“Registration for the 2020 AGHS School Team Tournament is now open through March 31st, ” says Promotion Head Sophia Wang, “All participants must be North American residents in grades K-12 and attend the same school as their teammates. Each team has 3 players, with no more than 5 teams per institution. A total of four rounds will be held on two Sundays—April 5th and 12th—at 10am and 1pm PST each day. Players of all four rounds will receive a participation prize, and the top teams in each division will receive cash and trophies.”
Michael Redmond 9P and Chris Garlock, who teamed up four years ago to comment the historic AlphaGo-Lee Sedol match in Seoul, will appear on the AGA’s Twitch channel Thursday night at 7p EDT to discuss the match and their brand-new e-book AlphaGo to Zero.
“When AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, some said it was the end of go,” Redmond and Garlock say in the book’s introduction. “As we have seen since then, it is rather more likely that in many ways the game has just begun.”
The two will discuss the book with viewers, and will take another look at some of the games from the match, with questions and comments from viewers. “Being able to interact with viewers in real time is a real treat,” says Garlock. “We’re really looking forward to it!”
Plans for the Canadian Open to be held late June in Vancouver have been cancelled. “The host organization has had to withdraw, due to the issues with COVID-19 virus,” reports Canadian Go Association president James Seddwick. The CGA is looking into alternate arrangements, with an initial target of holding something on Labour Day weekend September 4-7; stay tuned for a future announcement. “I also wish to offer our sympathies to CGA members with families & friends in China,” Sedgwick added. “I know it has been a tough time with ill family members who cannot be visited, and business and personal impacts. Hopefully lives will return to normal soon.”
Plans for the U.S. Go Congress — scheduled for Estes Park, CO, August 1 – 9 — are moving forward; organizers are monitoring the situation closely with the safety of the attendees and community paramount; stay tuned for updates.
Registration for the 27th Redmond Cup and 3rd AGA Girls Cup will be closing soon on March 11th and March 18th respectively. Competitors must be residing in the US, Canada, or Mexico and be members of their respective national Go association. The Redmond Cup is restricted to players under 18 with an accredited rank of 1 dan or stronger, while the AGA Girls Cup is restricted to females under 16 with an accredited rank of 10 kyu or stronger. The two finalists in the AGA Girls Cup and the Junior (12 and under) and Senior (13-17) divisions of the Redmond Cup will be invited to the 2020 US Go Congress with all reasonable expenses paid for by the American Go Foundation to play in a best-of-three match. All other participants who complete either preliminary tournament will be eligible for a $200 scholarship to the 2020 US Go Congress.
The Redmond Cup will begin on March 15th with preliminary matches played online through early-mid June. The AGA Girls Cup will follow a similar schedule starting on March 22nd. Players eligible for both tournaments may participate in them simultaneously. Interested players can read more about the Redmond Cup rules here and register here. Likewise, players can read more about the AGA Girls Cup rules here and register here.
Four years ago today, the whole world watched as a computer program took on one of the top go players in the world. And won. From the historic AlphaGo-Lee Sedol showdown in Seoul in March 2016 to the release of AlphaGo Zero in November 2017, Michael Redmond 9P and Chris Garlock have had a front-row seat, commenting, analyzing and reporting as the AlphaGo AI upended thousands of years of human history. Today, on the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the AlphaGo-Lee Sedol match, they’ve released Volume 1 of AlphaGo to Zero, the first of a 4-volume EPUB series that will thoroughly cover the AlphaGo phenomenon.
Redmond (right) and Garlock commenting AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol 9P Game 1, March 8, 2016
Redmond and Garlock will discuss the book and review games from the AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol 9P match on Twitch at 7p EDT on Thursday, March 12. They’ll also discuss their experience doing the commentary on the historic match and take viewer questions.
