The Seattle Go Center 22nd Anniversary Tournament attracted 40 players on Oct. 1. They used newly refinished go boards, and enjoyed pizza provided by the AGA Rewards program. The tournament went smoothly, despite the good-sized crowd, and it has already been rated by the AGA.
The Open Section filled up with eight players. The winner was Kai Fugami, playing his first tournament at the Go Center. Kai grew up in Japan, and for a while he was an insei with the Kansai Ki-in. He is a 8-dan amateur in Japan. Kai’s dad grew up in Seattle, and Kai’s family has now moved to Bellingham. Kai is in college now.
Second place in the Open Section went to Alex (Xinlei) Liu. He is currently an AGA 7 dan. Alex won the Go Center Spring Tournament this year, and placed second to Yue Zhang last year in the Anniversary Tournament. Third place went to Yichen Li, who currently has an AGA 6 dan rating.
The Children’s Prize went to Austen Li, who won all his games in the Handicapped Section. He also placed first in the Double Digit Kyu Player Group. Young Amy Ling placed second in this group.
Go Center Instructor Larry Eclipse won the Middle Group of the Handicapped Section, with volunteer Christian De Oro taking second, and Thursday afternoon manager Nathan Saritzky taking third.
The Upper Group of the Handicapped Section extended up to 2 dan. It was won by Brendan Roof, who selected both volumes of Cho Chikun’s “All About Life and Death” for his prize. The books were donated to the Go Center. Former Board member Dan (Denga) Tang placed second.
Friends of the Seattle Go Center should note that the Anniversary Party will held on Sunday, October 15, starting at 4 p.m.
photo: Kai Fugami during one of his games. Photo/Report by Brian Allen
Peabody Award-winning public radio show and podcast hosted by Krista Tippett. “At about 1:25:30, he is in the midst of talking about artificial intelligence when he mentions my favorite game — the ancient board game of go,” writes Howard Cornett in a blog post. “He talks about how he is fascinated by the fact that a computer program has finally beaten professional humans at a game that is based largely on System 1 thinking, or intuition.”
Redmond AlphaGo Q&A released
Wednesday October 11, 2017
Michael Redmond’s series of commentaries on the fascinating AlphaGo-AlphaGo games has proven extremely popular, with nearly 90,000
views so far, and lots of comments from viewers. Today Redmond, along with host Chris Garlock, releases his first Q&A video, responding to some of those questions. “It’s been a wonderful challenge, not only trying to understand these complex, historic games, but figuring out how to explain them,” says Redmond, “so the response to the videos has been quite gratifying and we’re pleased to acknowledge and respond in this new series of Q&A videos.”