Tuesday December 6, 2016
Tuo Jiaxi 9p won the first game in the best-of-three Samsung Cup final against Ke Jie 9p. Stephanie Yin 1p’s AGA YouTube commentary on Monday night’s game has now been posted. Myungwan Kim 9p will be providing commentary on
Game 2 on Tuesday, starting at 8p PST on the AGA’s YouTube and Twitch channels.
Tuesday December 6, 2016
AlphaGo is a People’s Choice finalist for Science’s “Breakthrough of the Year.” The stunning win by the go AI over Lee Sedol earlier this year was a top choice in the first round of voting as one of the most momentous scientific developments of
the year.
“We’ve just finished one round of voting with more than 11,000 votes tallied,” say Science editors, who will also release their list of top picks later this month. “Now it’s time to make your voice heard again. Choose your winner from among the five finalists. Cast your vote today, and check back on December 22 to see how your choice stacks up against ours.”
Monday December 5, 2016
The AGA’s YouTube and Twitch channels will cover the Samsung Cup finals this week. Coverage of the match between world
#1 Ke Jie 9p and Tuo Jiaxi 9p will start at 8p PST, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (Dec. 5-7th). This week a new professional will join the AGA team: Stephanie Yin 1p. Yin will comment on the first game on Monday and the final game on Wednesday (if the match goes all three games). Myungwan Kim 9p will be providing commentary on the second game on Tuesday.
Sunday December 4, 2016
A Korean pair won this year’s 27th International Amateur Pair Go Championship in Tokyo, besting a Taiwanese team in the 
finals. Kim Sooyoung and Park Jongwook of Korea beat Pai Shin-Hui and Huang Wei of Taiwan. Pai and Huang had paved the way, however, by beating a strong Chinese pair in round one of the 32-pair five round event. The US team of Jeremy Chiu and Gabriella Su (right) ended with a solid 3-2 record, losing in rounds one and three to a Japanese pair and the team from China, but beating Germany and Austria before facing a strong Russian pair, Grigorii Fionin and Elvina Kalsberg, also 2-2, in the final round. In the 3rd edition of the World Students Pair Go Championship, North American pair Amira Song of Canada and Andrew Zalesak of North Carolina went 1-3, beating the Mexican pair but failing to beat the percentages in their other games against a Japanese pair and not one, but two, Korean university pairs. A Japanese pair took first.
– report by Andy Okun (standing in photo); photo by Thomas Hsiang
Saturday December 3, 2016
AlphaGo is a top contender for the 2016 “Breakthrough of the Year” in Science’s annual survey of momentous scientific 
discoveries, developments, or trends. Voting continues through Sunday, December 4; click here to vote. At 14%, “AI Ups its Game” is second only to “Human embryos in a dish,” with 20% response, narrowly leading “Ripples in spacetime” with 13%. After voting closes on Sunday, a second round of voting will be conducted with the 5 finalists to pick the official winner, and the People’s Choice selection, along with Science editors’ pick, will be announced on December 22.
Saturday December 3, 2016
The Maui Go Club held its first rating tournament on November 19 in Wailuku HI. Five members participated in five rounds
of play where the ranks of many of the players was formally set for the first time. Play strengths ranged from 13k to 5k. “Not too bad for a club that was only formed in 2015,” reports Danny Topp. The number of AGA members also increased from one to five as a result of holding the tournament.
photo (sitting l-r) Danny Topp and Jason Coughlin; (standing l-r): Ruby Truly, Ty Nakama, Andrew Walker and Konoa Stevens
Saturday December 3, 2016
“Zen plays well in the opening and in open areas that are difficult even for top pros to judge,” says Michael Redmond 9P in his commentary on Game 3 in the recent Cho-DeepZen match, in which Cho bested the AI program. “It makes local mistakes, a problem that seems to be a characteristic weakness of the neural network system. It is playing at a pro level, and is approaching the strength of AlphaGo that we saw in March 2016. In Game 2 I saw some patterns that Zen has been playing for years, so it has not turned into a copy of AlphaGo, but has kept it’s original ‘style’.”
Michael’s game 3 commentary: