UCLA continued to display the strength of its premier Go club with a triumphant 2-1 victory over University of Chicago in the 2019 Collegiate Go League Championship Finals. UCLA entered the league in 2014, and has made the finals every year except 2017. They won the title in 2016, but have been seeking the winning magic touch to clinch another title ever since.
For University of Chicago, this was its first Finals appearance after joining the CGL in 2016. Leveraging the strength of first board Zirui Song 1p, 2018 US Open Masters champion, University of Chicago managed to defeat UCLA’s first board, Ying Ngai Yu 7d. However, the depth of UCLA’s roster proved overwhelming with decisive victories by Xinyu Liu 7d and Lionel Zhang 6d over Cheuk To Tsui 4d and Henry Li 4d respectively.
Paul Chin, UCLA’s Team Captain and President of the UCLA Go Club expressed gratitude to the Korean Baduk Association and Ahn Dalhoon 9p in particular for visiting the club to play and teach the members. Paul added, “We welcome anyone in the area to come play with us on Friday nights at 6:30 pm in room 6201 of the Mathematical Sciences building while school is in session.”
Meanwhile, University of Maryland defeated Brigham Young University 2-1 in a series of extremely close games to claim the B League title. This is UMD’s first B League title after having won the A League championship in 2015.
The Collegiate Go League is an online league held on KGS for universities in North America. Matches are 3 against 3 and all undergraduate and graduate students of a university are eligible to participate on their respective school’s roster. Season 9 will start in October 2019 with 10 rounds roughly every two weeks (with a winter break in the middle) and will culminate with the championship playoffs in April 2020. There is both an A League for dan-level teams and a B League for kyu-level teams. Registration for Season 9 will close on September 25th. – Justin Teng, AGA Youth Coordinator