Since the 2016 AlphaGo-Lee Sedol match, Redmond and Garlock have released a popular series of AlphaGo videos and game commentaries on the American Go Association’s YouTube channel. In AlphaGo to Zero, Redmond and Garlock use the power of the EPUB platform to take an in-depth look at the March 2016 showdown between AlphaGo and Lee Sedol 9P. The EPUB not only includes new insights into the match and each game, it enables readers to easily review video game summaries Redmond and Garlock recorded after each game, including some never before released to the general public. The game commentaries include clickable diagrams and Redmond’s original commentaries alongside brand-new comments. It’s also illustrated with color photos of all the action, including some never previously published. In addition to EPUB, the book is also available in the Go Books app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
As the AlphaGo Team says in their introduction, “Chris and Michael experienced first-hand the anticipation and excitement felt by the entire AlphaGo team, and understand better than anyone the significance of these games in showcasing what can be achieved when human and machine come together to solve complex problems.”
“This book is our attempt to capture that story,” say
Redmond and Garlock, “to tell you what we saw at the time, what we see now, and
to try to place this moment in the history of the game, to get a sense of where
we may be headed. When AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, some said it was the end of
go. As we have seen since then, it is rather more likely that in many ways the
game has just begun.”
Jiayang Su 1k and Andrew Kim 2k topped the 85-player field at the 7th North American Kyu Championships on February 1st held on the KGS Go Server. Su (Junior champion) and Kim (Senior champion) will both have the opportunity to test their strength against stronger opposition in the Redmond Cup starting later this month. Nearly 80% of the field was made up of Junior Division players (12 and under) and international representation was strong with 18 players from Mexico and 5 players from Canada. Final tournament results including all division winners and the crosstab can be found here. Each winner received a crystal trophy engraved with his or her name, and all participants who participated in each round are eligible for a $200 scholarship to the 2020 US Go Congress in Estes Park, Colorado.
Special thanks to Jeremy Chiu and Andrew Zhang for helping to direct the tournament, as well as Zhongfan Jian and Stephanie Yin from the New York Institute of Go and Sid Avila from the Mexican Go Association for helping the tournament run in a timely fashion. – Justin Teng, AGA Youth Coordinator
The AGA board minutes from their November meeting were approved at the meeting on February 23rd, and are now available online here. A summary of the meeting was first published here on January 19th. Do you have questions or comments about what you see in the minutes? Feel free to submit them here.
The New York Institute of Go (NYIG) and the New York Go Association (NYGA) are happy to bring you our annual summary of achievements. We concluded the year 2019 with lots of prides and great memories, through which all Go players in our community were bounded closely.
Tournament Achievements (Adult) Our two prominent professional players, Ryan Li 1P and Stephanie Yin 1P, continued to be among the top Go players on the North American Continent. Ryan Li competed in the 3rd International Elite Mind Games, and Stephanie Yin 1P participated in the 10th Qionglong Bingsheng Cup and 3rd Go Seigen Cup World Women’s Championship. The AGA City League New York team, consisting of Ryan Li, Hancheng Zhang and Stephanie Yin, won the 2019 Pandanet-AGA City League again.
Tournament Achievements (Youth) The youth training section has always been our focus. Through various Go classes and after-school programs offered by New York Institute of Go (NYIG), our students improved significantly and won numerous achievements nationwide.
The 6th North America Kyu Championship (NYKC), February 2019 Division B: 1st Place Toranosuke Ozawa 3k Division E: 1st Place Alan Yang 17k Division F: 1st Place Jeremy Wong 21k; 2nd Place Jason Yang 21k
2019 North American School Team Tournament, April 2019 Top Division: – 2nd Place New York Institute of Go Team 2: Chase Lin 1k, Cathy Liao 3k, Alex Huang 4k – 3rd Place New York Institute of Go Team 1: Patrick Zhao 3d, Sophie Lin 2d, Marcos Yang 1d Division 2: – 1st Place New York Institute of Go Team 6: Jack Zhang 9k, Brandon Zhu 12k, Alan Yang 13k – 2nd Place New York Institute of Go Team 4: Jason Long 10k, Jonathan Chen 11k, Lillian Wu 12k
The 1st U20 Eastern Youth Open, August 2019 Division B: 1st Place Sophie Lin 2d Division C: 1st Place Chase Lin 1k, 2nd Place Samantha Soo 4k, 3rd Place Jerry Ju 3k Division D: 1st Place Xinyu Chen 6k; 2nd Place Jonathan Chen 9k; 3rd Place Crystal Pang 8k
2019 North American Young Lions Tournament, December 2019 Division A: 1st Place Toranosuke Ozawa 2d; 2nd Place Sophie Lin 2d; 3rd Place Chase Lin 1d Division B: 3rd Place Samantha Soo 1k Division D: 2nd Place Joshua Wong 10k Division F: 1st Place Noah Carrafa 21k, 2nd Place Enzo Aozono-Araldi 23k, 3rd Place Roger Eckner 25k
Go Promotion By holding various go tournaments and events in 2019, the NYGA promote the interests, activity and outreach of go players within the New York City and Tri-state community.
