American Go E-Journal » 2014 » March

Gu Li Strikes Back, Winning Game 3 in MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango

Sunday March 30, 2014

Gu Li 9p (right) chalked up his first win in the MLily Gu vs Lee jubango, forcing Lee Sedol 9p to resign in game 3 on Sunday, March 30. Lee and Gu faced one another in Chengdu – the capital city of Sichuan, China – having traveled straight there after their game at the 10th Chunlan Cup two days earlier.

After 
Lee won game 2 of this historic jubango in February, he led the 10 game match 2-0. Since Gu lost game 2 in regrettable circumstances, many go fans reasonably surmised that Lee would have the psychological advantage going into the third game, but over the last week, Gu defeated Lee in the 4th Zhaoshang Cup (a China vs Korea team tournament) on March 23, and followed it up with another win at the 10th Chunlan Cup on the 28th, which may have helped to restore Gu’s confidence. The win is heartening not only for Gu, of course, but for go fans worldwide who are doubtless hoping the jubango will go the full 10 games.
– Based on Go Game Guru’s report, which includes the game record and An Younggil 8p’s brief analysis. 

 

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U.S. Go Congress Registration Opens with Special Rebate Offer

Sunday March 30, 2014

Registration for the 2014 U.S. Go Congress has opened with a special offer: $50 cash for using your AGA Capital One Visa credit card. Use it to pay for the Congress and you’ll get an extra $10, for a total of $60. “This year’s Congress is in New York City, one of the continent’s premier destinations,” says AGA president Andy Okun. “To help Congress attendees enjoy themselves in the Big Apple, we’re offering $50 cash walking-around money to any Congress attendee who at the time of registration shows us their AGA Capital One Visa credit card and tells us, hand on heart, they have bought something with it.” 

Possible New York City uses for this cash windfall include museum entry, cab fare, hot dogs, pretzels with mustard, lemonade, pizza slices “or oysters,” says Okun, noting that author Mark Kurlansky has argued that New York should really be called “The Big Oyster”. Oysters used to be plentiful in New York, and when European settlers first arrived, it is estimated that half of the oysters in the world were in New York’s harbors, inlets and riverbeds. Although that’s no longer the case, “$50 should get get you a dozen Blue Point oysters, a bowl of clam chowder and two beers at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station,” Okun says.
One payment per credit card. The AGA affinity card is a no fee credit card, “so it costs you nothing to apply and use the card,” says Okun. The AGA receives a one-time payment of $50 the first time you use it and a percentage of your spending on the card thereafter. Click here to apply for the card and here to register for the Congress.

 

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Matthew Burrall & Tai-An Cha Top Davis/Sacramento Tournament

Sunday March 30, 2014

Matthew Burrall 6d and Tai-An Cha 5k topped their divisions in the Davis/Sacramento Go Club’s Spring Tournament at the Arden-Dimick library in Sacramento on March 29, 2014. There was a field of 17 players ranging in strength from about 20 kyu to 6 dan. “This was the largest number of player that we have had at one of our tournaments in quite a while,” reports Willard Haynes.
photo: Matthew Burrall 6d (left) and Tai-An Cha 5k

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Categories: U.S./North America
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NOVA Cherry Blossom Report

Sunday March 30, 2014

The annual NOVA Cherry Blossom tournament was held on Saturday, March 29, at George Mason University Law School in Arlington, VA. Thirty-nine players participated, including long-distance commuter Paul Celmer from North Carolina. “A special visitor was Mr. I. Moon, Chairman of the Board of the Fairfax County Board of Education, who is promoting go and recruiting go teachers for his elementary schools,” reports organizer Allan Abramson. Reach Moon at IMoon@fcps.edu.

Winners Report:
First place: Justin Teng, 7D, 3-1; Muyuan Wang, 3D, 4-0; Julian Erville, 1K, 4-0; Darren Bias, 4K, 4-0; Barreal Anderson, 9K, 3-0; Steve Manning, 11K, 3-1; and Jonathan Luo, 15K, 3-1
Second place: Josh Lee, 5D, 3-1; Nathan Epstein, 1D, 2-1; Frank Luo, 1K, and Frederick Bao, 2K (tied at 3-1); Matt Payton, 5K, 2-2; Bob Crites, 9K, 3-1; Liam Royce, 11K, and Kevin Stefanik, 11K (tied at 2-2); and Caroline Scheck, 15K, and Sarah Crites, 18K (tied at 2-2)

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Categories: U.S./North America
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Go Quiz: Best Western Go Reference?

