Sunday October 23, 2011
Ralph St. Louis 10k (right) took first place in the October 16 Massachusetts Go Association Fall Tournament, held at the Boylston Chess Club in Somerville MA. St. St. Louis edged out fellow 4-0 winner Steven Wu 2d (left) to top the 28-player field. Third place went to Jason McGibbon, 4-kyu. photo by Tournament Director Eva Casey
Sunday October 23, 2011
The out-of-print Killer of Go: Technique and Preventative Measures by Sakata Eio (published by Yutopian) is now back
to life in SmartGo Books. “It’s a classic text on the theme of killing stones, featuring advice, game analysis, killing techniques, as well as shape and tewari analysis,” says SmartGo’s Anders Kierulf. The SmartGo Books edition “makes it easy to replay the moves in the diagrams,” Kierulf adds. “Moreover, twenty-seven additional diagrams replace long sequences of letters that were hard to follow in the original text.” 
SmartGo Books also recently released Single Digit Kyu Game Commentaries by Yuan Zhou. Earlier versions of these six commentaries were originally published in the E-Journal, but the commentaries have been significantly expanded for inclusion in SmartGo Books.
Saturday October 22, 2011
Les Lanphear reports that he spotted go in the 2010 China-Hong Hong epic mystery film “Detective Dee and the Mystery
of the Phantom Flame.” “Toward the end of the movie there is a go board that seems to have 19 lines and colored pieces on the board,” says Lanphear. “The colored pieces seemed to be in the shape of chocolate kisses and in a translucent colored substance. One of the general’s was playing with someone. It was too short to determine if the setup was real or not.” Tsui Hark directed the fictional account of Di Renjie, one of the most celebrated officials of the Tang Dynasty and the basis for the character of Judge Dee, made famous in the West by Robert van Gulik, who wrote 17 new Judge Dee mysteries between 1946 and 1967.
Saturday October 22, 2011
Two friends play one final game while awaiting internment, in San Francisco, California, in early 1942. From The
Atlantic’s August 21 photo essay “World War II: Internment of Japanese Americans,” part of a weekly retrospective of World War II. Thanks to Steve Colburn for passing this along.
Monday October 17, 2011
The Hankuk Kiwon (Korean Go Association) sent Chun Poong Jho 9P to Mexico this month, in honor of the XIII Iberoamerican Go Tournament. Chun has promoted go internationally for decades, and speaks several languages. Local organizer Siddhartha Avila reports: “Mr. Chun visited the Pipiolo Art School and was received by teachers, parents and students. During the day the kids presented a Mexican song performance, and we had a visit from the Public Education Zone Supervisor as well, who learned about the great benefits of teaching go in kindergarden and elementary schools. We reported on our participation in the AGHS School Team Tournament, and we had the National Youth Go Tournament award ceremony, as well as a conference, lectures, and simultaneous games given by Mr. Chun to the children from first grade to sixth grade. Mr. Chun emphasized studying harder and said we should continue working to improve the playing level of Mexican youth, so that our top players can be invited to play at international youth tournaments. There was a rich cultural experience through a session of questions and answers about Korean and Mexican culture and of course about Baduk culture. Finally we wrapped up the event with a dinner at a typical Mexican restaurant with teachers, friends and family.” More pictures from the event are here. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo: Chun Phoong Jho 9P inspiring youngsters in Mexico City. Photo by Siddhartha Avila.Monday October 17, 2011
Do you have what it takes to be the leader of the pride? Registration is now open for the Young Lions Tournament, run by the American Go Honor Society (AGHS). Last year’s winner in the dan division, Vincent Zhuang 6d, went on to represent the US at the World Youth Go Championships. Will this year’s tourney predict our next US Champions as well? The tourney is scheduled for November 12-13. Participants must be 18 or younger and have solid, KGS or AGA ranks. All matches will be played on KGS in the AGHS Tournament room (Room List –> Tournaments). Prizes will be awarded to the top three in each division. Spectators are welcome, and the E-J will highlight some of the more interesting match ups. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth EditorSaturday October 15, 2011
The 2nd Bingsheng Cup came and went this week and Park Jieun 9P chalked up another international win. The Bingsheng Cup is a competition for the strongest female go players worldwide. 
First held last year, the tournament takes place at Qionglong Mountain, Suzhou, China and is also called the Qionglong Cup by some people. China, Japan and Korea, of course, fielded strong teams. However, being a truly international competition, competitors from other regions were also able to qualify. North America was represented by the USA’s Feng Yun 9P, who runs the Feng Yun Go School in New Jersey (she won the North American qualifier tournament for the Bingshen by defeating Yinli Wang 6D; Cathy Li 1P lost to Feng Yun by forfeit in the final on September 28. ). Joanne Missingham 5P once again played for Oceania and Natalaia Kovaleva 5D for Europe. Unfortunately all three of these players were knocked out in the first round and Missingham wasn’t able to repeat her impressive feat from the 1st Bingsheng Cup. In last year’s tournament Missingham fought all the way to the final, only losing to Korea’s Park Jieun 9P. This year, Park eventually faced China’s Tang Yi 2P in the final on October 13, 2011, but once again Park was too strong.
