March « 2017 « American Go E-Journal

Zhao and Frias Top 2017 North American Kyu Championships

Tuesday March 14, 2017

Patrick Zhao 1k and Josiah Frias 1k topped the 2017 North American Kyu Championships held on KGS on February 4th in the Junior (12 and under) and Senior (13-17) divisions respectively. Mateo Nava 11k from Mexico also earned the Fighting Spirit Award with his stellar performance.

42 young kyu players participated in the 4th edition of this tournament across five divisions, with the top Junior and Senior player in each division winning trophies engraved with their names. In addition, all players who completed the tournament earned an AGF scholarship to either the AGA Go Camp or the US Go Congress. For full tournament results, click here.

Categories: U.S./North America,Youth

Four out-of-print titles from Slate and Shell now on Amazon

Tuesday March 14, 2017

Four out-of-print titles from Slate and Shell are now available through Amazon.

200 Endgame Problems by Shirai Haruhiko. Long out of print, this popular collection of problems covers common situations from simple endgame tesuji to complex issues that require careful reading and counting.

AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol: The Match that Changed the World of Go by Yuan Zhou. In a detailed commentary of the five game match between Lee Sedol and AlphaGo, Zhou explains why Lee should not have won the fourth game but should have won the fifth while also discussing the strengths and possible weaknesses of AlphaGo.

The Young Chinese Go Masters, Volume One by Yuan Zhou. Zhou analyzes four games involving eight of the young Chinese pros who are dominating the world of go.

Single Digit Kyu Game Commentaries by Yuan Zhou. Zhou thoroughly investigates a variety of mistakes that are common among weaker players, and illustrates how to deal with many common situations correctly.

Categories: Tools: books, software & hardware

AGA releases latest Master Review Series: Game 18: Master [B] vs. Ke Jie 9p [W]

Monday March 13, 2017

Jennie Shen 2P, hosted by Andrew Jackson, translates Meng Tailing 6P’s commentary and adds her own analysis of Master’s (AlphaGo) 18th game. In this game, Master plays black against one of the strongest players in the world, Ke Jie 9P. Click here to see the video.

Categories: Master/AlphaGo Commentaries

National Go Center heading for April 29-30 opening

Sunday March 12, 2017

With work on the new National Go Center in northwest Washington DC “coming along nicely,” the Center is on track for its grand opening the weekend of April 29-30, reports Center executive director Gurujeet Khalsa. “Area go clubs and volunteers have come together with sponsorship from the Iwamoto North America Foundation to make the new Center a reality,” Khalsa (right) told the E-Journal during a tour of the Center on Sunday, March 12. The photo at left shows the main playing space as demolition work concluded just over a week ago; in the photo at right, from March 12, finishing work has progressed rapidly.

Plans for the grand opening include a 4-round AGA-rated tournament, a children’s 12-and-under friendship match over Skype with children from Mexico City, and a performance by composer Haskell Small of composition “A Game of Go,” setting a classic Shusaku game to two pianos and a video.

More events are planned for the NGC’s grand opening but with just over six weeks to go, Khalsa says “volunteers of every stripe are urgently needed,” including carpenters to help build shelving, and anyone willing to donate tables, chairs, go books and equipment. Contact him at gurujeet.khalsa@nationalgocenter.org.

photos by Gurujeet Khalsa (left) and Chris Garlock (right)

Categories: U.S./North America

AGA Master Review Series, Game 2: Master[W] vs. bandari(P) (Zhang Ziliang 2p)[B]

Saturday March 11, 2017

Latest Master commentary by Michael Redmond 9P with Chris Garlock, Managing Editor of the American Go E-Journal. In this game, Master shows how it resembles — and how it differs — from the great master Go Seigen.

[link]

While Go Seigen emphasized quick development to the sides and center, Master in some of its’ games seems to go directly for the center, almost as if it ignores the sides.

Categories: Master/AlphaGo Commentaries

Mexico City Bests Portland

Friday March 10, 2017

14 children from Mexico City and Portland, OR. played a two round match on Saturday, February 25, on KGS. Mexico City won the match 8-4. “Our players are from two elementary schools in Mexico City, Escuela de Arte Pipiolo and Colegio Serapio Rendón,” says team leader Siddhartha Avila. Diego, 5 kyu, Bruno, 10 kyu, and Javier, 18 kyu all won both their games. Oliver, 23 kyu, won two games for Portland. Portland and Mexico City have been playing one or more matches a year for the past several years. – Peter Freedman, Portland organizer. Photos by Siddhartha Avila and Peter Freedman: The teams meet via Skype to set up the match.

