Michael Redmond 9P and Chris Garlock return to the AGA’s Twitch channel this Thursday, Jan. 23 at 7p EDT with two brand-new live game commentaries. Both will be on games by Redmond in the Judan B elimination tournament last year, one against Shiraishi Yuichi, the other against Kudo Norio, who won the Oza in 1977 and the Tengen in 1997. “Lots of fighting and dead groups,” says Redmond. “The high point of the game against Kudo was that I calculated a difficult endgame to win by half a point and got it right.”
“Love these commentaries,” says viewer Frank van Will about the latest Redmond Review (Redmond’s Reviews, Episode 17: Michael Redmond 9P vs. Takao Shinji 9P). “The analysis of the lower right corner joseki was fascinating,” added hippophile. “You could have gone on for an hour and I would have been happy!”
The Seattle Go Center held the annual Jin Chen tournament on January 5, 2020. There were 41 players – 33 in the Handicap section, and eight in the Open. Nick Wilmes, Seattle’s AGA Chapter Representative, directed the tournament and a pizza lunch from Pudge Bros. was provided for all players, thanks to the generosity of Seattle AGA Chapter and the AGA Chapter Rewards program.
Youth players made a strong showing. Overall, 39% (16 out of 41) of the players were youth, two of whom played in the Open section including Xinlei Liu 7d, who walked away with the $300 grand prize.
2020 Seattle Jin Chen Tournament- Round 1 underway
One advantage to having a relatively large field in the Handicap section is that most games were played even or at a low handicap,” says Programs Manager Mike Malveaux. “Out of a total of 88 games played, all but three had a handicap of three stones or less!”
2020 Seattle Jin Chen Tournament – Winners of all 3 of their games
Winners of all three tournament games: Xinlei Liu, 7d Chris Scribner, 1d Alex Hu, 2k Yulissa Wu Lu, 7k Brian Allen, 9k and the Seattle Go Center’s Operations Manger Quincy Costello, 19k
An undefeated Erik Hansen 5K went 4-0 in the Massachusetts Go Association’s Winter Tournament and took the $50 first prize. Hansen topped 22 players ranging from 14 kyu to 5 dan at the tournament, held January 12, 2020 at the Boylston Chess Club in Cambridge MA.
Hansen (2nd from right) and the 2nd-place winners
Six players tied for second, splitting the remaining $50 in
prize money. Eric Reid pitched in
another $10 to the prize pool so that each of the second-place winners got cool
$10. Some other kind soul in Eric’s lunch cohort had thoughtfully brought back
Chinese takeout for the TD, but since she had already eaten her bag lunch, Eric
took the food home and considered he came out even.
Here are the second-place winners, who all went 3-1: David Cho 5D; Eric Osman 1D; Yuancheng “Mike” Luo 1D; John Aspinall 3K; Seth Rothschild 9K; Savanni D’Gerinel 14K. Click here for complete results and here for photos of everyone who played in the first round. – Eva Casey, Tournament Director
by Steve Colburn It’s hard to imagine in these days of 24/7 global online go, but back in the late 1970s, if you were one of the few non-Asian Americans interested in go, your playing options were limited to a handful of clubs in places like New York City or San Francisco. A group of go players in upstate New York, hundreds of miles away from the nearest club, decided to organize their own club in Rochester, and formed an official chapter of the American Go Association on January 15, 1979, dubbing it the Empty Sky Go Club, an ironic name coined by organizer William Hewitt in honor of Rochester’s often cloudy sky. Club meetings originally moved from house to house, but from 1980 through 2000 were held regularly at Dave Weimer’s house in the South Wedge.
While the world of go — and indeed the game itself — has transformed dramatically in the 41 years since then, the Empty Sky Go Club is still fundamentally the same, in the sense that it’s a bunch of local players who value getting together every week to play this ancient game. On January 13, the current members of the club gathered to celebrate its 41st birthday.
Like all go clubs, the Empty Sky has gone through both fat and lean years as membership has waxed and waned. Longtime local organizers like Dave Weimer and Chris Garlock have relocated to other communities — where they continue to build the go community — but a steady group of students and locals have kept the game going in The Flower City for nearly half a century. Indeed, Empty Sky hosted two Go Congresses, first in 1991 and then again in 2004. The members that have come through this club are among the most loyal that I have ever seen, moving around the globe and continuing to grow friends through the game.
The Empty Sky Go Club would like to thank all its members, past and present, for coming to club throughout the years. And if you’re ever in Rochester, be sure to drop by (we meet every Monday and Thursday night in Java Wally’s, the RIT coffee shop located in Wallace Library, building 5) and be a part of our future as we look forward to many more years of fun and camaraderie together.
