American Go E-Journal » 2010 » August

U.S. OPEN/ING RESULTS, PHOTOS & GAMES ONLINE: Click here for results and game records from the U.S. Open and North American Ing Masters as well as a photo gallery of all 32 NAIM players.

MATTHEW BURRALL TOPS LIGHTNING: Matthew Burrall 7D; Philip London 4D; Aaron Ye 2D; Mark Gilston 1D; Jesse O’Brion 1D; Henry Zhang 2k; April Ye 3k; John Gipson 5k; Sathya Anand 7k; Betsy Small 11k; David Niu 8k.

GILSTON & ANAND WIN 13X13: Winners: Mark Gilston 1d, Sathya Anand 7k. TD: David Weiss.

IT’S MATT BURRALL & ALBERT HU IN 9 x 9: Dan winner: Matthew Burall 7d; Kyu winner: Albert Hu 3k.

PLUS: Tune in to KGS on Tuesday morning at 10A Mountain time for Xuefen Lin 1P’s live game commentary on a Round 2 Ing game from Monday night.
– reports by Lee Huynh & Laura Kolb; photo by Chris Garlock

“It took begging on my knees to get into schools,” said Marjorie “Su Co” Hey 19k (l), the American Go Foundation’s Teacher of the Year, in a Monday afternoon presentation about her methods of teaching go.  Once she did get into schools, though, teachers “found that the kids that were playing go were behaving better in classes — suddenly I was very popular.”  Double-digit kyus make better teachers, she said, because they don’t complicate things. “If you give the students too much information, they’ll get confused, and they probably won’t come back.”  She is not a fan of “capture go” as a teaching method, because “by the time you get around to showing them all the rules, they’ve lost interest,” so she teaches the full rules of go. Hey said that she ensures that new players win their first game, no matter what, because they won’t come back if they don’t enjoy it, and “worse yet they won’t tell anyone.”   David Weiss 2D agreed that capture go is not a good tool because “kids in general only want to capture — it’s like throwing gasoline on a fire.”  But John Greiner 6k pointed out that the biggest advantage of capture go “is that they know when the game is over.” Hey doesn’t like 9×9 boards — they’re too crowded and players don’t get room to experiment — so she moves people up to 13×13 after two or three games.  In addition to the traditional names for the fourth line (“influence line”) and third line (“territory line”), she added names for the second (“losing line”) and first (“dead line”) to help her students avoid them.  For new students, it’s important not to “let them leave empty-handed,” so she gives out The Way to Go, paper boards, and various other handouts so that they have something to read as well as a way to play before  the next meeting.  It is important to recognize that different kinds of students have different needs, Hey said.  Adults “need to be assured that they are learning something worthwhile,” while kids want to start playing “before they know where the stones go.”  Presenting some go history and the names of famous players is useful when introducing adults, but not for kids.  In addition to her presentation, Hey also brought a lot of her teaching materials (r) to show to the other teachers.
– report/photos by Jake Edge

The key to making a living shape is “not two eyes, but six points,” Ryo Maeda 6P said in the second of his four-part U.S. Go Congress lecture series.  He went through various sizes of eyes, saying that most players need to “reset” their thinking.  For example a group with a three-space eye “is not dead, it just has one eye.”  He showed the four-space “mountain” eye, as well as the four-space square eye, which he called “baka” (‘stupid’ in Japanese).  He then went on to the bulky five shape (stupid eye plus one) and the rectangular six, which is alive.  Only the “flower six” (or rabbity six) is dead, but Maeda said not to worry about that shape as it has never come up in one of his games: “before you get in flower six, you do something else.”  Someone from the audience suggested “stupid four plus two ears” for that shape, which was well received.  He also described how to avoid studying joseki by making the rectangular six shape in the corner. Sometimes that shape can “turn into ko, but you don’t die.” Instead of studying and remembering joseki, “which is complicated — you can make one mistake and mess it all up,” just remember the rectangular six.

If you are trying to kill a group, first see if it can be turned into a five-point shape, then look to reduce it from the outside.  Playing from the outside is less risky, than playing the “fancy stuff” on the inside that a professional might use, because if it fails “you can lose.”  Most life and death problem books are geared toward a single answer, but in the Maeda method, “there are many right answers.” Players should “erase everything they know and start with the Maeda method — it’s not too late.”  Translator Yoshi Sawada 6D said that the method is simple, “that’s why his book is only six pages” to much laughter.  As he did in his first lecture on Sunday, Maeda finished Monday’s lecture with two rounds of simul rock-paper-scissors with the audience, with a prize for the last one standing.
– report/photos by Jake Edge

There was a lot of laughter at the Nakayama Noriyuki 7P memorial service Sunday. Just as sensei would have wanted. Nakayama, who was a popular visitor at both the European and U.S. Go Congresses for over two decades, died on February 16. The service began with a solemn kenseki ceremony, in which Nakayama – whose portrait overlooked the gathering at the U.S. Go Congress in Colorado Springs, CO — took white and mourners each placed a black stone on the go board, slowly filling it up. Then the mourners took turns remembering Nakayama and it quickly became clear that Nakayama’s legacy is as much in the hearts of the many go players he touched over the years as it was on the go board. Master of ceremonies Haskell Small 3D – the only other winner (besides Nakayama himself) of the Nakayama Award (given for exceptional service to the Go Congress; he organized the first U.S. Go Congress in 1985) – admired the “precise and definitive fashion with which Nakayama would place each move, pressing it firmly down into the board.” Yasumasa Hane 9P said he hoped “the memory of Mr Nakayama remains long in your hearts.” And, describing Nakayama’s many interests – from go to food, adventures and Japanese literature — Richard Dolen 5D celebrated Nakayama’s “wonderful curiosity,” adding “he was such a sweet man,” a sentiment shared by many of those present. AGA President Allan Abramson 3D took note of Nakayama’s “irrepressible delight” in the game, while former AGA President Roy Laird 3k said that his greatest lesson was “to take go seriously but also to have fun with it.” There were many tales of Nakayama’s jokes and gleeful approach to the game, including Ken Koester’s story about Nakayama’s “stone-color-changing tesuji.” Shunichi Hyodo 6D, who has led Japanese tour groups to the Go Congress for years, laughed about how he would only see Nakayama each year at the Congress. Former AGA Board Chair Dave Weimer 3D reminded attendees that Nakayama’s lectures “were always the highlight of the Congress for many of us.” Betsy Small 11k surely spoke for all when she said that “The delight and joy that he took in go was infectious and inspiring. Goodbye and thank you.”
– report/photos by Chris Garlock