Events/Tournaments « American Go E-Journal

Elite Mind Games wrap-up

Sunday December 17, 2017

The go activities during last two days of the IMSA Elite Mind Games included three medal competitions: pair go, men’s blitz and

2017.12.17_pair go last round - Canada vs EU

women’s blitz. The format for these tournaments were new: the six teams were divided into three tiers, China and Korea, Japan and Taiwan, Europe and America. Then one team from each tier is drawn to form a group of three teams. In the first day, each group play within the group to determine the three teams’ position. Then in the second day, the top

four teams from the two groups play two rounds to determine the top four finishers, while the two third place teams play to decide the 5th and 6th places. In the end, Ke Jie from China won the men’s blitz, while Korea took the two other gold. Japan won all four bronze medals, a surprisingly good result. Canadian pair Sarah Yu and Ziyang Hu (at left in photo above right) played hard to narrowly defeat Manja Marz and Mateusz Surma (above right) and took a valuable, lone, 5th place for the American team. Wan Chen lost to Manja Marz of Germany, and Mingjiu Jiang forfeited his game with Ilya Shikshin. For the whole event, Ziyang Hu was the top performer from America’s team, winning two games – one against Surma in team play and one in pair go.

During the closing ceremony, medals were awarded in all five mind sports represented by IMSA. China and Russia were the big winners, followed by Ukraine and Korea. It was announced that the next chapter of this event will likely be held in mid-November, 2018. It is expected that the final details will be announced in February next year.
– Thomas Hsiang; photo above left: Pair Go finalists

Categories: China,IMSA Elite Mind Games,Main Page,World

Elite Mind Games Day 4 report

Wednesday December 13, 2017

The last day of women’s team competition saw plenty of sparks, but the only surprising result was Fujisawa Rina defeating the

world’s top-ranked female player from China, Yu Zhiying. Japan was then in a position to tie or defeat China, depending on the outcome of the other game bewteen China’s Lu Minquan and Japan’s Nyu Eiko. In that a game, Nyu played well to be ahead for most of the game, but she slipped in the yose when both players were in byo-yomi. After 6+ hours of play, the score was an unusual W+1.5 point due to a single-shared-liberty seki. Another game that could have sent shockwave through the tournament was between Canada’s Sarah Yu and Korea’s Choi Jeong. Sarah was in a difficult position from the start, but she fought hard and was about to win a large-group semeai with a favorable yose-ko. Sarah was in byo-yomi

and could not read in out, missing her chance. She missed a second chance to create a triple ko, which would have tied the game according to the tournament rules. As a result, Korea took first place, China dropped to second, and Japan received a hard-earned bronze medal.

On the men’s side, the games were all lopsided. Taipei could not follow its previous day’s performance and lost to Korea 0-2. In the end Korea was first, China second, and Taipei third.

Tomorrow the action switches to Pair Go and men’s and women’s blitz go. In two days, there will be three more medals to be won. For all three tournaments, the first day will be a three-round preliminary. Participants are divided into two groups. Preset seedings separate China and Korea, Japan and Taipei, North American and Europe into the two groups. The groups’ top finishers will meet to determine 1st and 2nd place, etc, in the second day.
– Thomas Hsiang; photos: (right) women’s medalists; (left) men’s medalists

Categories: China,IMSA Elite Mind Games,Main Page,World

Elite Mind Games Day 3 report

Tuesday December 12, 2017

On Day 3 of the IMSA Elite Mind Games, China and Taipei met in men’s team play. China’s number 1, Ke Jie, had no problem

2017.12.12_iemg-Joanne Missingham vs Sarah Yu

with Wang Yuan-Jyun; but the 2016 Ing Cup winner Tang Weixing lost to veteran Chen Shih-Yuan to make the team score 1-1. This result leaves the suspense of championship to the last round tomorrow – the winner between Taipei and Korea will be the champion. But if they are tied, the three teams will have the same team scores and a complicated tie-breaker will be used to determine the winner. In the other matches, Europe tied North America when Ilya Shikshin defeated Mingjiu Jiang while the young Canadian Ziyang Hu won a complicated fighting game against Mateusz Surma. Korea defeated Japan 2-0.