Got a story about your local club? We’d love to hear it! Email us at journal@usgo.org
A series of videos from the recent Southeast Asia Go Congress in Singapore will be released on the AGA’s YouTube channel. The broadcasts, produced by the E-Journal’s Stephen Hu, feature commentaries from Michael Redmond 9p, Cho Hye-yeon 9p, Maeda Ryo 6p, Yang Shuang 2p and other strong players from Southeast Asia.
In the first video, Masters Division Round 2, Hu teams up with Maeda Ryo 6P to comment the game between Chi-hao Shen and Zhongfan Jian.
Videos in the series will be released Tuesdays at 6p EDT.
The Seattle Go Center recently honored Dennis Wheeler for his longtime dedication to teaching and sharing the game of go. Over 50 people came to the Seattle center on Saturday, Jan. 11, to share pizza, have a chat, play a game, and pose for pictures. Program Manager Mike Malveaux noted that Dennis helped Frank Fukuda at the Uwajimaya Wednesday outreach event for many years, and then took the lead in 2013. Dennis has also been teaching at festivals, such as Sakura-con, for over a decade. In addition, he has held the Saturday Manager position at the Seattle Go Center since 2012, where he particularly enjoys teaching children, and making newcomers feel welcome.
Dennis (right) at Sakura-Con 2017
Now, Dennis is dealing with chemotherapy, and needs to reduce his outside activities. He will still be coming to the Seattle Go Center on some Saturdays. He continues to use social media, such as Facebook.
The party included Dennis’s wife Vicki, their three daughters, and their partners, as well as neighbors who learned go from Dennis and many old friends from the Seattle Go Center.
Mike also noted the contributions that Dennis has made to the national go scene. He was one of the organizers of the 2005 Go Congress in Tacoma, and he has been a excellent game recorder for many national AGA tournaments, usually reporting on the first board.
Dennis Wheeler with family and friends at the Seattle Go Center
When he wrote about the party, Mike Malveaux noted: “My emotions are mixed — sadness that Dennis has to go through chemo, plus relief that he had some advance warning about it, and pride at Dennis’ contributions to American go, and pleasure that I’ve known him, because he’s really a great guy to spend time with.” Photos and report by Brian Allen
At its annual retreat on November 11, 2019, the AGA board of directors discussed several initiatives and their long-term priority of making go more mainstream. They passed motions to create a system for the AGA to provide limited financial support to develop/maintain tournaments, and established a scholarship fund to make the US Go Congress more affordable. They also discussed implementing an improved format for the North American Masters Tournament, held at Go Congress each year, based on feedback from strong players. Andy Okun also provided his President’s Report, including an update on work towards a North American Go Federation, which the board approved.
Seventy players came out for the first day of the first-ever Midwest Open held in Columbus, Ohio. “The open division is sporting a highly competitive field of 14 high-dan players in a show-down for the championship title,” said organizer Devin Fraze, who also serves as Central Region Representative on the AGA Board. Event sponsor BadukClub is streaming the top board with commentary by DanielML on the club’s Twitch channel. Round Three will begin at 9:30a (CST) on Sunday, with commentary by Yoonyoung Kim 8P at 1:30p CST.
The AGA-rated
event brought together players from as far away as Texas, Colorado and
California, as well as many of the midwestern states. Pairings in the main
playing hall are being done with an innovative self-paired system created by
Chicago Go organizer Mark Rubenstein, enabling participants to play more games with
less waiting between matches.
In this 93-minute episode, Michael reviews his Meijin tournament game with Takao Shinji 9P, which he calls his “best game of the year,” or as he also puts it, “my one half-decent game.” Most of the time, Redmond adds, “I seem to have the right idea” in this game, which features a lot of fighting. Takao held the Meijin title three years ago, dropped out of the league the next year, and the following year made the league’s final section. “He’s still at the top of the tournament scene in many ways,” Redmond says, noting that Takao is in the highest league of the Kisei tournament. A prodigy from an early age, Takao “played a thick, influence-oriented style, until he was confronted by Cho U,” whose territory-oriented style “inspired Takao to adapt his style and he does more fighting nowadays.” Chris and Michael also chat about what they were up to during their break from producing video commentaries, along with an update on their AlphaGo book-in-progress.
The commentary was originally streamed live on Twitch, which gave viewers a chance to interact with Redmond and Garlock, who will be live-streaming more game commentaries — some AlphaGo vs. AlphaGo and some of Redmond’s games — on January 23 and 30 on the AGA’s Twitch channel. Follow the AGA’s Twitch channel and get notified of live streams.
Video produced by Stephen Hu, Allen Moy, Chris Garlock and Andrew Jackson.
Do you have a need to watch high level go? Join us this Sunday January 19th at 3PM EST for the start of the third round. Follow your favorite local teams and players as they battle it out this season. Games can be found using the GoPanda2 client in the AGA City League rooms. Check the schedules for each league for detailed information for each game; A League, B League, C League, D League.