Feng Yun 9P’s game is below. More games and photos are available in Go Game Guru’s 2nd Bingsheng Cup report.
– Jingning; based on her original article at Go Game Guru. Photos: Left; Yu Zhiying 2P (left) plays Feng Yun 9P. Right; Park Jieun 9P in the final.
Monday October 10, 2011
D’mitri Moore, of Detroit, MI, and Jasmine Yan, of Edison, NJ, have each won $1,000 towards their college expenses, from the American Go Foundation. The scholarship recognizes high school students who have served as important youth organizers and promoters for the go community, and is awarded annually. Applications for next year’s scholarship are due by Nov. 20, more information can be found on the AGF website. Moore launched a go club at his high school in inner city Detroit, and stuck with it through thick and thin over the next four years. Moore’s essay for the scholarship speaks to his passion:“I believe that most inner-city children statistically fail to achieve, not because of their inability to comprehend, or actually do the school work, but because they are bored, because they are not being challenged on a level which forces them to think in a different manner in order to solve problems. The first person I introduced go to was one of these types. Everyday, when we would have nothing to do, I would teach the rules of go to this student and everyday he would steadily improve bit by bit. His intrigue of the game spread like a wildfire and his drive to one-day defeat me spurred him to want to play and study more. A connection had been made and every good go player knows that once you have a strong, connected group of stones, you have to make extensions from it in order to amass more territory. When I told him that I wanted to start a club at Renaissance High in order to get more people (specifically youth) in the city of Detroit to play, he was very determined to help look for a sponsor while I filled out the paperwork. Within our first 3 months, our group size tripled and all of the kids who may have never ever noticed each other walking down the hallway were connecting and bonding like they had been friends for years.” Moore entered his school in the AGHS School Teams Tourney, and was able to place fourth in the Jr. Varsity Division at their first tournament.
Jasmine Yan began teaching go as early as fifth grade, and launched go clubs at both her middle, and high schools. She led both teams to compete in the School Teams Tourney, and also became active as a teacher. When the opportunity to volunteer came, Yan immediately joined the AGHS, and eventually was elected President. In addition to running and organizing national tournaments, she helped with promotional efforts, and continued to teach locally the whole time. She first discovered go as a child in China, and wrote in her essay: “A few weeks after we had come back from China, I saw an advertisement for Feng Yun Go School, and I begged my parents to sign me up. However, in the first session, I was terrified to discover that I was the only girl, as well as the weakest in the class; for several weeks, I lost every game I played. Yet, during those difficult times, something about the game of Go persuaded me to keep playing. Nine years later, I have improved from 30 kyu to my current rank of 4 dan.” Not concerned solely with her own development, Yan also began teaching go at her Chinese school. “For the next three years, I taught the go class in FCD, with about ten to fifteen kids in each class. The first year was somewhat of an experiment for me. I learned that all the kids had different comprehension levels; some would understand the concepts taught immediately, and others took longer. Eventually, the kids in my class had ranks ranging from 1 dan to 25 kyu.” Yan also represented her country, as part of the US National Team in the first Mind Sports Games in Beijing, in 2008. – EJ Youth Editor Paul Barchilon. Photos: Top Left: D’mitri Moore; Top Right: Jasmine Yan.
Monday October 10, 2011
Crystal Lake South High School Chinese Club, in Illiinois, launched its first event of the semester with an introduction to go (weiqi) by Chicago teacher and weiqi enthusiast Simon Xinming Guo, on Sept. 22nd. Guo came at the invitation of Ms. Lin Hsieh, the Chinese language teacher at the school. Ms. Hsieh hopes to use Weiqi to help her students to understand Chinese culture and to learn strategic thinking. Altogether, about 110 students from Crystal Lake South and Cary-Grove High school learned about weiqi in their Chinese language classes. Check out Guo’s page for the event for more info. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo by Xinming Guo.
Monday October 10, 2011
by Roy Laird
Earlier this year, we covered the skeptical reaction to Henry Kissinger’s claim, in his new book On China, that principles of go — or weiqi, as it’s known in China — influence Chinese military and political thinking. (Click here to view the article. ) The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and others found the comparison shallow and superfluous. Noted go author Peter Shotwell disputed the historical basis for Kissinger’s assumptions here. Now Richard Bozulich, the founder of Ishi Press and Kiseido and author or publisher of dozens of the finest go books in English, goes even farther, in an essay available for download exclusively on the AGA’s Bob High Memorial Library. In Richard Bozulich on Kissinger on China and Go, he presents a set of facts to support the view that in fact China pursues particularly unreasonable, unyielding policies, while the US and even chess-playing Russia sometimes apply “commonsense” principles that can also be found in go, but do not originate there. Whether or not one agrees, it’s a well-made case and a fascinating read. I especially enjoyed a section intended for non-players in which the “commonsense” aspects of strategic concepts like aji and yosu-miru seem to come clearly into focus, even for a non-player. We eagerly await Dr. Kissinger’s response . . .