On the women’s side, China and Korea met for the top match of the day. China’s Yu Zhiying played a beautiful territory game to win over Choi Jeong. In the second game, which was also the latest to finish for the day, Korea’s Oh Yu-Jin won against Lu Minquan to tie the team score at 1-1. Japan beat Europe and Taipei beat North America, both at 2-0. In tomorrow’s fourth and last round, on the men’s side, China will play vs Europe, Taipei vs Korea, and Japan vs North America; on the women’s side, North America will play vs Korea, Europe vs Taipei, and China vs Japan.

– Thomas Hsiang; photo shows the matches between Taipei and North America. In the front are Joanne Missingham and Sarah Yu; in the back are Yang Tzu-Hsuan and Wan Chen.

Categories: China,IMSA Elite Mind Games,Main Page

Elite Mind Games Day 2 report

Monday December 11, 2017

In today’s IMSA Elite Mind Games team competitions for both men and women, China drew North America, Korea drew Europe, and Taipei drew Japan. China and Korea easily defeated their opponents to win 4-0; the suspense was with the closely matched games between Taipei and Japan. For men, the top two Taiwanese players Wang Yuan-Jyun and Chen Shih-Yuan defeated Japan’s new stars Shibano Toramaru and Mutsuura Yuta. For women, much attention was focused on the match between Joanne Missingham (Hei Jia-Jia) and the multiple title winner Fujisawa Rina (granddaughter of Fujisawa Shuko). The game lasted over five hours, with Rina finally prevailing over the seemingly rusty Joanne. The other game featured two shodans, the 15-year old Yang Tzu-Hsuan and the 17-year old Nyu Eiko, both having reached major title challenges this year in their countries. Eiko, daughter of multi-time world xiangqi champion Zhao Guorong and Go 5p Niu Lili who is famous for have written Go Seigen’s books for the past 20+ years, calmly won over Tzu-Hsuan in their first of many anticipated matches to come.

For readers who are not familiar with the IMSA Elite Mind Games, this event is a replacement of the previous SportAccord World Mind Games held from 2011 to 2014. A unique feature of these events is their strong involvement of Western players. Not only is the prize fund spread out to all players, the format of play, which does not use simple knock-outs, also allows the Western players to play many games with the top pros from Asia, thus allowing valuable training experience for the former. In today’s IMSA Executive Meeting, it was announced that IEMG will be continued for at least another two years. In addition, new events are being developed, aiming to hopefully reach three IMSA events per year by 2019.

– Thomas Hsiang; photo: Mingjiu Jiang (left) vs. Ke Jie

Categories: IMSA Elite Mind Games,Main Page,World

Pandanet AGA City League Registration still open

Monday November 20, 2017

Registration is still open for the new year of the Pandanet AGA City League. Play against some of the best players in the US and Canada including most of the AGA Professionals. Check out the rules and email steve.colburn@usgo.org for more information.

Categories: Pandanet-AGA City League

AGA City League Registration opens

Tuesday November 7, 2017

Registration for the sixth year of the Pandanet AGA City League is upon us. If you are interested please read the rules page and send an email to steve.colburn@usgo.org. Registration will close on November 30th.

–Steve Colburn, Tournament TD

Categories: Pandanet-AGA City League

Mark Lee wins 3rd Cotsen title

Sunday October 22, 2017

Sweeping all five games, Mark Lee (left, with Eric Cotsen) won his third consecutive Cotsen Open title October 22 at the Korean Culture Center in Los Angeles. All five wins were by resignation, including the exciting Round 4 game Sunday morning against Mateusz Surma. The European professional fell behind early but made skillful use of two weak groups to generate a thrilling game for viewers watching live on KGS as Surma chased a one-eyed dragon across the board. “Mateusz’ attack was a bit stronger than I expected,” said Lee. “I met him four years ago when we studied at the same school and he’s improved a lot since then.” See below for the game record, with commentary and variations by Lee.
Lee donated his $1,000 prize to the American Go Foundation, “to support its work training a new generation of go players.”

