just knocked out Chang Hao 9P of China. Yoda then took on the final Chinese team member, Kong Jie 9P, who is currently ranked number two in China. Forcing him to resign, Yoda took the Japanese hopes into the final match against the never-beaten Lee Changho, ranked number one among Korean pros. Attacking fearless ly, Yoda managed to capture Lee's dragon early on, forcing a resignation. This performance puts Yoda back among the very top pros in Japan, a position he had seemed in danger of slipping out of. We have attached an SGF file of the game between Yoda and Lee for your enjoyment, courtesy of http://igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp/nc.html
LEE SEDOL LEADS 1-0 IN MAXIM CUP DEFENSE: Lee Sedol 9P leads 1-0 in his defense of the Maxim Cup title against Choi Cheolhan 9P. Lee and Choi are currently two of the top Korean pros and Lee Sedol won this the best-of-three cup last year. The previous year's winner was Rui Naiwei 9P. This is the only Korean title Lee currently holds, although he holds the international Oza and Fujitsu titles. Last week's victory brought Lee into a tie with Choi for having won the most games so far this year among Korean pros, with nine wins. Choi is currently down to only two Korean titles, the Kuksu and the GS Caltex Cup, although he defeated Lee Sedol to take the most recent international Zhonghuan Cup.
REDMOND WINS SPOT IN JAPANESE OZA: Defeating both Yuki Satoshi 9P and Yata Naoki 9P by resignation, Michael Redmond 9P, the only US citizen who is a Nihon Kiin pro, has won a spot in the Japanese Oza tournament. Though not the better-known international Oza, this is nevertheless the second-oldest open tournament in Japan, started in 1953. Only the Honinbo has been running longer. The winner's purse is about $115,000 US. The Oza title is currently held by Cho U 9P. Others in the tournament include Rin Kaiho 9P, Kobayashi Satoru 9P, the surprising teenager Iyama Yuta 7P, and former World Amateur Champion Sakai Hideyuki 7P.
GU LI UNDEFEATED IN 2006: Gu Li 7P, ranked number one among Chinese pros, is undefeated so far this year, with nine straight wins and no losses. He currently holds four Chinese titles, including both the Mingren and the Tianyuan. He also holds three dual international titles: Agon (China-Japan), Tengen (China-Korea), and New Star Match (China-Korea).
EVIDENCE OF GO AS A RIGHT-BRAIN ACTIVITY: "Go is a board game thought to be different from chess in many aspects, most significantly in that go emphasizes global strategy more than local battle, a property very difficult for computer programs to emulate," according to a 2003 report recently brought to our attention by Anton Ninno. "To investigate the neural basis of go, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activities of subjects engaged in playing go. Quantitative analysis indicated a modest degree of stronger activation in right parietal area than in left. This type of right hemisphere lateralization differs from the modest left hemisphere lateralization observed during chess playing." Right-brain activity is linked to more intuitive and "looking at the whole" ways of thinking, while left-brain activity is linked to more logical and "looking at parts" ways. The report, " A functional MRI study of high-level cognition. II. The game of GO" by Chen X, Zhang D, Zhang X, Li Z, Meng X, He S and Hu X in the Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics, University of Science and Technology of China, is available online at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12589886&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_DocSum
MISSED LONELY HEARTS: In our report on the NOVA Lonely Hearts tournament (Lepore-Vo & Takehara-Takehara Win Valentine's Au Pair Tourney 2/20 EJ) report, we missed young Kevin Chin 16k (2-2) as one of the first-place winners. Congratulations, Kevin!
YUAN ZHOU AT GWGC FRIDAY: Yuan Zhou 7d will continue his teaching sessions this Friday, March 3 at 8:30P at the Greater Washington Go Club in the basement (room 15) of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Church, 9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda. "Bring game records to participate ($5), or observe for free," reports organizer Haskell Small. "Don't have a game? Come early; official opening time 7P to play and record a game."
March 4: Piscataway, NJ
Feng Yun Go School Monthly rated tournament
Feng Yun GoLesson@yahoo.com 973-992-5675
March 4: Chicago, IL
Survival of the Fattest
Bob Barber komoku@earthlink.net 773-467-0423
March 4: Middlebury, VT
Tenuki to Vermont Go Tournament
Peter Schumer schumer@middlebury.edu 802-388-3934
March 5: Seattle, WA
Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley jon@airsltd.com 206-545-1424
March 11: Ann Arbor, MI
Ann Arbor/Umich spring tournament
Jin Chen chenjin@umich.edu 313-643-2888
March 18: Raleigh, NC
Combined NCSU and Cary Go Club Tournament
Owen Chen owen.chen@sas.com 919-531-9234
March 19: Sunnyvale, Ca
10th Jujo Jiang Cup Youth Goe Tournament
Mingjiu Jiang mingjiu7p@hotmail.com 650-969-2857
March 25: Washington, DC
Cherry Blossom 2006
Allan Abramson allango@igc.org 703-684-7676
March 25: Syracuse, NY
2nd Annual Syracuse Spring Go Tournament
Richard Moseson mosesons@earthlink.net 315-682-7720
March 31: Kiseido Go Server (KGS)
2nd Kato Masao Memorial Series
Christopher Vu eternalesnow@gmail.com 281-704-0357
Published by the American Go Association
Managing Editor: Chris Garlock
Assistant Editor: Bill Cobb
Text material published in the AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL may be reproduced by any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source. PLEASE NOTE that commented game record files MAY NOT BE published, re-distributed, or made available on the web without the explicit written permission of the Editor of the E-Journal. Please direct inquiries to journal@usgo.org
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, go to http://www.listlynx.com/MailUser1.asp 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