American Go E-Journal » 2015 » April

Cary Chinese School won the team competition and Eric Zhang 5d (right) topped the individual competition in the 2015 Carolina Spring Go Tournament. The 12th annual tournament Carolina Spring Go Tournament, held in Raleigh on April 19th, co-organized by the Chinese American Friendship Association of North Carolina (CAFA), Confucius Institute at NC State, and the Cary Go Club, attracted 28 go players with a wide range of ages and go experience but with an equal amount of love for go.

Nine young players from Cary Chinese School’s go classes formed three teams to compete in the team competition. As expected, the team competition generated a lot of excitement, with young players eagerly reporting and checking the scoreboard during the breaks between rounds. CCS Team 1 of Alvin Chen, Alex Kuang and Ellen Zeng, and CCS Team 2 of Andy Chen, Jasmine Ye and Ethan Wan scored the same 9 wins (out of 12 games), thus tied as the winners of the team competition (photo at left).

In the individual competition, Eric Zhang 5d, of Chapel Hill, won the open section championship with a score of 3-1.  Andrew Zalesak, 1d, of Cary High School, won Section A with a perfect score of 4-0, including an impressive win over a 3-dan player on a non-handicapped game with no komi.   One of the youngest players, Ethan Wan of Cary Chinese School won Section D with a perfect score of 4-0.   Alvin Chen won Section B with a score of 3-1 while Ellen Zeng and Alex Kuang tied for the first place finish in Section C with the same score of 3-1.  Below is the complete list of winners.

Individual Competition Winners:
Section: open (3d-5d) winner: Eric Zhang, 5d. Final score: 3-1
Section: A (3k-2d) winner: Andrew Zalesak, 1d. Final score: 4-0
Section: B (10k-4k) winner: Alvin Chen, 10k. Final score: 3-1
Section: C (11k-20k) winners(tied): Ellen Zeng, 14k, and Alex Kuang 16k and both with a final score of 3-1.
Section: D (30k-21k) winner:Ethan Wan, 28k, final score: 4-0

Team Competition Winners (tied):
Cary Chinese School Team 1: Alvin Chen, Alex Kuang and Ellen Zeng
Cary Chinese School Team 2: Andy Chen, Jasmine Ye and Ethan Wan
– report by Tournament Director Owen Chen; photos by Jeff Kuang

For the fourth year in a row, the San Diego Go Championship went to a UC San Diego student. This year, it was Leran Zou 7d who won the Open section with the only undefeated record of 3-0. Tying for second place were Paul Chen, Seth Cardew and Jerry Cheng, president of the UCSD Go Club. Twenty-nine players showed up on Sunday, April 19 at UCSD to compete for the 2015 San Diego Go Championship. The event was organized by the combined efforts of the UCSD Go Club, the SDSU Go Club and the San Diego Go Club. The tournament Director was Evan Cho, 9-dan who runs the go school in Arcadia and also the new Atari Go club.

In the Kyu section, Paul Margetts, 3-kyu visiting from England, won with a 3-0 record. The only other undefeated player in the kyu section was Stephen Zhu, 22-kyu, at 2-0. There were four members of the Margetts family in the kyu section, all playing under a family membership in the British Go Association.
– report/photo by Ted Terpstra, President, San Diego Go Club; photo: Competition in the Open Section with winner Leran Zou, in the right foreground playing John Whang.

Joshua Lee 6d (at right, front) swept the ninth annual Orlando Go Tournament, held April 18-19 in Orlando, FL.  The event was well attended, with 37 players, ranks 20k-6d, arranged into four divisions.

Winner’s Report:
Division 1 (4d and up):
1st: Joshua Lee (6d), 2nd: Jonathan Fisher (3d),  3rd: Karsten Henckell (4d)
Division 2 (4k-2d): 1st: Steve Barberi (1k), 2nd: Harold Lloyd (2d), 3rd: Raphael Schreiber (4k)
Division 3 (8k-5k):  1st: Cabe Unger (7k), 2nd: Tony Yon (6k), 3rd: Jonathan Heckathorne (6k)
Division 4 (9k-30k): 1st: Heather Crawford (13k), 2nd: George Lebovitz (10k), 3rd: Aaron Otero (8k)

Report/photo by Paul Wiegand

The San Diego Go Club was the first to redeem Chapter Rewards points, getting reimbursed $34.50 for pizza at their Winter Soiree. “The new AGA club rewards program helped pay for pizzas for the 30 plus players who came to our go party,” Ted Terpstra reports from San Diego. “The San Diego Go Club earned points through club members playing rated games and signing up for or renewing AGA memberships. The pizzas provided a pleasant social hour after the games were completed.”

Click here to see the totals for rewards points earned through February. Click here for details on how the new program works. Address any questions to rewards@usgo.org.
photo: Mr. Na, 7P, playing a simultaneous exhibition against club players at the San Diego Winter Soiree; photo courtesy Ted Terpstra

A record 38 players, including 16 students high school age or younger, participated in this year’s Salt City Tournament in Syracuse, New York held on Saturday, April 11. In the A division, Yeunggeul Lee 2d (at right in photo) and Scott Jankowski 1k both finished with 3-1 records and split the top prize money, and Jared Beck 3d (at left) took the cash prize for 3rd place. High school student Jake Game 5k swept all four of his games in the B division, with RIT student Kyle Cutler 9k and third grader Liya Luk 11k taking the next two places, both with 3-1 records. Eric Li 22k won the C division with a 4-0 record, and Casey Beach 19k and Rachel Liu 20k both went 3-1 to finish in 2nd and 3rd place.

Every player was able to select a nice prize at the tournament this year thanks to the greatly discounted books provided by Slate and Shell. And the wife of tournament organizer Richard Moseson again baked and decorated the problem cake, shown here just before the problem portion was consumed (black to play). See lots more photos on the club’s Facebook page.

Correction: Scott Jankowski’s name was misspelled in our original post; we apologize for the error.