Sunday July 21, 2013
“This issue (7/21 EJ) gets filed under ‘How Cool Is This!?'” writes Jean de Maiffe. “Pairing go and music satisfies two of my longtime pleasures, and as an old go teacher, I am especially delighted with the children’s day camp information. Three cheers for go organizers and go teachers everywhere!”
Saturday July 20, 2013
Registration for this year’s US Go Congress is nearing 400, including 22 
professional go players. The Congress runs August 3-11 in Tacoma, WA. Among the highlights are the Pentathlon, a new event “for the truly dedicated competitors” that includes the US Open, 9×9, 13×13, lightning, and self-paired tournaments. Also new this year is the Teacher’s Workshop, which will provide teachers with a certificate that will identify them as officially recognized AGA Go Teachers. Takemiya Masaki 9P will lead a session on “The teaching game,” and Lee Dahye 4P, a specialist in teaching teachers in Korea, will run several sessions on teaching single digit kyu players. “Many of us have taught someone to play; now is the time to learn how to do it better,” says Congress Director Chris Kirschner. “The original theme of aiming just at beginners has been left in the dust,” adds workshop director Bill Camp. Anyone may attend any of the 16 workshop sessions, but only registered participants earn a certificate; click here for details and to sign up.
photo: Kirschner models the 2013 Congress t-shirt; photo by Phil Straus
Friday July 19, 2013
“Thank you for Tony Collman’s article about Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, two legendary musicians I did not know were go players,” writes Steve Burrall. “Another go connection in music is ‘Go’ by Stomu Yamashta (actually Tsutomu Yamashita), Steve Winwood and Michael Shrieve. In 1976 the Japanese percussionist Tsutomu Yamashita formed what is generally considered to be a ‘supergroup’ owing to having musicians from Traffic, Santana and Return to Forever; the name of the group as well as the name of the first recording was ‘Go’. While not explicitly about the game of go, the influence of the game is quite clear in some of the songs. Yamashita is quoted as saying that ‘it’s a game of chance, random and abstract, with few rules. It’s also about opposites colliding, reality and fantasy shifting into one another, re-birth through suffering, and defeat turned to victory.’ Those with an interest in the confluence of jazz, rock music and classical music are likely to find it to be a very beautiful music journey.” -Graphic from the Wikipedia page for the album.Friday July 19, 2013
The Japanese Friendship Garden of San Diego’s summer day camp is including go lessons, for the second year in a row. Using equipment provided by the American Go Foundation, San Diego Go Club president Ted Terpstra reports that he’s “teaching beginners the basics of go, and having them playing games on small boards within 20 minutes.” Fifteen day campers are learning about go through Hikaru no Go episodes on Hulu, as well as with books. “The enthusiastic go players have sets available during free time for playing after learning the essentials,” Terpstra adds. Each week is a different age grouping with children in grades from kindergarten through 6th, the program is running for five weeks. -photo by Ted Terpstra: third and fourth graders learn go.Thursday July 18, 2013
At this year’s US Go Congress, the Pair Go Tournament will include special festivities including an opening ceremony, and slide show, as well as a Best Dressed Competition. Pair Go players will also receive lapel pins featuring the new US Pair Go logo (at right, designed by graphic designer Wende Mate to show the “solidifying identity” of Pair Go in the US) “and other goodies,” reports AGA Pair Go Coordinator Rachel Small. In conjunction with the World Pair Go Association, ‘Pair Go Promotion Partner (PGPP) Passports’ will be launched in the US for the first time at the Congress. “The passport is a symbol of enthusiasm for promoting Pair Go, and will be stamped at each Pair Go event you attend to track your adventures in competitive Pair Go, starting with this Congress’s North American Pair Go Championship and Youth-Adult Pair Go Tournament,” says Small. To receive your passport at the Congress, apply for PGPP membership at the Congress website . After the Congress, a short video will be released highlighting the congress Pair Go events and celebrating the culture of Pair Go in the US. ‘Like’ AGA Pair Go on Facebook to see coverage of the Congress events, including tournament results and photos from the Best Dressed Competition. To contribute photos to be included in the slide show, email pairgo@usgo.org. Financial incentives will be provided for an organizer/director for the Pair Go pro teaching workshop at this year’s Congress, a game-recorder for the top table Pair Go game, a volunteer to record video of Congress Pair Go events, and a video-editor to piece together the footage into a short promotional piece. Those interested should contact Small at pairgo@usgo.org.Thursday July 18, 2013
Kan Yao 5d took first place in the annual Skip Ascheim Memorial Tournament on Sunday July 14th in Somerville Massachusetts, topping a field of 22. “The Massachusetts Go Association greatly appreciates the cordial relationship we have with the Boylston Chess Club in whose space we hold our tournaments,” says Tournament Director Eva Casey. Su Co Chon Duc (aka Marjorie Hey) helped run things for part of the day when Casey had to leave to deal with a family emergency. Results: 1st: Kan Yao 5D (4-0); 2nd: Tiantian Yuan 3D (3-1); 3rd (tie): Jason McGibbon 3k and Giancarlo Feula 7k (both 3-1).Wednesday July 17, 2013
It was the problems that hooked Rex Weyler. The Greenpeace founder had just learned go from writer Rick Fields (“Chop Wood, Carry Water”) “and Rick gave me a beginner’s book — Ishigure’s In The Beginning, I think — and I took it 
home that night in 1981 and the life and death problems were so fascinating that the game absolutely hooked me. Weyler, a reknowned environmental activist and journalist, has been playing go ever since. When he co-founded the Hollyhock learning center on Cortes Island in British Columbia the following year, Weyler made sure that a go workshop was included, initially led by Canadian go player Roy Langston, and then for many years by American James Kerwin 1P. After a hiatus, the Hollyhock go workshop returned this year, this time with Janice Kim 3P, and of course Weyler, who has moved back to Cortes Island, was there. “Go fits in with the way I see the world,” Weyler told the E-Journal in an interview earlier this week in his home overlooking a spectacular view of Lake Hague. “I trained in math but became a writer, and go is a wonderful combination of logic and aesthetics. And the better you can balance the two, the better you can play.” After more than three decades of playing, Weyler says “I’m still learning lessons from go that apply to life. Be aggressive but show retraint; it’s okay to be optimistic but that’s not a strategy. You’ve got to get outside and see the bigger picture,” Weyler says, speaking as both a go player and ecologist. “Go, if you play well, teaches you different ways of thinking.”
