Monday June 7, 2010
Lee Sedol 9P (l) ranks well above second-ranked Lee Changho 9P in the Korean Baduk Association’s ranking system’s latest 
standings. Lee Sedol has 9732 points to Lee Changho’s 9598 points, with Park Junghwan 7P and Park Yeonghun 9D close behind at 9581 and 9580 points, respectively. CLICK HERE for the complete Top Ten list.
– JustPlayGo
Monday June 7, 2010
Kong Jie narrowly defeated Yoda Norimoto by half a point in the first round of the 15th LG Cup, and Lee Changho (at left in photo) 
defeated Wang Xi by resignation after 231 moves. In a major victory, Gu Li defeated Lee Sedol by resignation after 291 moves; Gu has been in a slump lately, and his win was a major defeat for Lee Sedol who was the favorite to win this year’s LG Cup. After the dust settled, China emerged with a commanding 11 out 16 wins in the first round, while Japan and Taiwan were eliminated, leaving Korea with the remaining five wins. The second round will be played on June 9th.
– JustPlayGo for game records
Monday June 7, 2010
The AGF’s youth go website Tiger’s Mouth have put together a 20-member dream team to challenge Alexandre Dinerchtein 3P and his Insei League, who have been taking on all comers on KGS recently. The Insei League allows KGS players anywhere in the world to take part in a professional go school taught by Dinerchtein and other Korean Professionals. The Inseis crushed the British Go League team 7-3 on May 22nd, followed by a 10-3 rout of the Russian National Female Team (in which 2 of the 3 winners were also members of the Insei League as well as Russian nationals) on May 30th.
Poland fought back in style on June 5 though, finally stopping the Inseis 13-7. “Your team will be the next one we beat,” said Dinerchtein, known as Breakfast on KGS, when he challenged the U.S. recently. “Not so fast Breakfast,” responded the AGF’s youth go website Tiger’s Mouth, who put together a 20-member dream team to challenge the Inseis. Team Tigersmouth has star youth players Curtis Tang 8d and Gansheng Shi 8d, plus Calvin Sun 7d, ten more dan level kids, and 7 kyu level players. The stage is set for Sunday June 13th in the AGA Tournaments room on KGS, at 10 am west coast time, observers are welcome. Pairings will be available shortly before the match here, Tigersmouth team info is available here.
– Paul Barchilon, EJ Youth Editor
Monday June 7, 2010
Canadian youth have all but shut the U.S. out of the Redmond Cup this year, with Jianing Gan 6d and Gansheng Shi 8d winning the Senior Division, and Oliver Wolf 2d and Henry Zhang 1d winning the Junior. Zhang is the only one of the three from the U.S., he is also the younger brother of former Redmond champ Hugh Zhang. All four youth have won a free trip to the US Go Congress, where they will play a best two-out-of-three match with their opponent, and split a $1,000 prize pool courtesy of the AGF. The Senior Division, for youth 12-17 years old, had 27 youth competing and featured U.S. stars Curtis Tang 8d, Calvin Sun 7d, and Zhongxia Zhao 7d among the top players. 
Leading the pack was two-time Redmond Champion and current title holder Gansheng Shi 8d. Shi has a simple but effective strategy: he just wins, all the time. Tang or Sun were both favored in this event, but it was fellow Canadian Jianing Gan who pulled out all the stops to place first. He was the only player to beat Shi, each losing only one out of their seven games. Gan, just 13 years old, will be familiar to E-J readers as the challenger to Myungwan Kim in the SPOT1 finals recently. In the Junior Division, nine kids, all under the age of 12, duked it out for top honors. Ten-year-old Oliver Wolf had the top record, with four wins in five games. Four players had three wins, but Henry Zhang had the best SOS (Sum of Opponents Scores) record, and also was the only player to beat Wolf. The Redmond Cup, now in its 17th year, was directed by Michael Bull.
– Paul Barchilon, EJ Youth Editor. Photo: Yunxuan Li (l) vs. Jerry Shen (r) in 2009 Redmond finals, Jr. Division.