Sunday March 30, 2014

THE LITTLE RED BOOK: For many, this volume of the Elementary Go Series (available from Kiseido and SmartGoBooks) was the book they were waiting for – the book that taught the West how to fight. Rarely a day goes by without someone responding to a query on KGS with the simple directive “Read Attack and Defense”. When your quizmaster did a poll on the best English-language go books, Akira Ishida and James Davies’ effort received many praises. 13 out of 17 of you read the position correctly. As for those who consult his joseki dictionary regularly, you are better players than your quizmaster, for you open your go books and do not simply look at the covers, but a look at the cover of “The Dictionary of Basic Joseki” will show that it was authored by Ishida Yoshio (and translated by John Power). For your information, the two “fors” in sentence one, four and five of this week’s column are for Roland Crowl, who pointed out my egregious grammatical error in last week’s question and missed by my editor. Congratulations to Reinhold Burger of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, this week’s winner, selected at random from those answering correctly.

THIS WEEK’S QUIZ: Speaking of polls, this week, in celebration of go’s prominent role on MTV’s Teen Wolf, as covered in the E-Journal, let’s hear from you on what you think is the best Western cultural reference to go. We will limit the answers to English language and it must be something featuring or mentioning go, but not directly about go or go instruction. And it needs to be original – so the obvious choice of Hikaru No Go does NOT qualify. I will judge the best response on such objective criteria as coolness, popularity, appropriateness and correctness of the reference. This can be books, TV, movies, advertising or news events. Click here to submit your nomination; I look forward to hearing from all of you.
– Keith Arnold, HKA, EJ Quizmaster.

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Myungwan Kim to Comment Gu-Lee Jubango Game 3 on KGS

Friday March 28, 2014

Myungwan Kim 9P will do live audio commentary on this weekend’s Lee Sedol – Gu Li Jubango on KGS.

His commentary, with James Kim 1d, will start at 8p PST (11p EST) on Saturday, March 29. As previously reported (Gu Li & Lee Sedol Face Off in Jubango Game 3 This Weekend 3/27 EJ), Go Game Guru’s An Younggil 8p will also be commenting the game on Baduk TV Live.

“This third game will be very important for Gu Li,” Kim tells the E-Journal. “If he loses it will be very difficult for him to catch up. “With Lee leading 2-0, Gu should have a lot pressure on this game and needs to overcome it. I hope Gu Li can win and make the series more exciting.” Kim notes that the two are playing a game at Chunlan Cup on Friday, March 28, which may affect the jubango game.

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Gu Li & Lee Sedol Face Off in Jubango Game 3 This Weekend

Thursday March 27, 2014

Gu Li will be looking to begin erasing his 2-game deficit Game 3 of the Lee Sedol – Gu Li Jubango this weekend. Gu beat Lee in Round 2 of the just-concluded Zhaoshang Cup on March 21 (Korea wins 4th Zhaoshang Cup by a whisker GGG 3/24/2014), and is playing him again in Round 2 of the Chunlan Cup but Lee leads 2-0 in the jubango. Live coverage with commentary of the match will start on Baduk TV three hours after the first move is played. The commentators will replay and analyze the game from the beginning and Go Game Guru’s An Younggil 8p will translate and discuss the game in English with Baduk TV Live viewers. The coverage starts at 1:00 pm Korea time on Sunday, March 30 (Midnight Sunday morning EST). You can watch the game on Baduk TV for as little as $2.70 with a Baduk TV Day Pass.
Go Game Guru; photo: Gu draws Lee in the Chunlan Cup

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“New Yorker” Reports on Computer Go

Wednesday March 26, 2014

The latest advances in computer go are covered in a new post by The New Yorker. In “The Electronic Holy War”, Patrick House reports on the Densei-sen, “or ‘electronic holy war,’ tournament, in Tokyo, where the best Go programs in the world play against one of the best humans” where Crazy Stone last March defeated Yoshio “the Computer” Ishida.

