Greater Washington has a slim one-point edge over Los Angeles in the the Pandanet-AGA City A League after seven rounds of play. In the B League Toronto has come out with a strong record and is leading the league with San Francisco hot on their heels. Round 8 is set for this Sunday, June 16 at 2p on IGS. In the A League, Los Angeles will play New York City, Greater Washington will play Boston, and Seattle will play Vancouver. With the field so strong at this point, Boston could wind up challenging LA and GW for the top slot. In the B League, Southern California will take on San Francisco in a tough match-up, Massachusetts will play Washington DC’s Team 2 and Toronto will play Montreal. It will be exciting to see if Toronto will gain another win to stay on top of the standings or will there be a tight playoff the last two rounds to determine the winner. Up-to-date standings are available on the Pandanet-AGA City League Page.
While the east coast has arguably been dominating national tournaments in recent years, LA found a secret weapon in 22-year-old anchor BeomGeun ‘Evan’ Cho 7D. The former Korean insei is 6-0 in the league, and has defeated several former US Open and/or North American Masters champs including Jie Li 7D, Andy Liu 1P, Ziyang Hu 1P and Huiren Yang 1P. And with Daniel Ko and Curtis Tang on tap, the LA team is so solid that if a team cannot beat Cho, then it must beat both Ko and Tang. Team captain Andrew Okun, President of the American Go Association, probably knows how to motivate his team. Meanwhile, with AGA legend Jie Li on board, DC is a legitimate champion candidate. Vancouver’s 2-4 score may be a bit of a surprise, but if they get Ziyang Hu 1P back to the lineup, they are still in the striking range. Boston is 3-0 against three teams with 2 wins, yet win-less against top two teams; it may be time for the team to step out of their “comfort zone”. Seattle has demonstrated the powerful strength of Korean American players, while New York City is also strong, but just has not yet had a good opening. Toronto is leading after beating San Francisco but the DC Team 2 is closely behind, followed by Montreal, Southern CA and Massachusetts.
Jon Boley and Steve Colburn head up the team running the City League, in which teams from North American cities play in a league system on the Pandanet-IGS server in the AGA room. The teams consist of up to five players, out of which three are selected to play in each round.
– report by Steve Colburn and Edward Zhang
