Team Relay Go will get a tryout next Tuesday night at the U.S. Go Congress. As previously reported (Team Relay Go the “Next Big Thing”?), Relay Go involves two teams of players playing one game. At the professional level, each team consists of a captain and 10 players; two players from each team start the game off, while the rest of their teams watch and discuss the game at a separate location. After a fixed number of moves, the next set of two players from each team tag in to continue the game and so on. “The beauty of Team Relay Go is in the team discussions of the ongoing game,” says Neil Ritter. “Players work together to understand the current board state with different views being shared and explored.”
Tuesday’s experiment is with an amateur version of Team Relay Go. “The goal is to give amateur players an idea of how a professional looks at a game,” Ritter says. The format will be a little different from Professional Team Relay Go. One game will still be played by two teams, but each team will be captained by two professional players, who will work to prepare the next pair of amateur players to be tagged into the game. The amateur players, fortified with pro knowledge, “will get tagged in and play some professional-level go … yeah, right!” laughs Ritter. “They’ll do their best and after the game is over the mess will be sorted through in review.”
There’s room for up to 48 players to participate in Tuesday’s Team Relay Go. Sign up at the ‘Events Sign Up Table’ next to Registration on Saturday, July 30, or email ritter.neil@gmail.com before midnight Monday, August 1. “This new event is only possible because of the professional players who have volunteered to be team captains,” notes Ritter, extending thanks to Mingjiu Jiang 9P, Feng Yun 9P, Yilun Yang 7P, William Shi 1P, Andy Liu 1P, Eric Lui 1P, Calvin Sun 1P, and Ryan Li 1P.
