American Go E-Journal » Events/Tournaments

The Capital Go Club is proud to announce the 9th Virginia Open and 2nd VA State Championship Qualifier to be held on OGS and BadukClub on Saturday, December 5th and Sunday, December 6th. Players will compete across four divisions for four rounds: Open (4D+), Expert (1-4D), Intermediate (5-1K), and Novice (6K and below). Prizes will be $100, $50 and $25 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the Open Division respectively, and $20 and $10 for 1st and 2nd in all other divisions. Female and youth winners (aged 17 and below) will be awarded additional $10 (minimal 2 wins). Go books are also available as rewards, sponsored by Hinoki Press. Prizes are sponsored by the Honest401k team. The first three rounds of the Open Division will be held Saturday 12/5 with the 4th round on Sunday 12/6. Other divisions will have all 4 rounds on Saturday 12/5.

The top four finishing Virginia residents will be invited to compete for the VA Champion in January of 2021 in a safe format, details to be announced. Last year Joshua Lee 6D defeated Qingbo Zhang 5D in the final and declared the first Virginia State Champion. “We encourage more youth players and more female players,” says organizer Edward Zhang. “Our perpetual trophy will be awarded to not only the VA State Champion, but also to the VA Youth Champion and VA Women’s Champion if more than three contenders compete in each subdivision.”

Pre-registration is required to participate in the tournament. The deadline for pre-registration is 5pm ET Nov. 30. Click here to sign up. The Registration fee is waived for AGA members, and $10 for non-AGA members. Players may pay by PayPal with reference to the player’s name. All games will be played on OGS, with pairing and results information available here. For questions or inquiries, please email Jeff Zhang at AGATD1@gmail.com. For more details and to register, visit the Washington Go Festival website. Thanks go to Jeff Zhang 5D for gathering tournaments history from AGA E-Journal featured on the website, including an Open Division winners list for tournaments of the Greater Washington metro area for the past 13 years.

The Austin Go Club sponsored the GOVID 19×19 Tournament over the weekend, drawing 42 players from across the country, Vermont to San Diego. Players ranged from 7 dan to double-digit kyu. Overall, there were five rounds, with 10 players in the Open section and 32 in the handicap section.

In the Open section, the best records went to Zhao Zhixun 7d (3-0) and   Zhou Yixian 6d (4-1). In the handicap section, Mario Espinoza 7k was undefeated with a 5-0 record. Other players with 4 wins were Evan Tan 2k, tshelix 4k, Patrick Sun 4k, Ray Heitmann 5k, Alexander Lo 7k, Jason Li (jsonli) 12k, and Benjamin Lo 13k.

The Austin Go Club thanks everyone who participated, and hopes to hold similar events in the future, especially while face-to-face tournaments are still not possible at this time.

-report by Bart Jacob

The deadline for the registration for the NY Go League is coming up at the beginning of October, and the New York Go Honor Society (NYGHS) encourages anyone that wants to continue playing organized games to enter. As in previous leagues, the only eligibility requirement is that players have a stable rank from any national association, or on any Go server. Click here to view our rules and regulations, and click here to register. 

This League will be a two-month long round robin tournament, with each division having 8-10 players, after previously being held over only one month. “With many places starting to reopen, it is becoming hard for participants to sustain multiple games per week,” says Toranosuke Ozawa, co-president of the NYGHS. “Now it will be one per week, if not slightly less over the two months.” Players are grouped based on rank, or their performance in previous iterations of the league, with the prize for the winner being a 50% discount for a New York IG Adult trial class (kids are eligible as well). “We hope that the community will be able to use this league as an opportunity to play lots of matches and further their experience with the game!”

The first North American Youth Open took place on September 5th, 2020 in the AGA Tournament Room on KGS. Hosted by the New York Go Association and sponsored by the American Go Foundation, the North American Youth Open is one of the highest-class youth Go tournament in North America. Over 100 youth players registered and competed for the highest honor and over $1,000 in prizes.

After 4 rounds of competition, award winners for the eight divisions were as follows:
Division A (4D and above) – 1st place: Michael Sato; 2nd place tie: Ben Gong & Frederick Bao
Division B (1D to 3D) – 1st place: Zixuan Gao; 2nd place: Ethan Whitman; 3rd Place: Katherine Xie 
Division C (3K to 1K): – 1st place: Derek Zhou; 2nd place: Alan Yang; 3rd Place: Steve Ling 
Division D (6K to 4K): – 1st place: Frank Wang; 2nd place: Chenhui Zhang; 3rd Place: Jason Yang 
Division E (10K to 7K): – 1st place: Manny Jauregui; 2nd place: Jamie Tan; 3rd Place: Daniel Luo
Division F (14K to 12K): – 1st place:Matthew Wang; 2nd place: Lucas Yang; 3rd Place: Lucia Moscola
Division G (19K to 15K): – 1st place: Enzo Aozono-Araldi; 2nd place: Caleb Tan; 3rd Place: Avik Hardy
Division H (25K to 20K) – 1st place: Yiting Liu; 2nd place: Eric Wang; 3rd Place: Enzo Moscola