American Go E-Journal » 2020 » May

Go Spotting: The Order of the Stick #1203

Sunday May 31, 2020

“There’s an amusing Go reference in the latest Order of the Stick, a Dungeons and Dragons style strip I’ve followed for years,” reports Mark Gilston. The storyline involves one of the characters finding a Go stone, whereupon another character recognizes it as a piece from a lesson that devolved into some confusion over what the game of Go was called in the vein of Abbot and Costello’s Who’s on First? Read it here.

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Categories: Go Spotting,Main Page
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Annual North Carolina workshop with Yuan Zhou 7d successfully held online

Sunday May 31, 2020

The twelfth annual North Carolina workshop with Yuan Zhou was moved online this year and successfully held Sunday, May 24th. Zhou’s lecture included a pro game review discussion the influence of AI on professional play, as well as reviews of games that the ten workshop participants had played with each other in preparation for the day. “Teacher Zhou put special emphasis at understanding joseki in light of new insights from AI, including new ways to look at the double approach against a stone at the corner star point,” reports a workshop participant. “‘We can learn from AI, but AI can’t talk. We still need humans to interpret, and understand the Go truths.’ Yuan said.”

Participants report that while there were some technical difficulties to be ironed out, the online format was successful. The workshop was sponsored by the American Go Foundation and the Triangle Go Group of North Carolina. Read a full report of the workshop and Zhou’s biography here.

report and photo provided by the Triangle Go Group

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50 years aGO – May 1970

Saturday May 30, 2020

by Keith L. Arnold, hka, with Patrick Bannister

May was dominated by Rin Kaiho’s defense of the Honinbo Title against challenger Sakata Eio. Already down a game, Sakata lost a bitter half pointer in the second game (top right) on May 7-8.

Those of you fortunate enough to travel (travel, I remember travel) to Japan will recognize this drawing (top left) – on May 8 the Nihon Kiin unveiled the plans for its “new” headquarters.

In the middle of the month Rin and Sakata squared off again (bottom right), and with a third straight loss on May 15-16, Sakata’s back was against the wall.

As of May 21, Fujisawa Shuko was leading the Meijin League (bottom left), with a 4-1 record, thanks to Takagawa Kaku’s victory over Kajiwara Takeo, giving them both matching 4-2 records.

Finally, the May 27 game brought the swiftest of ends to Sakata’s Honinbo challenge, losing in four straight games.

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Redmond to review Ichiriki-Shibano game from Pandanet’s “Golden Panda Cup”

Saturday May 30, 2020

Ichiriki

For this Sunday’s live game commentary on Twitch (8p EDT; note new time!), Michael Redmond 9P – hosted by E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock — will review Pandanet’s “Golden Panda Cup” final-round game between Ichiriki Ryo — one of the top up-and-coming young players — and Shibano Toramaru, who won the prestigious Meijin tournament in 2019 at age 19, becoming the first teenager to achieve one of the seven major Japanese titles. Pandanet hosted the the “Golden Panda Cup”; Golden Panda is also what they called the player with the most wins, thus knocking out the most opponents.

Shibano
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Categories: Main Page,World
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AlphaGo vs. AlphaGo; Game 41: Michael’s mom and some exciting fighting

Friday May 29, 2020

Michael Redmond 9p, hosted by the AGA E-Journal’s Chris Garlock, reviews the 41st game of the amazing AlphaGo vs. AlphaGo selfplay games. The 50-game series was published by Deepmind after AlphaGo’s victory over world champion Ke Jie 9p in May 2017.

In this commentary, originally broadcast live on the AGA’s Twitch channel on April 26, Redmond talks about a special video his mother made about the first time a young Michael met Kaoru Iwamoto, “who did so much to promote go overseas.” Today’s game starts with the Chinese Opening, “which is a little unusual for AI’s, we’ll see a few 3-3 invasions and of course some exciting fighting involving some groups where you’ll be wondering if they’re dead or alive.”

Also, tune in this Sunday on Twitch at 7p EDT for another live commentary, this one on the Ichiriki-Shibano game from Pandanet’s recent “Golden Panda Cup”

AG #41 produced by Stephen Hu, Allen Moy and Chris Garlock

[link]

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Nominations sought for AGA East Board seat

Friday May 29, 2020

Nominations have been coming in for the upcoming AGA Board of Directors election, reports Arnold Eudell. Lisa Scott in the Central region and Christopher Saenz in the West are running to retain their seats, while Ted Terpstra and Darrell Ashworth are contesting the At-Large seat. Thus far, however, there are no nominations for the Eastern seat. “If you know of someone who you believe would offer guidance and service to the AGA consider making a nomination,” Eudell urges. Nominations, including self-nominations, may be made by full members for the region in which the member resides or without restriction for the At-Large seat and must be received by June 15, 2020. Nominations and questions must be emailed to elections@usgo.org. Click here for complete election information and qualifications.

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The Power Report: Professional go to resume & more reports

Thursday May 28, 2020

by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal

Professional go to resume

When the Japanese government declared an emergency on April 7, the Nihon Ki-in and the Kansai Ki-in fell in line and cancelled face-to-face go activity. The emergency was lifted on May 25, and on the same day the Nihon Ki-in announced that it would resume tournament activity on June 1, as will the Kansai Ki-in. However, some precautions will be observed.

  1. The temperatures of players will be measured.
  2. Players will wear masks.
  3. Attention will be paid to air circulation.
  4. There will be a limit to the number of games being played so that venues don’t become overcrowded. First of all, the first round of an international tournament, the 25th LG Cup, will be played on the net on June 1. The Japanese participants will play their games at the Nihon Ki-in Two domestic title matches were affected by the shut-down. The first game of the 75th Honinbo title match will be played in Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, on June 2 and 3. Shibano Toramaru Meijin will be challenging Iyama Yuta Honinbo. Games 3 to 5 from the 58th Judan tournament which is being fought between Murakawa Daisuke Judan and Shibano Toramaru, have been rescheduled for June 17 and June 26 at the Nihon Ki-in and, if the match goes the full distance, July 3 at the Kansai Ki-in. The match is tied 1-1.

Tong wins Net tournament

On February 19, I published a report on a new net tournament, the 1st Wild Fox Contest for Supremacy, in which Iyama Yuta had won his way to the final and made a good start, winning the first game by half a point with white. However, in the second, his opponent, Tong Mengcheng 8P, returned the courtesy, winning by the same margin. The game was played on April 14. In the third game, played on April 22, Tong drew black and won by 3.5 points. First prize was 500,000 yuan (about $70,000). About 59,000 spectators followed the final game. Iyama had to be content with second place, but this is the best result a Japanese representative has scored recently. His cumulative score against eight Chinese opponents was 9-2. (Note: in English, the server seems to be called just “Fox.”)

Ohashi wins first tournament

The Young Bamboo Cup is a small-scale tournament for players 40 and under at the Kansai Headquarters of the Nihon Ki-in. The tournament is open to 16 players, which comes close to matching the number of players at this branch who meet the age condition. If there are more than 16 applicants, preliminaries are held; if fewer, the organizers can nominate extra players. The tournament was founded in 2018, but has already concluded its fourth term. The semifinals and final were held on April 7. In one semifinal, Ohashi Naruya 7P beat Utani Shunta 2P; in the other, Muramoto Wataru 2P beat Otani Naoki 3P. In the final, Ohashi (B) beat Muramoto by 9.5 points. First prize is 200,000 yen (about $18,570), and second is 100,000 yen. This is admittedly a minor title, but the 29-year-old Ohashi was very happy to win it. He commented: “This is my first victory. I hadn’t received any trophies since becoming a professional, so I’m extremely happy. Other tournaments have been postponed for the time being because of the corona virus, but I’ll be able to hole up at home cheerfully. Don’t tell anyone, but I was so excited after the win that I couldn’t sleep until the morning.”

Onishi and Son qualify for LG Cup

As mentioned in a previous report, the organizers of the 25th LG Cup cancelled the international qualifying tournament scheduled to be held in Seoul in April and instead allocated seats to the different professional organizations to use as they wished. Japan has three seeded places, taken by Murakawa Daisuke Judan, Ichiriki Ryo 8P and Kyo Kagen 8P, and was allotted two more places. These were decided by a net tournament among eight young players held on April 6 and 7. Onishi Ryuhei 5P won one side of the mini-tournament and Son Makoto 7P the other. They will play their first-round games at the Nihon Ki-in on June 1.

Ichiriki eliminated from MLily Cup

The quarterfinals of the 4th MLily Cup were held on the net, the first time ever for a major international tournament, on April 27. Ichiriki Ryo 8P was the only player standing in the way of complete Chinese domination of this Chinese-sponsored tournament, but his winning run came to an end in this round. Taking white, Xie Ke 8P beat him by resignation. Even so, this was Ichiriki’s best result so far in a major. Other results follow (full details are not available): Mi Yuting 9P beat Xie Erhao 9P; Ke Jie 9P beat Fan Tingyu 9P; Xu Jiayang 8P beat Meng Tailing 7P.

Go players marry

There is yet another professional couple. On February 10, O Keii 3P, the daughter of O Rissei, former Kisei, and Yamamori Tadanao 7P tied the knot. They are both members of the Nagoya branch of the Nihon Ki-in.

