Tuesday July 16, 2013
It’s East Coast versus West Coast as Greater Washington is set to battle Los Angeles in the first-ever 2013 Pandanet-AGA City League finals. The two are the top finishers in the A League and will face off in the finals at the upcoming US Go Congress. Vancouver finished third, Seattle was fourth, in fifth place was Boston and New York finished in sixth. Click here for details. The rest of the leagues are expected to be completed by the end of the month.
Tuesday July 16, 2013
Registration for the 13th Pandanet Marathon tournament, the Cho Chikun Cup, is open until this Friday, July 19. Players have 42 days and 19.5 hours — 42.195 is a marathon’s length in kilometers –to play as many games as they can. Those finishing with 300 points or more will get their names displayed on the Pandanet web page and will be eligible for a certificate signed by Cho Chikun. Click here for details and registration procedures.
Tuesday July 16, 2013
What’s a go lover to do when faced with the choice of a dissertation topic? For Grant Kerr, a doctoral candidate at the SKEMA Business School’s Lille campus, the choice was obvious. Kerr, an experienced manager of IT and process 
improvement projects, had become disillusioned. “Traditional project management . . . is limited by its rationalist, determinist, normative, first-order control paradigm,” he writes. “It does not sufficiently consider context, strategy, irrational decision-making, nor does it deal with effects of goal and methods uncertainty such as high rates of change and reciprocal interactions between activities.” As a longtime go player, Kerr realized that go may serve as a useful analogy to examine these issues. He notes that “the game of go has been used as a source analogue for many disciplines, e.g. military; politics (Boorman 1969; Kissinger 2011), business (Anderson 2004; Miura 1995), and mathematics (Conway 1976),” and proceeds to examine 83 identifiable principles of play. In the end finds that seven of these principles may lead to more productive problem analysis, especially when there is strong opposition to a project. “[Go] adds a new perspective to current thinking on uncertainty. It suggests that project managers learn to deal with enduring conflict.” Kerr’s thesis is available in The Bob High Memorial Library.
– Roy Laird
Tuesday July 16, 2013
The 19th European Youth Go Championship (EYGC) will take place at a holiday camp, a peculiarly British institution, in the seaside resort of Bognor Regis on the south coast of England from March 28-31, 2014, The British Go Association has announced. This is a Class-A MacMahon tournament in six rounds for three age categories: U12, U16 and U20. The 2014 British Go Congress 2014, which includes the British Open, will be held on that Saturday and Sunday, March 29-30. Click here for this year’s EYGC results.
– Tony Collman
Monday July 15, 2013
The 2013 German Championship wrapped up in Darmstadt on July 7. The first round to determine the final eight contenders was played mid-June in Kassel. On July 4, round-one winners Lucas Krämer, Bernd Radmacher 4d, Marlon Welter 4d, and Matthias Terwey 5d joined last year’s final four Franz-Joseph Dickhut 6d, Johannes Obenaus 5d, Jun Tarumi 5d, and Benjamin Teuber 6d at “game mecca” Gastspielhaus. Although Franz-Joseph was the oldest and most experienced player at age 44 with 11 previous German Championship titles, 20-year-old Kramer (left) defeated him in the first match. Radmacher also secured his first win against 2006 German youth champion Obenaus. The remaining games were played at the Bertolt-Brecht School. In the end, Kramer triumphed with six wins while Radmacher placed second with five and Obenaus third with four and a draw. For full results, pictures, and more information (in German), click here.
