American Go E-Journal » Events/Tournaments

NOTE: Here are a couple quick updates from the 2022 U.S. Go Congress Awards Banquet Saturday night. Stay tuned for more Congress reports, including complete tournament winners reports, top winner photos, and an exclusive EJ interview with NAMT winner Han Han.

Han Han 5P completed his 7-0 sweep of the 2022 North American Masters on Saturday morning by defeating Andy Liu 1P. In the photo at right, Han Han excitedly showed off his trophy and $5k check at Saturday night’s awards banquet.

The banquet kicked off with a longtime tradition, the auction of a go board — in this case a high quality kaya floor goban from the vintage team at Store.Baduk.Club — the benefit the American Go Foundation, which has long invested in young go players, many of whom were in attendance at the Go Congress. A fierce bidding war broke out for the goban, which had been signed by NAMT players, including newly-minted U.S. pro Alex Qi, and both outgoing AGA president Andy Okun and incoming president Gurujeet Khalsa. In the end, 2022 Redmond finalist King Bi (2nd from right), was the winner with a record $4,000 bid. “My family just wanted to give something back to the organization that has done so much for young go players,” Bi said.

– report by Chris Garlock; photos by Garlock (right) and Phil Straus (left)
In photo at left (l-r): AGA president Andy Okun, AGF VP Paul Barchilon, AGF president Terry Benson, King Bi, E-Journal Managing Editor (and auctioneer) Chris Garlock, auction organizer Solomon Smilack.

Tianyi Li 3d/Albert Yen 7d won the 2022 U.S. Pair Go Championships Thursday night at the U.S. Go Congress, defeating Liya Luk 1d/Edward Zhang 7d, who took second place. In 3^rd were Paige Kimball 1d/Jasper Emerton 5d and in 4^th were Samantha Soo 3d/Jerry Ju 3d. Li/Yen will represent the US in the IAPGC in Tokyo, Japan on December 10-11, 2022.

Fifty two pairs competed in the main Pair Go Tournament. Winning first place were Xiaodi Huang 6d/Kevin Chao 5d and in second place were Yingzhi Qian 5d/Will Lockhart 5d. Table Winners: Yujie Liu 3d/Wanqi Zhu 3d; Jino Choung 1d/Joel Kenny 4d; Yuki He 1d/Benjamin Gunby 1k; Jonathan Green 1k/Jun Wu 1k; Angel Zhou 2k/Daniel Luo 2k; Kacey Saff 5k/Peter Schumer 2k; Laura Wu 8k/Howard Wong 1d; Sarah Crites 5k/Bob Crites 5k; Maya Boerner 6k/Andreas Boerner 6k; Vivienne Blandy 6k/Mark Fraser 7k; Terri Schurter 9k/Gurujeet Khalsa 6k; Giovanni Ventura 5k/Simon Zhang 13k.

In the North American Masters Tournament, Han Han 5P on Friday morning continued his sweep through the field, defeating Alex Qi 1P for a 5-0 record. In an unexpected bit of offboard drama, Han Han asked TD Kevin Chao mid-game to check Qi’s glasses to make sure the newly-minted young professional was not receiving outside assistance. Play continued after Chao found no such evidence.

Update: Han Han notched his sixth win Friday night, beating Albert Yen. Round 6 of the NAMT was broadcast on Twitch, with EJ Managing Editor Chris Garlock hosting Michael Redmond 9P for commentary on the top boards. Check out the stream — which includes a discussion on handling allegations of cheating in go — here.

CLICK HERE for the NAMT crosstab.
CLICK HERE for the U.S. Open crosstab.

While most Go Congress attendees were off taking advantage of local attractions in the Rocky Mountains, seventy nine players played 138 games in the Die Hard Tournament on Wednesday. With eight games played and four wins, David Frankel 1D won the prize for most games and most wins in the Dan division, while Kacey Saff 5K took the prize for most wins in the kyu division with a 5-2 record and EJ Congress Team producer EvaDee Beech 4K’s SOS record for her seven games clinched the most games prize in the kyu division. Jae Donley was the TD.
For the first time, Die Hard Board 1 games were streamed live on the AGA’s Twitch channel; check out the video here (the last one — Yoder-Yi — is especially exciting, with massive attacks and counter-attacks as both players are in byo-yomi).

After three rounds in the North American Masters Tournament (NAMT) – and four more still to go — just two players are undefeated: Han Han 5P and Zhaonian Chen 7D. Click here for the NAMT crosstab.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. Open, two of the five rounds have been completed; click here for the U.S. Open crosstab.

On Tuesday, in addition to commenting on the top boards in the NAMT, Eric Lui 2P and host Eric Lee 3D reviewed two kyu games from the U.S. Open (check out the streams here). Open players interested in having their games included in the Twitch commentary on Thursday can email their OGS username to journal@usgo.org. Note that you must record your Round 3 games on OGS in a demo board and be sure to name the game “US Open Round 3” and include both player’s actual names.

