American Go E-Journal

Josh Lee 5D (at right in photo) went 3-1 to help usher in the Year of the Dragon at the February 11 NOVA Chinese New Year Tournament, an annual event organized by the Northern Virginia (NOVA) Go Club. Tied for second and also 3-1 were Yuan Zhou 7D and Hsien-Ho Chang 7D. The 1 to 3 dan section was won by Hongchun Liu 2D (3-1) with second place going to Haskell Small 3D (2-2). Pascal Platteborse 1K (3-0) won the 1 kyu section followed by Weiyu Yang 1K and Willis Huang 1K, each with 2-2 records. In the 2 to 3 kyu section Kevin Chin 1K had a perfect 4-0 while seconds went to Yukino Takehara 2k and Jerry Chen 2k at 2-2. Dan Hiltgen 5k (3-1) topped the 5 kyu section with second going to Mike Lash 5k (2-2). 6 to 7 kyu was won by Joey Phoon 6k (4-0) with Ed Caldeira 7k (3-1) in second. In 8 to 9 kyu Mohan Sud 9k was undefeated at 4-0 with Julian Erville 8k (3-1) placing second. Alan Chen 11k (3-1) was first in 10 to 12 kyu followed by Jackson Hergenrather 12k (1-3). Anderson Barreal 13k (4-0) and Emily Hjulstrom 14k (3-1) took the top spots in 13 to 20 kyu. 20 kyu and higher went to Julian Li 22k (4-0) and Benjamin Lin 32k (3-1) with a Special Valor award going to Eugene Yuan 35k, playing in his first tournament. There was also a fun lightning tourney where firsts went to Timothy Koh and Justin Wang. “A special thanks goes to Dr James Whang, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US, and GEICO for their support in making this a great event,” reports Gurujeet Khalsa.
photo: Ching-Sung Chin (left) presents winner’s trophy to Josh Lee; photo by Gurujeet Khalsa