The article does an excellent job of explaining why go has been so tough for computers to crack. “Part of the difficulty for computers—and humans—is that it is often hard to determine at any given time whether a group of pieces is being surrounded or doing the surrounding, and thus who is ahead…Without a clear understanding of who is ahead, programs like Deep Blue stutter. ‘All the machinery that was built up for computer chess is pretty useless,’” (Murray) Campbell (a member of the IBM Deep Blue team says.

It also explains how “Monte Carlo” algorithms, initially developed seventy years ago as part of the Manhattan Project, have been the key to developing stronger go programs. “The better the programs got, the less they resembled how humans play: during the game with Ishida, for example, Crazy Stone played through, from beginning to end, approximately three hundred and sixty million randomized games. At this pace, it takes Crazy Stone just a few days to play more Go games than humans collectively ever have. ‘I have to be honest: I still find it kind of magical, that it works as well as it does,’ Campbell said.”

The “electronic holy war” will run once a year in Tokyo until 2017, the report continues. “This past weekend, at the second annual tournament, Crazy Stone faced Norimoto Yoda, a Japanese professional who has a reputation for slamming pieces onto the board—sometimes shattering them—to intimidate his opponent. Crazy Stone was given a four-move head start and, lacking the eyes and ears through which another player might have been intimidated, won by two and a half points. “After the match, Yoda, through a translator, told me that he was grateful for Crazy Stone because it eased up at the end and allowed the game to be closer than it actually was: the result of randomness—or, perhaps, of the beginnings of pity.”
Photograph of Rémi Coulom and Ishida Yoshio courtesy of gogameguru.com

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Subtitled “Tokyo Newcomer” Available Online

Wednesday March 26, 2014

German go journalist colleague Tobias Berben recently sent a link to an English-subtitled online version of Tokyo Newcomer  (New Go Films: Tokyo Newcomer & Weiqi Wonders 5/7/2012 EJ). In Jiang Qinmin’s 2012 film, Chinese go genius Yoshiryu (Qin Hao) comes to Japan to hone his skills in the game, but finds he’s too busy earning a living to study go at all. One day, he meets an old woman hawking vegetables, who turns out to be a descendant of a prestigious go family. “Written and directed by a Mainland Chinese, but utterly Japanese in look and feel, ‘Tokyo Newcomer’ is an engaging light drama centred on a young Chinese guy’s passion for the board game of go and his assimilation into the country which has made the (Chinese-invented) game into a national expression of its mindset,” writes Film Business Asia’s Derek Elley.

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Categories: Go Art,Go Spotting
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Go Spotting: Teen Wolf Takes Sente

Tuesday March 25, 2014

MTV’s Teen Wolf has shattered the Go Spotting record, featuring go four weeks in a row, on a show that’s not about go.  With a viewership of 3.5 million, repeated mentions of the game, and even a summary of the main goals, local clubs could soon be seeing a surge of new players if even a fraction of those viewers become curious about go and learn to play.  This week’s episode, entitled “The Divine Move” both starts and ends with go.  Early in the episode Mrs. Yukimura (Tamlyn Tomita) advises a desperate Stiles (Dylan O’Brien) while the family is seated around a go board “he made a powerful move by splitting the two of you.”   “So what’s our move?” responds  her daughter Kira (Arden Cho), as she places a stone on the board. “The Nogitsune has had sente until this point, what you need is a ‘Divine Move’ in order to turn this game around,” responds her mother.  Stiles does find a divine move, in the story arc at least, and his friends defeat the Nogitsune at last.  Towards the end of the episode, Kira’s parents are seen picking up the pieces from the go board, drawing a conclusion to the story arc (and the season).  Full episodes of Teen Wolf can be streamed on the MTV website here. As an added bonus, in the after show (Wolf Watch) series creator Jeff Davis also talks briefly about go. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.  Photo from the MTV website: Kira places a stone on the board, while Stiles talks to Mrs. Yukimura.

 

 

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