American Go E-Journal

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