New York Go Honor Society The New York Go Honor Society is a non-profit chapter supported by the New York Go Association (NYGA). The NYGHS executive team includes multiple honorary members from Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Princeton. The board members, such as the chairman and board of directors, will be selected in a self-recommended fashion, by NYGA officers and honorary presidents.
The mission of the NYGHS is to learn the philosophical ideas that have been embedded in Go for thousands of years. It is a platform that provides young Go players an environment to enrich their Go experience, improve their organizational skills, and broaden their horizons. Specifically, through the NYGHS, our Go players will work together to hone their leadership, logical reasoning, and problem-solving abilities. They will also communicate and cooperate with students from top American colleges to expand social skills and enrich personal accomplishment.
Tournament Organization – 4th, 5th and 6th US Go Ranking Competition, New York Division – The 1st U20 Eastern Youth Open, August 2019 – NYGA Monthly Tournaments
Classes We offered a series of go classes to both youth and adult players from beginner to dan-level.
After-school Programs – St. Hilda’s & St. Hugh’s School – PS 77 Lower Lab School
Social Media Our official Youtube Channel “nyig_go” reached 7000 subscribers in November.
We appreciate everyone who has participated in our Go activities in 2019. We shall continue to bring you more exciting events in the upcoming year 2020. More information can be found here: www.ny-go.org
The Canadian Go Association summer camp is ready to welcome you! Running August 23-28 at Jouvence resort inside Mount Orford National park (near Montreal Quebec), it will combine a sojourn in nature with top-notch Go instruction, luxury meals, and great company. Since the resort is a non-profit, all of this is at a great price! See our web site for full details, and please reach out if you have any questions.
report by Canadian Go Association President James Sedgwick
BadukPop is a new mobile app that provides Go problems with fun visuals and game mechanics featuring a 3D-animated Go board, a curated library of Go problems for all levels, and a global leaderboard. Players start at Level 1, low double-digit kyu, and can progress up to Level 6, the high-dan to professional category.
Hajin Lee, a former professional Go player and creator of “Haylee’s World of Go” on YouTube, participated in the design and development of BadukPop. “Many Go players are too busy to play a full game every day. Playing BadukPop can be helpful practice – it’s quick, fun, and trains your intuition, pattern recognition, and reading skills,” Lee says.
The app is currently available in English, Korean, and Chinese, and is compatible with all recent Android and iOS phones and tablets. It can be downloaded for free on both Google Play (Android) and the App Store (iOS). Visit https://badukpop.com for details.
Redmond and Garlock on AlphaGo Thursday on Twitch
Wednesday March 11, 2020
Michael Redmond 9P and Chris Garlock, who teamed up four years ago to comment the historic AlphaGo-Lee Sedol match in Seoul, will appear on the AGA’s Twitch channel Thursday night at 7p EDT to discuss the match and their brand-new e-book AlphaGo to Zero.
“When AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, some said it was the end of go,” Redmond and Garlock say in the book’s introduction. “As we have seen since then, it is rather more likely that in many ways the game has just begun.”
The two will discuss the book with viewers, and will take another look at some of the games from the match, with questions and comments from viewers. “Being able to interact with viewers in real time is a real treat,” says Garlock. “We’re really looking forward to it!”