American Go E-Journal » 2013 » September

There were no surprises on the top boards on the first day of the 2013 World Amateur Go Championship, as strong players dominated weaker opponents in the early rounds. China’s Yuqing Hu, one of that country’s strongest amateurs, defeated Belgium’s Lucas Neirynck and Slovenia’s Janez Janza; Korea’s Hyunjae Choi beat Andrew Kay of the UK (right) and Curtis Tang of the US; Tapei’s Shin-Wei Lin defeated Thiago Sinji Shimada Ramos of Brazil and Artem Kachanovskyi of the Ukraine; Russia’s Ilya Shikshin beat Charlie Akerblom of Sweden and Suzanne D’Bel of Malaysia; Hong Kong’s King Man Kwan defeated Bertan Bilen of Turkey and Kikou Emura of Japan. Curtis Tang of the US defeated John Erickson Javier of the Philippines and lost to Korea, and Canada’s Bill Lin defeated Alexander Bukh of Kazakhstan and Aleksandar Savchovski of Bulgaria. In other results, France’s Thomas DeBarre defeated both Ireland’s James Hutchinson and Denmark’s Per Marquardsen, while Czechia’s Ondrej Silt lost to Singapore in the second round, after defeating Lithuania’s Vladas Zaleskas in Round 1. Click here for full results; here for selected game records and here for the player roster. Four matches are broadcast each round on Pandanet and WBaduk. Click here for Michael Redmond 9P’s commentaries on the Round 2 Finland-Colombia and Argentina-Israel games.
-Chris Garlock; photo by John Pinkerton; game commentaries by Michael Redmond 

In these first-round games, very strong players make short work of their

 weaker opponents. Curtis Tang 6D (US) needed just 100 moves to force a resignation from 4-kyu John Erickson Javier (Phillipines), while Alexandr Bukh 5k (Kazakhstan) didn’t last much longer against Bill Tianyu Lin 7D (Canada), resigning after 103 moves (click here for Michael Redmond’s game commentary). In his game commentaries, Michael Redmond 9P shows how the games were actually over much earlier. We’re also including the uncommented records for the Serbia-Nepal and India-Australia games.
Alexandr Bukh, Kazakhstan’s representative, has only been playing for about five years, and this is his country’s first appearance in the WAGC. “For as long as I can remember I have been captivated by Japanese culture,” he says, “both the new and the old, and this led me to discover the game of go. I spent some time working in a company importing used vehicles from Japan, and through this I had the chance to learn some Japanese.” His visit to Sendai for the WAGC is his first time in Japan. Back home, Bukh travels each week to the city of Karaganda to play at its go club, “which has roughly ten regular players,” and he’s met another twenty or so other players across the country. “Recently there has been a surge in interest in go,” Bukh said, which lead to Kazakhstan’s invitation to play in this year’s WAGC. “The most popular sports in Kazakhstan are ice hockey, soccer and martial arts,” said Bukh, “I hope go will soon become one of them.”
– Bukh interview by John Richardson; game commentary by Michael Redmond; edited by Chris Garlock

The 34th World Amateur Go Championship Begins: The 34th World Amateur Go Championship began with a rousing opening ceremony and reception at the Sendai International Hotel on the evening of August 31…click here for Ranka’s report.

Round 1: The first round was paired by the traditional WAGC method, which matches the middle half of the field (28 players this year) at random against the first and fourth quarters (14 players each)…click here for James Davies’ report.

Interview with Christopher Welsh (South Africa): “Go is not as popular in South Africa as it is in some European countries. We have perhaps a hundred registered players. Perhaps fifty of those are regular club and tournament players. There are some initiatives to bring go into the townships in South Africa, which are going encouraging well, but its difficult make these initiatives happen.” Click here for the full interview by James Davies.

Goodwill Event: For the players at the 2013 World Amateur Go Championship, the first official event was a Goodwill Event held on Saturday morning, August 31, at the AER complex in Sendai. Naturally, it was a go-playing event. The Championship contestants were paired against a group of local players of all ages…click here for the full report.
3rd World Amateur Go Championship: The program of the 3rd WAGC (1981) is now available in PDF file format: click here to download.
photos by Ivan Vigano