– report/photo by Chris Garlock; photo: Weyler (l) playing with former AGA President Phil Straus at Hollyhock. Learn more about Weyler’s work on his website.
Wednesday July 17, 2013
Longtime go writer Richard Bozulich, rumored to have died two years ago (Richard Bozulich Not Dead After All 11/9/2011 EJ), is alive and well and apparently running for New York City Comptroller, a race that has drawn international attention since former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer entered it a week ago. According to a post on the Liberty Lion blog, Bozulich was nominated by the Personal Freedom Party to be its candidate for Comptroller on July 3 after the party was notified that Kristin Davis, its original nominee, was ineligible. “If elected,” Bozulich pledged, “I will quickly and anonymously donate my salary to charities that are close to my heart, such as those promoting the game of go and encouraging students to study mathematics.” American Go Foundation President Terry Benson said that “We look forward to having a friend of go at City Hall.”
Wednesday July 17, 2013
The American Go Association (AGA) Board of Directors approved the AGA budget for fiscal 2014 at its meeting on July 7; the budget includes funds for a pro certification tournament to be completed by the end of 2013. The AGA will continue to look for new sponsors to replace Tygem, but will run this year’s tournament from reserves and from money earmarked for the AGA’s new professional system. In other actions, the Board approved the creation of a pilot program for AGA ratings of online games, which would parallel the ratings system now in place for in-person games. President Andy Okun will be pursuing implementation plans along with completion of plans to issue formal Rank Certificates to players who have demonstrated achievement at a particular rank level. The first such certificates will be awarded to top finishers in most brackets at the 2013 US Go Congress. Additionally, Bob Gilman and Royce Chen have been authorized to investigate the feasibility of bringing a Cuban player — or players — to the 2014 US Go Congress. The Board will assess options for fundraising and implementing such an effort after the committee reports back.
Iyama Retains Honinbo Title With 4.5-Point Win in Game 7
Saturday July 20, 2013
In the end, Iyama Yuta 9P’s hold on the Honinbo title came down to 4.5 points.
That was Iyama’s margin of victory over Takao Shinji 9P in the final game of the 68th Honinbo title, which concluded on July 18 at 7:42p after 262 moves in Hadano, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. This is the third time in three years that the Honinbo has gone the full 7-game distance, including last year when Iyama took the title from Yamashita Keigo 9P. Iyama and Takao began their grueling duel in mid-May with Iyama winning the first game. Takao quickly made up the loss by controlling the next two games. However, Iyama (right) was not intimidated and fought back in games four and five, giving himself a chance to capture the match in game six, but Takao quickly extinguished those hopes in just 194 moves to set up yet another dramatic final game for the match. In the decisive seventh game (left), Iyama, taking black, used almost half of his eight-hour time allowance during the first day alone. When Takao sealed the move (W74) at 5:07p on July 17, he had four hours and forty-eight minutes remaining while his opponent only had four hours and five minutes. At 9a the next morning, the tricky sealed move was revealed and
[link]
“[changed] the flow of the game,” according to live game commentator Rin Kanketsu 7P. Yet up until move 70, either player could have taken the title. It was white’s tenuki at move 82 that was the crucial misstep that allowed black to secure thickness and give Iyama the advantage. White attempted to complicate the game at move 92 but Iyama stayed unfazed through the endgame and claimed victory with only two minutes left on his clock. In a post-game interview, Iyama said he felt fortunate to have held on to the title after such a challenging series. Takao felt lucky he made it to the end but was disappointed in his own performance. Since his most recent Honinbo title in 2007, Takao has tried to “reclaim the crown” three times to no avail. Iyama, on the other hand, holds five of the seven major Japanese titles (Kisei, Honinbo, Tengen, Oza, and Gosei) and also won the 25th Asian TV Cup at the end of June, proving his international prowess.
– Annalia Linnan, based on a more detailed report — including more photos and game records — on Go Game Guru; photos courtesy Go Game Guru