Categories: U.S./North America,Youth

Your Move/Readers Write: Go Clock Recommendations

Friday March 10, 2017

Leap PQ9903: “The MGA battled about this for about a year before finally settling on the Leap PQ9903,” writes Neil

Ritter in response to the February 25 Your Move/Readers Write: Looking for go clocks posting, noting the clocks were more affordable through Alibaba compared to Amazon. It’s “perhaps important to note explicitly that this clock doesn’t do Canadian Byoyomi particularly well,” Neil adds. A thread summarizing the Massachusetts Go Association’s discussion on the topic can be found here.

DGT3000: “I believe the best game clock for the money is the DGT3000,”

suggests Dave Baran. “I am aware of three clocks that currently available that have both Japanese and Canadian byo-yomi: the DGT3000, the Cronos, and the Duel Timer.” Dave notes that the Excalibur is an affordable option that might be available on EBay, but has been discontinued from production. Dave adds that, “the byo-yomi time control on the Zmartfun II chess clock is inadequate.”

Amazon.com: “You can get just about anything from Amazon.com,” points out Ralph Meyer, suggesting searching for “Chess Clocks”.
– Edited by Brian Kirby

Categories: Tools: books, software & hardware,Your Move: Readers Write

AGA launches Master review series

Thursday March 9, 2017

The American Go Association has launched a new series of video commentaries on the recent games between between Master — the latest version of AlphaGo — and top professionals. The series on the AGA’s YouTube channel features commentaries by Michael Redmond 9P, Jennie Shen 2P and Ryan Li 1P. Some two dozen videos are now in production and are expected to be released each Wednesday and Saturday.

[link]

In the first commentary, Michael Redmond 9P and AGA E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock review the first game in the series, which took place in early January (Is AlphaGo the Master? Mystery Player Sweeps Top Pros and AlphaGo confirmed as Master/Magister, both 1/4/2017). In this game, Master plays white against Pan Tingyu 1P (username “manhan7”).

The series is produced by Andrew Jackson and Michael Wanek.

Categories: Master/AlphaGo Commentaries

Go tourney blooms again in Santa Fe

Thursday March 9, 2017

On March 4th, the Santa Fe Go Club held its first AGA-rated tournament in several years. A mixed crowd and some interested watchers attended the Spring Go Tournament with 14 players from Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Albuquerque, NM.

As an experiment for the Santa Fe Go Club, the first round was paired as usual, followed by as many self-paired games that could be fitted in. The tournament was held at a private home with outdoor areas that were much enjoyed for game reviews in the beautiful, early spring weather.

Billy Maier won first place with Mario Espinoza a close second and Jonathan Zingale coming in third. Prizes were awarded to everyone. Robert Cordingley as the tournament director, ran the GoClubsOnLine software (goclubs.org) to pair, record games and determine winners. Many thanks go to Steve Uhl and Lew Geer for donating prizes and our additional sponsor and host Nancy Dahl.
– report/photo by Lewis Geer
Note, this post has been updated; the tournament was held March 4th, not May 4th.

Categories: U.S./North America

Kim Seong-Jin edges out Pavol Lisy to win 2017 Irish Confucius Cup

Thursday March 9, 2017

The 2017 Irish Confucius Cup took place in Dublin on the weekend of March 4-5. It was the most diverse tournament ever in Ireland, with players coming from 15 different countries. It was also the strongest ever tournament held in Ireland, with 2 European professionals competing, and the top group bar set at 6d. 3 Chinese professionals were also in attendance to give commentaries: Guo Juan 5p (who was also sponsoring the event), Yu Ping 2p, and Chen Rui 5p. Taking first place in the 5-round event was Kim Seong-Jin 7d, who edged out second placed Pavol Lisy 1p by half a point in their round 3 encounter. On 3 wins and taking third place was Mateusz Surma 1p, edging out on tiebreak Csaba Mero 6d. Lower down the field, other players also had outstanding performances, for example Sona Smolarikova 3k picked up 5 wins out of . Players on 4 wins included Julien Renaud 2d, Alec Delogu 2d, Marianna Szychowiak 10k, and Colin Lafferty 13k. The tournament was directed and organised by Rory Wales, with a great deal of assistance and co-operation from the University College Dublin Confucius Institute. The final standings are published here and full details of the tournament and sponsors can be seen here.
– Ian Davis

Categories: Europe

American Go E-Journal » 2017 » March