Sunday June 6, 2010
Ads will soon begin appearing on the American Go Association (AGA) website, reports President Allan Abramson. “This will be a new source of revenue for the AGA, as we search for sponsors and donors,” he said. The AGA is working with Advanced Marketing Technologies to implement the website ads and Webmaster Steve Colburn “will monitor implementation to ensure that ads are appropriate to the AGA’s site and audience,” Abramson added. The web advertising was approved by the AGA’s Board last year. Those interested in information on advertising on the AGA website should contact Colburn at webmaster@usgo.org; for general AGA sponsorship questions contact Board fundraising Chair Andy Okun at abc@okun.name
Sunday June 6, 2010
“I’m only sorry that it had to end,” says 2010 World Amateur Go Championship winner
Hongsuk Song in an interview just published on Ranka Online, along with several other post-event reports. Song says “the games against the Chinese player in the fifth round, and against the Czech player in the last round” were his toughest. “I would like to become a professional player,” says Song. “If that’s not possible, I may go to work for a company, but I would still like to be active in go. There’s much to be done, including publicity and teaching the game to children, so if I can’t be a professional player, that’s all right too.” Check out Ranka Online for Song’s take on the current competition between China and Korea, his favorite pro and hobbies, as well as brief post-event interviews with a number of WAGC players and officials, including U.S. player Thomas Hsiang, who said “China made it everything we hoped for and then some. The pairing system was very dynamic, better than the system used before. If there had been ten rounds it would have been perfect; then there would have been no accidents. I also liked the tie-breaking system. Of course I’m not satisfied with my own results, but what was absolutely great was the emerging new IGF structure, and the plans of the new IGF president for the future.”
Saturday June 5, 2010
Professional go player Janice Kim 3P (r) will teach a two-day workshop in San Francisco the weekend of July 24-25. 
The workshop is open to all players 15 kyu and stronger. A unique feature of this workshop is that students will submit game records prior to the workshop so that Kim can customize workshop content to the needs of each student. “Students are to comment their game records before submitting them,” says organizer Roger Schrag, “and Janice will pick the best one, on the basis of quality of level-appropriate questions and clear reasoning, and will award a special prize.” Workshop details are available from the Bay Area Go Players Association. photo by Ernest Brown
Saturday June 5, 2010
Allan Abramson has been re-appointed President for another 2-year term by the American Go Association’s Board of Directors, reports Board Chair Roy Schmidt. “Allan’s initiatives for new, permanent membership cards, cost-reduction measures during the recession, and promotion of online, members-only tournaments won strong support for his re-appointment,” Schmidt told the E-Journal. Abramson pledged to re-double his efforts to promote growth of membership and expand online tournaments to include all AGA members during his next term. Polly Pohl was also re-appointed as AGA Secretary, with the Board expressing its “deepest gratitude for Polly’s accurate record-keeping and tireless fact-checking,” said Schmidt.
Saturday June 5, 2010
The new Igowin Pro brings the features of “The Many Faces of Go” to the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Igowin’s apps
include Igowin Tutor – a free introduction to go– Igowin — 9×9 play — Igowin 13×13 — 13×13 play — Igowin Life – solve life and death problems — and Igowin Joseki, a joseki dictionary and tutor. “The playing apps adjust to your rank and can play a good even game against anyone from 19 kyu to 1 dan,” says author David Fotland. “The knowledge-based engine allows the program to play human-like moves at the weaker settings, generally with good shape,” while the Monte Carlo engine from the latest Many Faces of Go “gives the program great strength.” $4.99. available in the iTunes App Store.
THE “IMPOSSIBLE” TIAN YUAN TOWER PROBLEM, SOLVED
Monday June 7, 2010
The “Impossible” Tian Yuan Tower problem (5/27 EJ) is “Far from impossible,” writes John Fairbairn, “especially once
[link]
you know the name of the problem, Shenlong Guotu, or Divine Dragon Shedding Its Bones. The Daoist phrase ‘shedding bones,’ or variants such as ‘shedding a skin’, always signify it’s an under-the-stones problem,” says Fairbairn, a longtime go writer and co-author of the Games of Go on Disk encyclopedia (GoGoD). Fairbairn was one of just eight readers to correctly solve the problem: Steven Burrall, who also knew it was an ishi no shita, or “under the stones” problem; Daniel Gourdeau, Jimmy Guo, Marek Kamiński, Carlo Metta, Solomon Smilack and our very own weekly AGA go problem-meister Myron Souris. We won’t mention the name of the reader who wanted to know “is the problem black to play and kill or white to play and live?”