American Go E-Journal

The Seattle Go Center provided 15 volunteers to teach go at Sakura-Con, Seattle’s big festival of Japanese anime, manga and games.  Working in shifts, the volunteers kept the Go Center room open for 15 hours a day on Friday and Saturday, April 18-19.  On Sunday, they ran a 13×13 tournament.  The Go Center does not have an official teaching style, but most teachers follow Bill Camp’s advice from the 2013 Go Congress Teacher’s Workshop to “never answer a question that hasn’t been asked”, trying not to swamp new players with too much information.  In the late afternoon and early evening of Saturday, the room was completely full, and the enthused teachers were explaining the game in their own words.  As I was waiting for my students to play, I heard Dan Top declare, “In a situation like this, I just try to keep my stones together.  I don’t want any of my stones going down into the basement alone.” – photo of Dan Top and report by Brian Allen.