American Go E-Journal » 2014 » August

In a final showdown Friday afternoon, the Pair Go team of April Ye 1D and Daniel Ko 7D defeated Wan Chen 4D and Jie Liang 7D for the title of 2014 US Pair Go Champions. Eight pairs competed at two top tables at Thursday night’s Pair Go tournament to produce Friday afternoon’s finalists. As first place winners and this year’s US Pair Go Champions, Ye and Ko will represent the US at the International Pair Go Championship in Tokyo the last weekend of October. Wan Chen and Jie Liang took second place, Gabriella Su and Justin Ching were third and Amy Su and Forest Song placed fourth. After two rounds of competition Thursday night, the rest of the tournament produced 13 other table winners: Dahye Lee/Ben Lockhart, Xinying Jiang/Michael Chen, Zhiwei Gao/Chun Sun, Yingzhi Qian/Will Lockhart, Sophia Wang/Lionel Zang, Kaoru Hidaka/Shigeo Hidaka, Samantha Fede/Andrew Jackson, Miyoko Miyama/Yoshitomo Nakata, Melissa Cao/Raymond Feng, Alexandra Patz/Marc Palmer, Yoko Ohashi/Mark Fraser, Jesy Feliccia/Samuel Suastegui, Elan Ma/Eric Wu, and Melanie Arnold/Keith Arnold.
– report by Karoline Li; photo by Phil Straus. Click here to see a selection of Sarah Small’s Pair Go images on Facebook.

Mark Lee Takes Lead in Masters; Xiaotian Hu Leading in US Open: Eighteen-year-old Mark Lee 7D (right) has taken the lead in the US Open Masters Division, beating Zirui Song 1P in the sixth round Thursday morning to stretch his winning streak to 6-0. The former insei from Korea is a student of Myungwan Kim 9P and will be going to school in Los Angeles this Fall. Masters players with 5-1 records are Matthew Hu, Conner Li and Ryan Li; click here for the cross-tab, including game records for games broadcast on KGS by the EJ. In the US Open, Xiaotian Hu is leading with a 4-0 record; click here for the cross-tab. There will be two Masters rounds on Friday, Round 7 starting at 9a and Round 8 starting at 7p; top board games will be broadcast live on KGS; as usual there will be pro game commentaries beginning around 10a on KGS.

Chiu Wins Die Hard Tourney: Jeremy Chiu 6d topped a field of 81 players at Wednesday’s Die Hard Tournament, emerging as champion with a perfect 4-0 record.

Pair Go Photo Album Posted: Photographer Sarah Small’s gorgeous images from Thursday night’s Pair Go Tournament have been posted on Facebook; we’ll post results tomorrow.

Keep up with breaking news at the 2014 US Go Congress by following us on Twitter @theaga and Facebook at American Go Association. 

With next year’s Go Congress set for St Paul, Minnesota, organizers today released a beta version of the 2015 US Go Congress website and encouraged go players to check it out. “Sign up now for updates and you’ll be the first to know as we finalize details” says Congress Director Josh Larson. The St Paul Congress proposal – tentatively scheduled for August 1-9 – will be presented to the AGA General Assembly on Saturday but after a year of planning by the local organizing team, and with no other 2015 proposal on the agenda, approval is expected to be a formality. “The weather is great in the Twin Cities area this time of year,” Larson told the E-Journal, “and we’ve become nationally known for great food, craft breweries, outdoor activities, the Minnesota Twins and of course the nearby Mall of America.” Organizers will release updates as the dates are confirmed and once venue details are finalized, Congress registration will open, “hopefully by early 2015 if not sooner,” Larson said. photo by Phil Straus

While most of the action at the 2014 US Go Congress happens on the top floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania in midtown Manhattan, perhaps the most popular – the lectures by professional go players – takes place down on the 6th floor in nondescript conference rooms named after European capitals like London, Paris and Budapest. Each afternoon and evening finds  dozens of players raptly following every word of a go professional as he – or just as often, she (click here for the impressive list of pros at this year’s Congress, including four 9-dans) – explores the fascinating mysteries of the game of go. On Thursday night, Feng Yun 9P (left), after an exhaustive review of several josekis, blithely added, “But you can also tenuki: in the opening there are many many big moves, so you can just move on.” Across the hall, Mingming “Stephanie” Yin 1P (right) was exhorting her audience to study life and death problems. “You don’t have to study for hours every day,” she reassured them, “just pick a number of problems to do and then do them every day. They shouldn’t be too easy, and they shouldn’t be too hard, but you must do them every single day. If you do just two every day that’s more than 700 a year; that’s a lot! But you have to do them every day.”
– report/photos by Chris Garlock

The US Open Masters Division is a 9-round event, with 6 rounds played at the same time as the US Open and an additional three rounds played Sunday, Tuesday and Friday nights. The new format replaces the 4-round North American Masters Tournament (NAMT) and the 4-round Strong Players Open. Eligibility in the Masters Division is limited to professionals, 7 Dan or stronger players and NAMT qualifiers. Prizes total over $11,000, including $5,000 to the first-place winner and additional prizes to the top three NAMT scorers within the Masters Division. Click here for the Masters Division crossgrid.

Top row, (l-r): Burrall, Matthew; Chen, ZhaoNian; Cheng, Ziyi; Chiu, Jeremy; Cho, Beomgeun; Dong, Yue; Gan, Jianing; Gao, Yifei
Second row: Hu, Zi-Yang; Huang, Andrew; Jiang, Xinying; Jiao, Sonyyan; Ko, Dae-Hyuk; Koh, Juyong; Lee, Joshua; Lee, Mark
Third row: Li, Conner; Li,Dongfang; Li, Ryan; Liang, Jie; Lin, Tianyu; Liu, Xiaohan; Liu, Zhi-Yuan; Lockhart, Benjamin
Fourth row: Ma, Wang; Okada, Ryo; Song, Zirui, Sun, Calvin; Teng, Justin; Wang, Jun; Wu, Changlong; Wu, Lirui
Fifth row: Yang, Huiren; Ye, Aaron; Yu, Lianzhou; Yu, Ximeng; Zhao, Zhongxia; Zheng, Xiangnan; Zhou, Yuan

For profiles of some of the Masters players, check out our pre-Congress series of profiles
US Go Congress Player Profiles: Wu and Zhou
US Go Congress Player Profiles: Sun, Ko, Koh, Lin, Teng & Ye
US Go Congress Player Profiles: Chen, Liang, Lee & Chiu
photos by Chris Garlock