American Go E-Journal » 2010 » November

Francis Meyer 7d won last weekend’s Rocky Mountain Fall Go Tournament, topping a field of 64, which included 22 kids. Winner’s Report: Open Section: 1st Francis Meyer 7d; 2nd Jung Hoon Lee 7d. Main Section: 1st Philip London 5d; 2nd Nathan Harwit 3d; 3rd Ted Brandt 2k. Handicap Section: 1st Matthew Cahn 25k; 2nd Lionel Di Giacomo 12k; 3rd Anthony Zhang 26k. David Weiss directed.

Sixteen top players will face off this weekend in the North American BC Card Cup qualifier. The 4-round online tourney starts at 1p (EST) this Saturday, November 13 on KGS, with Round 2 set for 6p Saturday, Round 3 at 1p Sunday 11/14 and Round 4 at 6p on Sunday. The winner will go on to compete in the preliminary tournament in Korea in mid-January 2011, and winners there will join a large group of professional players to fight for the 54 places in the main tournament. The BC Card Cup World Baduk Championship is one of the six major world championships, with prize money of $270,000, and $90,000 for the runner-up. The players in this weekend’s qualifier are: Zhiyuan Liu, Eric Lui, Sorin Gherman, Curtis Tang, Jie Liang, Seung Hyun Hong, Yuan Zhou, Jung Lee, Guthrie Price, Jason Gu, Hugh Zhang, Daniel Chou, Yun-Bo Yi, Yong Chen, Yinli Wang, Martin Lebl. AGA National Tournament Director Edward (Zhiyuan) Zhang is the NA BC Card Cup Tournament Director.

Tadashi Sasaki 8P will give two separate teaching events this week in Los Angeles as part of his West Coast tour. Sasaki, a professional go player from the Nihon Kiin, was a pupil of the late Eio Sakata. Both events will feature simultaneous 3-on-1 games with Sasaki, followed by a game analysis. Players not involved in a teaching game are free to watch, or to play a game with others which will be analyzed later. “Those who have attended Sasaski’s lectures at the annual U.S. Go Congress or at his previous workshops in Washington and Los Angeles will testify to his straightforward answers to questions and his gentle sense of humor,” says organizer Richard Dolen. “His comments are useful for all levels of go strength.”  Come early for the best chance to play Sasaki. The events are organized by Andy Okun, Tom Oki of the New Gardena Hotel, Joe Cepiel of the Santa Monica Go Club and others. For more info, contact Dolen at rdolen@worldnet.att.net

The first LA Sasaki event begins at 7p this Tuesday, November 9th at the Santa Monica Go Club at the Unurban Coffee House (3301 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA); there’s no charge for club members, and $10 for others (there may be a nominal surcharge for playing Sasaki).

The second event begins at 7p Wednesday, November 10th, at the basement level of the New Gardena Hotel (1641West Redondo Beach Blvd # 1, Gardena, CA); the charge for attendance is $20 per person and again, there may or may not be a nominal surcharge for playing a teaching game with Sasaki.
photo: Sasaki at the 2009 U.S. Go Congress; photo by Gurujeet Khalsa

Andrew Lu 6d won the 13th Ing’s Cup Youth Goe Tournament on Sunday, October 24 in Sunnyvale, Northern California. The tournament — an annual one-day event organized by Mingjiu Jiang 7P (below) and Joe Lee — drew more than 135 young go players under the age of 21, including players from neighboring states and China. Players were divided into ten 19×19 sections and multiple groups for 13×13 play according to player’s rank. Trophies were awarded to the top four winners for each section while each section’s top six winners could pick from prizes including scooters, skating boards, basket balls and more. Andrew Lu 6d, coming all the way from Los Angeles, snapped up the top prize by defeating local Hugh Zhang 6d, placing first out of 13 players in section A. The tournament is sponsored by Ing’s Goe Foundation.
WINNER’S REPORT: 19X19 Section A (6D-3D) 1st place: Andrew Lu; Section B (2D-1D) 1st place: Daniel Liu; Section C (1k-5k) 1st place: April Ye; Section D (6k–13k) 1st place: Alan Hwang; Section E (14k-17k) 1st place: Patrick Wang; Section F (18k-20k) 1st place: Oscar Li; Section G (21k-27k) 1st place: Dyson Ye; Section H (28k-29k) 1st place: Raymond Chen; Section I (29k) 1st place: Jason Chu; Section J (29k) 1st place: Jeffrey Chu. 13X13 Section A, 1st place: Dikaios Wang; Section B, 1st place: Jeffrey Xiong; Section C, 1st place: Andrew Korea; Section D, 1st place: Valerie Kuo.

The competition was fierce for large orange vegetables as a field of 43 competed at the NOVA Pumpkin Classic in Arlington, Virginia on October 30. Justin Teng 4d (r) won the dan division with a 4-1 record, while the 2009 winner, Jing Guo 7d, came in second.  First places in the kyu divisions included an undefeated Kelsey Dyer 2k, David Reed 6k (also undefeated), Joey Phoon 7k, Kenny Huynh 10k, Joseph Lee 15k (undefeated), Tristan Tran 17k (undefeated), and Tariq Khan 26k (undefeated).  Second places in the kyu divisions included Kevin Chin 3k, Robert Ehrlich 5k, Daniel Monahan 8k, Julian Erville 11k, Jake Altizer 14k, and Jordan Howar 17k. The popular Team Tourney was back and Team Phoooon (below) decimated the competition by winning 15 out of their 16 games. NOVA organizer Gary Smith was “delighted that we signed up 10 new AGA youth members at the event.” Tournament Director Zhiyuan ‘Edward’ Zhang managed to schedule five rounds for players interested, adding an option for fast players to enjoy more go and have more fun. The final score is calculated by winning percentage, with is uniform for traditional four-round players (i.e. 4-1 record is better than 3-1; 3-1 better than 3-2). This new approach not only reduced wait time for some players, but also encouraged a competitive spirit of going the extra mile by playing a fifth game to be the clear winner instead of settling on a tie-breaker.
– Garrett Smith; photos by Zhiyuan ‘Edward’ Zhang

An unusually strong field of 30 players entered last weekend’s Heartland Harvest tournament organized by the Bradley Go Association and the Quad Cities Go Club in Peoria, IL.  Austin Kupon 3d went 5-0 in a Dan division headed by two 6-dan players.  Second place went to Xuyu Xiang 6d with a score of 4-1.  In the second division (1-7 kyu), Myron Souris 1k took first on tie-breaks over Ken Crumpler 6k and Stephen Choung 7k, all at 4-1.  David Muskovitz 8k won the third division (8 kyu and below) on tie-break over Matt Mueller 11k, both with a score of 4-1.  Clark Wierda was awarded a special prize of black and orange go stones in jack-o-lantern bowls for traveling the greatest distance for the tournament.  “More than half the field benefited from the generous merchandise prizes provided by Kiseido/Yutopian, Slate and Shell, sundaygolessons.com and Yellow Mountain Imports,” reports TD Roy Schmidt.