News from the American Go Association
April 10, 2006
Volume 7, #30
MINGJIU LOSES IN FUJITSU FIRST ROUND
APRIL TOURNAMENTS SPRING UP ALL OVER
GUO JUAN 5P CONFIRMED FOR GO CONGRESS
ATTENTION GO KIDS
GO REVIEWS WANTED
LEE SEDOL TAKES MAXIM ON FLUKE
YAMASHITA FIGHTS BACK IN JUDAN
KOREA REORGANIZES GS CALTEX CUP
CALENDAR
ATTACHED FILE(S): 2006.04.10 Choi-Lee, Maxim Finals; 2006.04.10 Park-Jiang Fujitsu
MINGJIU LOSES IN FUJITSU FIRST ROUND: Mingjiu Jiang 7P, the North American representative to the international Fujitsu Cup lost in the first round by 9.5 points to Park Jungsang 5P of Korea. The South American representative, Eduardo Lopez 6d, lost to Cho U 9P of Japan by resignation, and the European representative, Alexandre Dinerchtein 1P lost to Cho Chikun 9P of Japan by 14.5 points, leaving the Fujitsu an all-Asian tournament. There will be six Koreans in the second round, five Japanese, and four Chinese.
APRIL TOURNAMENTS SPRING UP ALL OVER: Although the month is almost half over, there are no less than 11 more go tournaments scheduled through the end of April, from Piscataway (NJ) in the East to Seattle (WA) in the West, Rochester (NY) in the North and Daytona Beach (FL) in the South and many more places across the country. Support your local club and check out the line-up in the calendar listings below or online at http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.asp
GUO JUAN 5P CONFIRMED FOR GO CONGRESS: Guo Juan 5P, one of the strongest players in Europe and a former Chinese professional, will be attending the US Go Congress in August. "Guo Juan has enormous experience teaching western go players," reports Congress organizer Paul Celmer. "Her teaching events cover all of Europe and North America." For more information about Guo Juan, visit http://www.guojuangoschool.com/ or http://www.audiogolessons.com/. To register for the US Go Congess, visit http://gocongress06.org. Register by June 22 to take advantage of $50 savings! 81 have already registered, including players from Japan, Great Britain, Russia and Thailand.
ATTENTION GO KIDS: Can't get your fill of go? No clubs in your area? Want to try your skills against players from many different areas? Eyes sore from playing on the internet? Ready to improve fast? Go Camp may be for you! Youth campers 8 - 18 and their parents are welcome. Get more information now at www.usgo.org/gocamp
GO REVIEWS WANTED: The EJ is looking for reviews of the following go books: WeiQi in Culture, by Wu SongSheng (Yutopian); A Journey in Search of the Origins of Go, by Shirakawa Masayoshi (Yutopian); Mastering the Basics of Go, by Lim and Dickey (Slate & Shell); The Go Player's Almanac 2001, by Richard Bozulich (Kiseido); Reducing Territorial Frameworks, by Fujisawa Shuko (Kiseido). Reviewers receive a $25 go vendor gift certificate; email journal@usgo.org if interested.
LEE SEDOL TAKES MAXIM ON FLUKE: Owing to Choi Cheolhan 9P's confusion about the byoyomi, Lee Sedol has won the Korean Maxim Cup 2-1. The Maxim is a fast-play tournament with twenty minutes of basic time and one byoyomi period of forty seconds. Apparently Choi got confused and thought there were three byoyomi periods of forty seconds. After allowing his first period to expire, Choi was startled to learn that he had lost the game after only 69 moves. The score in the best-of-three match was 1-1, so this was a serious slip. We have attached an SGF file of the game record, courtesy of the go4go.net site, so you can see if you think Choi was ahead at the time.
YAMASHITA FIGHTS BACK IN JUDAN: Yamashita Keigo 9P managed to fend off Cho Chikun 9P from sweeping the Judan title, eking out a narrow victory in the third round to keep his chances alive in their best-of-five title match. Down 2-0 after losing both the first two games by resignation, Yamashita pulled off an 8.5 point victory to make the score 2-1. The next game is scheduled for April 13th.
KOREA REORGANIZES GS CALTEX CUP: The Koreans have changed the GS Caltex Cup from a single-elimination tournament to a round-robin league of eight top players. Most professional tournaments are single-elimination, sometimes with a three- or five-game match for the finals. For example, the international Samsung, LG, and Ing Cups are single-elimination tournaments that all conclude with a five-game match between the final two players. Sometimes there is a losers' bracket in a tournament, which gives players a second chance after they lose their first game; the Judan in Japan and the Women's Kuksu in Korea are examples of this type. The final match in such tournaments is between the winner of the losers' bracket and the winner of the winners' bracket, which sometimes means that in order to win a player must defeat the same opponent twice. In the last Women's Kuksu in Korea, Cho Hyeyeon 7P defeated Rui Naiwei 9P to wi
n the winner's bracket, but then lost to Rui in the final match after Rui won the losers' bracket. There are other tournaments that use the round-robin format that has been adopted by the Koreans for the GS Caltex Cup. This has long been the tradition in the Leagues to determine the challenger for the Honinbo and the Meijin in Japan, for example. The Kisei in Japan has two round-robin leagues of six players each, and the winners of the leagues have a one-game match to determine the challenger for the title-holder. The advantage of the round-robin format is that the top players get to play each other more often. This is thought to lead to stronger play and apparently is one of the motives for the change of the GS Caltex Cup.
CORRECTION: The winner of the recent Youth Jujo Tournament was Michael Cheng, not Michael Chen, as reported in our 3/24 edition (Chen Tops Jujo Youth Tourney); he's 2d, not 6d as reported.
April 15: Piscataway, NJ
The 4th Feng Yun Annual Go Tournament
Feng Yun Golesson@yahoo.com 973-992-5675
April 22: Seattle, WA
Cherry Blossom Festival Tournament
Jon Boley jon@airsltd.com 206-545-1424
April 22: Rochester, NY
Empty Sky Spring Ratings Tournament
Christopher Sira emptyskygo@gmail.com 201-230-2383
April 22: Daytona Beach, FL
Embry-Riddle Go Club Tournament
Andrew Kreshock AKCarcer@gmail.com 610-406-3914
April 22-23: Houston, TX
Houston Spring Go Tournament 2006
Robert Cordingley rcordingley@houston.rr.com 281-333-1614
April 22-23: San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Go Club Spring tournament
Steve Burrall sburrall@comcast.net 916-688-2858
April 23: Menlo Park, CA
3rd California High School Goe Tournament
Mingjiu Jiang mingjiu7p@hotmail.com 650-969-2857
April 23: Amherst, MA
Western Mass. Spring Go Tournament
Charles Sutton casutton@cs.umass.edu 413-253-9873
April 29: Hartford, CT
Chinese Cultural Center Spring Weiqi Tournament
Bill Fung chiwaifung@netzero.com 860-648-1527
April 29: Sacramento, CA
Davis/Sacramento Quarterly Tournament
Fred Hopkins cfredhop@msn.com 916-548-8068
April 30: Somerville, MA
MGA Spring Handicap Tournament
Zack Grossbart zack@grossbart.com 617-497-1232
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Managing Editor: Chris Garlock
Assistant Editor: Bill Cobb
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