Retirements

Ezura Yuichi retired as of April 30. Born on January 15, 1943 in Tokyo, he became 1-dan in 1962 and reached 8-dan in 1995. On his retirement, he was promoted to 9-dan.

Aragaki Takeshi retired on the same date. Born in Okinawa on June 4, 1956, he became a disciple of Sakata Eio and qualified as professional 1-dan at the Tokyo Nihon Ki-in in 1971. He reached 9-dan in 1994.

Obituary: Honda Sachiko

Honda Sachiko 7P died of old age on May 1. Born on December 30, 1930, she was 89. She was the middle one of the famous three Honda sisters, her older sister being Sugiuchi Kazuko (born on March 6, 1927, and still active) and her younger sister Kusunoki Teruko 8P (born on September 3, 1939; retired in 2019). Honda was born in Shizuoka Prefecture. She became a disciple of Kitani Minoru 9P and made 1-dan in 1947. She was promoted to 6-dan in 1981 and retired in 2000, and was then promoted to 7-dan. She won the Women’s Championship five times and the Women’s Honinbo title twice. In 1961, she made a two-month instruction tour of the U.S. along with her sister Teruko and Kitani Reiko, and in 1974 toured Europe with Kobayashi Chizu. As one of three go-playing sisters, it seems apposite that she took the three Mukai sisters–Mimura Kaori 3P (born in 1981, wife of Mimura Tomoyasu 9P), Nagashima Kozue 2P (born in 1984; not married to a professional), and Chiaki 5P (born in 1987, wife of Sugimoto Akira 8P, but she plays under her maiden name)—as disciples.

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Teacher of the Year Nominations Open

Tuesday May 26, 2020

Nominations for the American Go Foundation’s  Teacher of the Year award are due by June 15th. The award is usually presented each year at the U.S. Go Congress. Although congress has unfortunately been canceled due to Covid-19, the AGF Board decided to still honor a teacher this year, and to simply delay the prize until next year’s congress. The winner will receive an all expenses paid trip to the 2021 US Go Congress in Cleveland.  To be eligible a teacher must be a member of the AGA and have been teaching go to children  for at least one hour a week for two years – prior to March of this year. The award is now open to other kinds of teachers as well, including online efforts.  Click here for more information.  If you would like to nominate someone for this award, including yourself, email mail@agfgo.org.  Nominations are due by June 15th and should include a description of the teacher’s activities, how long they have been teaching, and how many students attended their program. – Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo:  Screen shots from 2019 Teacher of the Year Nick Sibicky‘s popular Go Lectures on Youtube.

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Membership manager payment problem solved

Monday May 25, 2020

After being alerted to payment issues within the AGA Membership Manager the tech team consulted and patched the issue. The payments are now working again. If you have had an issue in the last month with using the membership manager to make payments, please try again. If there are any continued issues please email webmaster@usgo.org and database@usgo.org to let us know so that we can help you.

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In Memoriam: Gordon Castanza

Sunday May 24, 2020

By Mike LePore

Former AGA board member Gordon Castanza passed away on May 24, after a battle with cancer.

Gordon’s life was anything but boring and conventional. At the age of 20, he received a draft notice, and left college to serve in the Air Force for five years during the Vietnam War. Upon returning to civilian life, Gordon finished his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and went to work for the Alaska public school system. In 1984, when the school board wouldn’t let him take time off to compete in the Iditarod dog sled race, Gordon quit his job and competed anyway. (does this really surprise any of you who knew him?) He then spent several years in the 1980s working for a company that was instrumental in opening up free markets in China. He would later return to Alaska, obtaining his doctorate in his mid-50s while serving as a school district superintendent.

Gordon retired in July 2000, and moved to Gig Harbor, WA. In retirement, go became one of Gordon’s true loves, along with fly fishing and military history. He even found a way to get the story of the famous Atom Bomb Game incorporated into Don Farrell’s book Tinian and the Bomb. Gordon loved go’s beauty and historical significance, and was always delighted at the chance to introduce the game to others. I will miss spotting his wide-brimmed hat at future go events.

“I feel fortunate to have gotten to know Gordon,” said AGA president Andy Okun. “He took me fly fishing high up in the Rockies on the Wednesday off at the Colorado Congress in 2010, a chance to see him in his element, hat, shades, waders, and a quiet stream. He told me stories about his time in China, and witnessing the Tiananmen crackdown, being in the Air Force in Vietnam, his devotion to go, and getting to fish the ant fall on the San Juan River. Keep your line tight, Gordon.”

American Go E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock added that “Gordon joined the EJ Congress game recording team when we were just getting started and was always a reliable and steadfast game recorder, insisting on using his own laptop, an innovation we’ve since adopted for the whole team.”

photos by Chris Garlock (top) and Phil Straus (middle); Andy Okun (bottom)

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