BREAKING NEWS: On Wednesday, the top board at the Die Hard tournament will be broadcast live — for the first time ever! — on OGS and Twitch by the EJ team, starting at 9a MT. The Die Hard’s format is Arena Style: win the most points by winning the most games. Players are re-paired immediately after their games conclude. See Die Hard under Tournaments in the YAPP app for complete details.

One of the big hits of Sunday night’s opening ceremonies at the 2022 U.S. Go Congress was the slideshow of photos from past Congresses, from the first one in 1985 in Westminster, Maryland, to the last pre-pandemic gathering in 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin. Click below to see a video of the show and find out more about the U.S. Go Congress history here. Photos by Phil Straus; slideshow by Eric Wainwright.

Here’s a sample of what was posted on the AGA’s Twitter account on Monday…
photos by Chris Garlock

Monday morning saw the launch of the 240-player strong U.S. Open in the main playing area of the U.S. Go Congress, while nearby in the Strong Players Room, top players met in Round 2 of the N.A. Masters Tournament. A new development this year is that while the top three NAMT boards are being broadcast by live onsite game recorders, additional top boards are being broadcast by remote game recorders viewing livestreams of the games on a private YouTube channel, enabling the game commentators to review more games.  Commenters so far have been Inseong Hwang 8D, hosted by Devin Fraze, and Stephanie Yin 1P, hosted by Michael Fodera. Update: The NAMT crosstab has now been posted! 

The E-Journal teams plans to expand coverage to include selected U.S. Open games on Tuesday: anyone interested in having their games included in the live Twitch broadcast should email journal@usgo.org; note that you must be able to record your game (in real time) on OGS.
– report/photo by Chris Garlock

Eighty four players competed in this year’s Lightning event at the U.S. Go Congress, “with an unusual number of players dominating their tables,” reports TD Keith Arnold.
Table winners were: Lambert Li 6 dan (undefeated); Kevin Huang 6 dan (undefeated); James Sedgwick 6 dan; Al Tang 2 dan (undefeated); Feng Li 2 dan; Stephanie Tan 1 dan; Benjamin Gundy 1 kyu (undefeated); Daniel Lou 2kyu; Austin Robinson 4 kyu (undefeated); Luke Belyeu 4 kyu (undefeated); Brad Rose 6 kyu; Regina Kim 10 kyu (undefeated); Lee Belyeu 13 kyu (undefeated); Hayden Fung 20 kyu (undefeated). Playoffs will be held this week.                                                           

Special thanks to Cat Mai for keeping the clocks running on time. photos by Chris Garlock

“There’s still time to donate go equipment or services to the AGF Auction,” reports Solomon Smilack. “The event runs for one week alongside the US Go Congress, and is a great way to support an amazing cause.” The auction, which benefits the American Go Foundation, is online, so you don’t need to be present at the Go Congress to donate, or to bid.

Donors who have stepped up so far include Roy Laird, who has donated five “Instant Go Libraries,” which includes dozens of new and out-of-print books up for grabs in each set, most in excellent condition and some even signed by their authors. The team at Store.Baduk.Club have donated a new kaya floor board, as well as a refurbished set of Slate & Shell stones with premium bowls. This gear will have historic value, too, as it will be used during the final round of the 2022 North American Masters Tournament. 
The team at GoMagic.org have donated ten Gold Memberships to their online Go-Learning platform. From Inseong Hwang, five Spectator Memberships to his online school and Yunguseng Dojang. And Bill Phillips has donated “an amazing quilt made from sixteen T-shirts of past US Go Congresses!”

Bidders can register any time, but Smilack says “it is best to register in advance so that you aren’t rushing at the last minute to enter your bids.” This year’s winners will have the additional checkout options of Apple Pay or Google Pay.

The 2022 U.S. Go Congress – the first in-person event since 2019 – got underway on Saturday as hundreds of go players from across the country made the trek to The YMCA of the Rockies playing site in Estes Park, Colorado. Despite the additional challenge of having to covid test all attendees, the registration process went smoothly. While the vast majority of attendees tested negative, several did test positive, underlining the need to observe the Congress masking rules to protect everyone’s safety, organizers told the E-Journal.  

With the U.S. Open not beginning until Monday morning, many players used the extra day to take in the scenic opportunities offered by the site amid the Rocky Mountains, while others participated in the ever-popular Self-Paired Tournament, which began at 5p on Saturday. Also on Saturday was the first round in the Redmond Cup for youth players, and on Sunday afternoon the top players met in the first round of the U.S. Masters.

Once again this year, the E-Journal is providing extensive coverage of the Go Congress: follow us on Twitter and for live game coverage, check out our Twitch channel, where we’ll broadcast games from the U.S. Masters and the U.S. Open (starting each morning at 9a Mountain Time), with commentary by professional go players as well as popular go streamers and strong amateurs. And of course we’ll be posting reports on our website and in the EJ. Another great option this year is to get the YAPP app, which has its own social stream, where Congress participants are posting photos and updates.