News from the American Go Association

April 13, 2007
Volume 8, #31 (Member's Edition)

JIE LI TO FACE YODA NORIMOTO IN FUJITSU
HAN WINS CHI TOURNEY
YODA NORIMOTO TO CHALLENGE FOR HONINBO
WON SUNGJIN TAKES FIRST GAME IN BC CARD CUP FINALS
YAMASHITA AVOIDS SHUT OUT IN JUDAN
WEEKEND ACTION: Philadelphia
GO QUIZ: Harder Than I Thought
PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Membership Drive, Youth, N.A. Ing & WAGC
YOUR MOVE: CD Or Not CD?
HOT OFF THE PRESS: Think Like a Pro
ATTACHED FILE: 2007.04.13 Hot Off The Press, Think Like a Pro, Pae, Oromedia

JIE LI TO FACE YODA NORIMOTO IN FUJITSU: Jie Li 9D (r) has drawn the impressive Yoda Norimoto 9P (see story below) in the first round of the 20th Fujitsu, reports Thomas Hsiang. Li -- the top US amateur -- won his Fujitsu berth by defeating Mingjiu Jiang 7P in the February North American Fujitsu Qualifier. The Li-Norimoto result and game record should be posted online by tomorrow (Saturday) morning. photo by Chris Garlock

HAN WINS CHI TOURNEY: Changyu Han 2d took first place in the April 7 Chicago Spring Tournament. In the Youth Qualifier, Will Zhou 6d won the Senior Section, while Daniel Pai 29k won the Junior Section. Details Monday.

YODA NORIMOTO TO CHALLENGE FOR HONINBO: Yoda Norimoto 9P (l) has won the right to challenge Takao Shinji 9P for the latter's Honinbo title. Norimoto's 34 career titles put him in the top ranks of Japanese pros; he's been Meijin, Gosei, Judan and more and challenged for the Honinbo in 2004. He became a professional in 1980, and reached 9 dan in 1993. More details on Monday.

WON SUNGJIN TAKES FIRST GAME IN BC CARD CUP FINALS: In the best-of-three-game finals of the Korean young pros' BC Card Cup, Won Sungjin 7P has defeated Paek Hongsuk 5P in the first game. Details on Monday.

YAMASHITA AVOIDS SHUT OUT IN JUDAN: Yamashita Keigo 9P won the third game in his challenge for Cho Chikun's Judan title to make the score 2-1 in favor of Cho. Details on Monday.

WEEKEND ACTION: Philadelphia
April 14-15: Philadelphia, PA; 2007 U.S. Go Youth Championship Qualifier
Peter Nassar pnassar@vet.upenn.edu 215.898.6271

GO QUIZ: Harder Than I Thought
    Reports of missing Good Friday ejournals and a non-functioning answer link made last week's question more challenging than I had intended, so we're going to give you all another week to submit your answers to the following: How many different books did Ishi Press both publish and distribute in hardback? Was it 5, 6, 7 or 8? List them for me in the comment section so I can separate the lucky from the knowledgeable.
    With no new question or old answer, I'll take this opportunity to profile a few faithful Quiz participants: Phil Waldron (13/13) is well known to many of us, a contributor to the E-Journal and past president of the Canadian Go Association. The 32-year-old has been playing for 19 years and is an AGA 6-dan. A research officer at the National Research Council of Canada, he attends the Ottawa Go Club. Winning two games in the 2000 Ing Cup in Denver is his best achievement as a go player, though he modestly fails to mention representing Canada in the World Pair-Go Championship -- twice in fact -- both times paired with his mother. Dan Denis (10/11) has allowed school to eat into his hold on second place. Not sure why majoring in Nuclear Engineering and Literature at MIT would be time-consuming, but to each his own. Dan is 21, belongs to the Abington Heights Go Club and plays on KGS as a 10 kyu. He is also Captain of MIT's Ballroom Dance Team. Kim Salamony (9/10) is a 24-year-old computer programmer, whose enthusiasm far outstrips her brief 3-year playing career. She is an active tournament-goer, currently AGA 6 kyu and is a main organizer for the Pittsburgh Go Association. Check out her very nice go designs (http://www.cafepress.com/phantomgo); I own one of her shirts, a mug and a bumper sticker myself. Her creative side also delves into photography and anime (she will be teaching go at an upcoming Pittsburgh Anime convention) while her competitive side supports her beloved Pittsburgh Pirates.
- Go Quiz Editor: Keith L. Arnold, hka

PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Membership Drive, Youth, N.A. Ing & WAGC
by Mike Lash
    Spring is in the air; the cherry blossoms have come here and gone in Washington and the Go Congress is just over 100 days away! Time to take a quick look at what's happening around the AGA.
    The first-ever Chapter Membership drive came to an impressive end on March 31. As you've been reading here in the E-Journal, we set AGA membership records in the last few months and you can thank some of your colleagues for putting in the effort to bring so many brand new members - not just renewals but first-timers too - into the AGA. Results are being tabulated and confirmed with winners to be announced soon.
    Another first - the US Youth GO Championship - is well under way with 6 of 8 qualifiers done and the last two this weekend. Check our website for results posted next week to see the USYGC finals list. The field is strong!
    The newest AGA tournament is now being planned to include more national qualifiers - the North American Ing Championship at the Congress. This is for the strongest players in the US from all corners and all ages. They will compete against each other just to get into the Congress event and then play five rounds to determine the best player of the year.
    As we approach June 1, the start of the AGA's new fiscal year, I am preparing the FY08 budget. With the return of generous Ing Foundation funding for selected programs, our focus remains on developing youth programs and membership services in 2008 and beyond. The Congress is our single largest revenue producer and this year will be no exception. Registration is already impressive and organizers are pulling out all the stops this year.
    On the international scene, young Andy Liu will represent the USA in the World Amateur Go Championship in Japan next month, accompanied by our very own EJ Editor Chris Garlock, who hopes to broadcast Andy's games live as well as report more broadly than ever on this prestigious event.
    Finally, we're already looking ahead to the summer of 2008 in Beijing where the first ever Intellympiad is shaping up nicely. We are waiting anxiously to see how many go players we will be able to send and then kick off an exciting program for the AGA's best players to hone their competitive games while earning places at the Intellympiad.
All this and we aren't even past the middle of April yet….

YOUR MOVE: READERS WRITE

CD OR NOT CD? "Great annual," writes Kent Secor upon receiving his 2006 American Go Yearbook. "I like the format and new look. There is a problem with the CD. I like that it opens automatically to the CD Home page, that is much better the previous two years. I have found that many of the SGF links do not link up to a file. I tried to browse the CD and can't find the files on it. Did I get a defective CD? Or perhaps this is a problem in the master?"
    As noted previously (YEARBOOK CD GAME UPDATE 3/30 EJ), there are some errors in the game indexing on the CD. Only the indexing is affected: all the games from last year's E-Journal (and some extra ones) are on the CD. We regret the error and apologize for any inconvenience it may cause. CD Editor Howard Cornett has developed a fix for this problem, but the fix requires saving the Yearbook CD to your hard drive and then overwriting some of the content with the correction (of course, you could then burn your own CD and remove the content from your hard drive). If you would like a .zip file of the corrections with instructions, please send an email to journal@usgo.org Another solution is the CD's new search feature, which can be used to find any game you want. Longer term, we are working on a completely revamped games index for the 2007 Yearbook CD that will include all the games ever published in the E-Journal in a much more searchable user-friendly format.

HOT OFF THE PRESS: Excerpts from New Go Books
Think Like a Pro: Pae [Ko], by Youngsun Yoon 5P
published by Oromedia
    This is the second in what one hopes is a continuing series of books from Korea with the text in both English and Korean. It offers an encyclopedia-like treatment of ko. There is a thorough presentation of the various kinds of ko [pae in Korean: these books use no Japanese words at all, including "go"] and a series of studies showing how to create ko and to handle them in life and death, in joseki, and in the endgame. There are also study problems and examples from actual games. The ability to make good use of ko is a mark of a strong player. This book offers a large step forward in that direction. There is also a glossary of Korean go terms.
    Attached is a PDF sample from the book.

Published by the American Go Association
Managing Editor: Chris Garlock
Assistant Editor: Bill Cobb

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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.

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