“Go is getting interesting in Latin America,” reports Mexican organizer Siddhartha Avila, “we’ve been organizing online tournaments for kids with Chile and Ecuador, and they have been a great success. I’ll be at the Iberoamerican Go Tournament in Quito, Ecuador (Oct 9-12) and I hope to meet some of the other organizers in person. We held the very first children’s online match between Chile and Mexico on June 28th, with the participation of twenty children from both countries! We used the OGS Go Server for this match. Go servers like KGS, OGS, IGS are widely used for tournaments or matches between countries in Latin America, and locally, the biggest of them being the Iberoamerican Online Go Tournament organized by Federación Iberoamericana de Go, its 15th edition last year drew more than 100 players.”
For the Chile-Mexico match, there where kids from 5 different schools in Punta Arenas, Chile: Colegio Luterano, Escuela Pedro Pablo Lemaitre, Escuela Juan Williams, Escuela Contardi, Escuela Manuel Bulnes. The match was organized by Club de Go Aonken and their teacher, Sebastián Montiel. On the Mexican side, all the players were from Escuela de Arte Pipiolo and Gimnasio de Go in Mexico City. “It was a great experience, that fills us with joy and enthusiasm to continue sharing go with children of our city, and around the world,” said Montiel
“We’ve had online matches with other schools in the US and Canada before,” said Avila, “especially with Peter Freedman’s students (Portland, OR) and in tourneys like Tiger’s Mouth, the School Team Tournament by the AGHS, or the AGA’s NAKC. We were glad to receive Sebastián’s invitation to play the Chile-Mexico match, and we have in mind inviting more countries where we know there are go programs, or go is taught to children. Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Brasil and Cuba, all come to mind,” adds Avila. Mexico won the matches 8 – 2, full results, and pictures, can be seen here. A report on the first Chile-Ecuador-Mexico match will run in next week’s E-J. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo: kids from Gimnasio de Go enjoy themselves playing against Chile.
