American Go E-Journal » 2012 » November

by Dr. Roy Laird
At Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, three out of every four students qualify for free lunch, but when it comes to spirit, support and  pure brain power, some of them have plenty of resources. In fact, as we learn in Brooklyn Castle, the award-winning new documentary from Kelly Dellamaggiore, IS 318 is home to some of the strongest young chess players in the country; the school’s teams have brought home nearly 30 national championships. As a longtime proponent of go in the schools, I found the film to be an inspiring reminder of what mind sports can do for kids. Brooklyn Castle follows five members of the 2009-2010 team, each with their own goal.   Rochelle Ballantyne wants to be the first African-American female Master level (ELO 2000) player (11/18 update: she made it, with a new rating of 2057 following the recent World Youth Chess Championship in Maribor, Slovenia). Patrick Johnston, on the other hand, just wants a positive result so he can raise his ranking out of the 400s. (Spoiler alert: chess seems to help him with some attention issues he had in earlier grades; he emerges from middle school as an honor student.) As the students pursue their dreams, we are reminded that behind every dream is a team. With support from the school’s budget, fundraising efforts and help from foundations such as Chess-In-The-Schools, school staff go far beyond the call of duty, for instance taking 57 players of all levels to the National Championship in Dallas. That’s 57 potentially life-altering experiences right there. Chess-loving children apply from far and wide because they know that all sixth grade students are required to take at least one period of chess per week; in seventh and eighth grade it becomes an elective, but students can schedule up to seven periods of chess per week. We also meet the players’ families and see the crucial role their support plays. The team’s toughest opponent turns out to be a succession of budget cuts that threatens to take them out of a national competition they know they can win.  Hurry if you want to see it in theaters, although the low-tech sound and video quality may be better suited for a smaller screen. You can also read about the school at length in How Children Succeed by Paul Tough.

Brooklyn Castle — in theaters now — vividly highlights the benefits of school-based mind sports programs. (Post-film progress report: As reported in The New York Times earlier this year, five players from IS 318 achieved the equivalent of a college baseball team winning the World Series, becoming the first middle school team to win the National High School Championship!)  Go is also a wonderful arena for this kind of growth and development, in some ways even better than chess. If you’re thinking of starting a go program in your community, The American Go Foundation can help you with free equipment, matching funds, mentoring and much more – you’ll be surprised how easy it can be, and how rewarding for teacher and student alike.
– Laird, a former President of the American Go Association, currently serves on the Board of the American Go Foundation and manages school-based mental health clinics for The Children’s Aid Society in New York City.

Players from as far as New Jersey and New York turned out for “a great day of go competition” at the Western Massachusetts Go Club Fall Tournament on Sunday, November 11th. “Bryan Denley scooted to first place, winning all four of his games,” reports TD William Luff. Willis Huang, Eric Osman, and An Tran tied for second. All the winners won one month’s membership to BadukTV.com and should e-mail Trevor Morris at gotrevor@gmail.com to claim their prize. photo (l-r): Ian Tran 10K, Eric Osman 2D, Bryan Denley 10K, William Luff 2D (TD) and Willis Huang 3D

Doctor Heidi Kirschner died at her home in Seattle on November 1. She was 99 years old. A beloved elder of the American go community, Kirschner helped build the local go scene in Seattle, WA; and her son, Chris, is also a longtime local and national go organizer currently serving on the boards of the Seattle Go Center, the American Go Foundation, and the American Go Association.

Heidi Kirschner was 9 kyu when she arrived in the US from Austria in October 1939, with her husband Franz, also a 9 kyu — and the suitor who was willing to learn go from her. Clutching the then-customary single suitcase that could be squeezed out of Nazi-controlled Europe at that time, Kirschner was, even at 9K, probably the strongest Caucasian woman in the US at that time. In that suitcase was a cardboard go board with wooden stones on which her son Chris, born less than two days after her arrival in Seattle, would learn to play at age 6, shortly after the end of the war.

Kirschner learned go from her mother and an uncle who had visited Japan with the Austrian navy around 1900 and picked it up there.  She grew up in Vienna, the daughter of Ludwig Moszkowicz, a prominent surgeon in Vienna, Austria, and Elizabeth, director of the first nursing school in Austria.  In 1937 Kirschner graduated from the University of Vienna Medical School and at the family graduation party met an American woman, Mildred Lemon from Olympia, Washington, who in 1939 sponsored the immigration of Heidi and Franz to Seattle, where she raised four children before returning to the practice of medicine in 1958, joining her husband in his solo practice.  She retired in 1977 but continued to teach early childhood development part time at the UW Medical School.

As early as 1961, when the American go scene was concentrated in New York City and San Francisco, Kirschner put Seattle on the map by hosting Iwamoto Kaoru 9P during his tour of the United States that year. And her home was often the site for go events like a teaching session a few years later for local Caucasian players when a trio of women professionals — Reiko Kitani, and Sachiko Honda and Teruko — from Japan visited.  With son Chris directing, and assuring her she was not too weak at 9K, she  attended the US Go Congress in Seattle in 1995, and was a fixture at many subsequent Go Congresses as well as at local events at the Seattle Go Center.

As her mother before her, and her son after, Heidi Kirschner believed strongly that go could be an instrument of peace, a belief also shared by  Iwamoto, the Japanese professional go player – and Hiroshima survivor — who funded the Seattle Go Center as part of a mini-network of go centers founded in New York City, Amsterdam, Sao Paolo and Seattle to support the spread of go worldwide.
– photo by Phil Straus