— Annalia Linnan, based on a report by the International Go Federation, photo courtesy of EuroGoTV
Monday July 15, 2013
Senior officials at the Israeli Ministry of Economy attended a special training session, linking economic concepts to go, at a conference near Jerusalem, on July 11th. “We were invited to lecture on Strategic Thinking and Decision Making Tools – Use of Go/ Baduk as a model,” reports Shavit Fragman, president of Mind Chain Baduk Club. “Baduk and economic concepts were discussed at length, with many demonstrations and illustrations. It drew a lot of attention (no one left or fell asleep) and participants reported it was the best workshop of the day. The audience also showed great interest in the baduk brochures and other available go materials, and expressed interest in continued sessions to further explore the concepts and model for use in their work and life. Since the beginning of the year Mind Go Club has demonstrated baduk to over 500 new people,” adds Fragman. The presentation is available as a pdf here, more photos from the event are here. -Paul Barchilon. Photo by Shavit Fragman.
Monday July 15, 2013
Every week for the past year or so, BadukMovies co-founders Peter Brouwer and Kim Ouweleen have added an “episode” 
to their archive of nearly 80 short videos aimed mostly at aspiring mid-level players. The clear, bite-size chunks of information seem easy to digest, and many of the early ones are free (click on still at right for a sample). You can also subscribe to BadukMovies Pro series for €8/month for exclusive access to additional material. The content is created by Korean 9P Cho Hye-yeon and two experienced authors, Yoon Young-sun 8P and Kim Sung-rae 8P. Another remarkable feature is the pro game database. The “pattern search” function is pretty cool. Place stones on the board, select an area and you can search an archive of more than 47,000 pro games and find all the games where that pattern appeared and see how those games came out. The free lectures are great for mid-level players; it looks like BadukMovies Pro is more advanced.
– Roy Laird
Sunday July 14, 2013
Legendary British folk musician, the late, great Bert Jansch was keen on go. He used to play often with John Renbourn, a
fellow member of British folk-rock band (The) Pentangle, whom he had befriended on the UK folk circuit.
In 1966, year before the formation of Pentangle, they recorded an album together, Bert and John (1966, Transatlantic, released in America with extra tracks 1969, by Vanguard, as Stepping Stones). The album’s cover picture shows the pair enjoying what looks to be a rather peaceful game of go.
The 1992 film of Bert Jansch’s career, Acoustic Routes, was re-released UK-wide and on DVD earlier this year. It is a documentary presented by top British comedian Billy Connolly, who was a good friend of both musicians and who performed on the circuit as a banjoist before breaking through as a comic. In a recent Jansch retrospective on BBC Radio2’s Folk Show, Connolly recounted in an interview with presenter Mark Radcliffe how Jansch and Renbourn played go continually between takes during the filming. Sadly, although a clip of the interview is still available, this anecdote was edited out.
Jansch and Renbourn feature in the British Go Association’s page of famous westerners who have played go too, where a link to more pictures of the two playing go can be found, taken from the booklet issued with the CD of Bert and John.
– Tony Collman, British correspondent for the E-Journal; album cover photo courtesy of blog of Portugese sixties music fan The Red Hippie Teenager
Saturday July 13, 2013
The American Go Honor Society (AGHS) has published their officer applications for the upcoming 2013-2014 school year. “Are you interested in joining the core team of one of the largest youth organizations dedicated to go,” asks Eric Chen, outgoing Co-President. The officer positions include Vice President, Treasurer, Promotion Head, Tournament Organizer, and Secretary. “This dedicated board of members will run the renowned annual School Team Tournament, in addition to several other events, and strive to spread the game of go amongst the youth of the U.S. Come join us in our go-craze frenzy! You never know where you might go,” adds Chen. Applications are due August 18th, and can be downloaded on the aghs website. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.
Saturday July 13, 2013
Serbia: Lazar Manojlovic 5d defeated Dragan Dubakovic 3d at the 46th City Championship Finals in Kragujevac on July 7. Misa Alimpic 3d placed third. UK: At the Milton Keynes in Open University, Bruno Poltronieri 2d bested Toby Manning 2d while Michael Cockburn 1k came in third. Russia: The Under 20 Russian Championship finished July 2 in Saint Petersburg with Alexandr Vashurov 6d (left) in first, Stepan Popov 3d in second, and Grigorij Fionin 4d in third.
— Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news