Winner’s Report:
Open: Mark Lee (5-0), Aaron Ye (4-1), Andrew Lu (4-1), Xiaocheng Hu (4-1), Mateusz Surma (3-2), Daniel Liu (3-2)
2-4d: Tyler Oyakawa (5-0), Jinming Pan (4-1), Pei Guo (4-1)
1d-2k: Kim In (4-1), Jay Chan (4-1), Irving Lai (4-1)
3k-7k: Matthew Hecht (4-1), Barnett Yang (4-1), Jonathan Zhang (4-1)
8k-19k: Heung Suh (5-0), Choashane Chang (4-1), Zongren Huang (4-1)
20-30k: Xiang Cai (5-0), Kyungsoo Lim (4-1), Alex Ledante
Club prizes: 1st: Santa Monica, 2nd: Orange County; 3rd: San Diego
– report/photo by Chris Garlock

[link]

Categories: Cotsen Open,U.S./North America

Mark Lee goes for “three-peat” at Cotsen Open

Saturday October 21, 2017

To say that defending Cotsen Open champion Mark Lee dominated his opponents in the first three rounds Saturday would not do justice to Lee’s play. “This is a slaughter,” said one viewer on KGS as Lee (right) effortlessly erased Daniel Liu’s (left) territory, leaving the 5-dan’s groups struggling pointlessly in Round 2. In the first round, Wang Yi 5d attacked Lee strongly, but was forced to resign after just 134 moves when his eyeless group came up short against Lee’s one-eyed group. In the third round, Aaron Ye, in a tenacious display of fighting spirit, threw everything he had at Lee — despite the relentless pressure of the overtime clock — but was unable to find a way to victory and, like Liu and Yi, was forced to resign.

Lee’s sweep Saturday puts him in position to capture the title for the third year in the final two rounds on Sunday, although Poland’s Mateusz Surma, also 3-0, may have something to say about that. Surma was just in Mexico for the Mexican Go Congress and decided to come up for the Cotsen. The top-board games will be broadcast live on KGS, and see photos on Twitter @theaga.

– report/photo by Chris Garlock

Categories: Cotsen Open,U.S./North America

Cotsen Open draws top players this weekend

Friday October 20, 2017

Defending champion Mark Lee 7d faces a strong field of top players at this weekend’s Cotsen Open in Los Angeles, including Andrew Lu 7d, Aaron Ye 7d, Yuefeng Zhao 7d and Vincent Zhuang 7d. Top boards will be broadcast live on KGS starting around 10a PDT on Saturday. The popular annual tournament is also a prelim for the 6th AGA Pro tournament, so competition is expected to be even fiercer than usual. The action takes place at the Korean Cultural Center (5505 Wilshire Blvd) and includes pro simuls and a pro-pro game.
NOTE: pre-registration has closed but walk-ins on Saturday will be accepted; all players who want to play in the first round must be on line to sign in or register by 9:15a on Saturday. Any questions, email
cotsenopen@gmail.com
photo: top board at 2016 Cotsen; photo by Chris Garlock

Categories: Cotsen Open,U.S./North America

Cotsen pre-registration deadline Tuesday at midnight PDT

Tuesday October 17, 2017

The deadline for the discounted registration for this weekend’s Cotsen Open is midnight PDT Tuesday night; click here now to register. After that, registration is $25 in cash at the door. Cotsen organizers have just added pro simuls with Myungwan Kim 9P and Ahn Dalhoun 9P on Sunday, plus of course the food truck lunch both days (free for pre-registered folks only). Complete details here. Walk-ins on Saturday will be accepted, but all players who want to play in the first round must be on line to sign in or register by 9:15a on Saturday. Any questions, email cotsenopen@gmail.com
photo: Myungwan Kim 9p at the 2016 Cotsen; photo by Phil Straus

Categories: Cotsen Open,U.S./North America

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