American Go E-Journal » Events/Tournaments

More cool stuff from — and thoughts about — last week’s US Go Congress…

“AlphaGo Insider” Posted: Video of the 2016 USGC Computer Go special session on August 4, 2016, presented by Google DeepMind’s Aja Huang 7d and European Champion Fan Hui 2p. Also just posted: “The Number of Possible Go Positions”, presented by John Tromp.

Go Talk with AlphaGo’s Lucas Baker: In his latest Go Talk, Kevin Hwang talks about Alpha Go with Lucas Baker, a member of the Deepmind team; click here for the video.

Landman’s Slides: “Several people wanted the slides to my Go Congress talk,” writes Howard A. Landman. Click here to download them.

Thankful Senior: “Thank you for the Seniors Tournament this year,” writes Eric Osman. “Between that and the US open I was able to have two rated games a day without running around chasing people for a game. Having one tournament game in the morning and one in the afternoon each day was perfect.”

The First 21st Century Go Congress? Keith Arnold Makes His Case
As director of the 2001 Go Congress, I am proud of my effort. Looking back, however, I must admit that I ushered in the new century with a very competent version of what had come before. In the years that have followed, few changes have occurred – a wonderful women’s tournament and the internet broadcast of games being the notable ones that come to mind. But it is fair to say the average attendee transported from a Go Congress ten or even twenty years ago would easily have found his way around its successors through the Twin Cities last year.

Boston was undeniably different. A significant transfiguration of the Self-Paired tournament, a second year of expected rather than novel substantial video coverage, a Senior Tournament, no 13 by 13, live website updates of scheduling, an insane team relay game, blindfold go exhibitions, event stamps and advanced info on the topics of pro lectures made for a very different event. And those are just the changes I can think of off the top of my head. These new visions and the wonderful forward-thinking presence of the AlphaGo team lead me to dub Boston the first 21st Century Go Congress.

I do not mean to suggest that I loved every change, or that every change should become permanent. But what I am saying is that the Boston team breathed fresh energy into a gathering that may have been suffering from a form of nostalgic inertia. No doubt critics of some of these changes will say that a big problem with the event was so many of the key organizers had never been to a Congress before. I would argue that the best thing about this year’s Congress was that so many of the key organizers had never been to a Congress before. The new ideas and energy were palpable, and the result was extremely successful. Boston was demonstrably a breakthrough, with the first big jump in attendance we have had in years.

Metaphor stretcher that I am, Boston may have thrown a lot of old Congress tea overboard, and some of it might still be good tea, but I hope it also breathes new freedom into the event, and more freedom for future organizers.
– Keith Arnold, HKA; photos by Chris Garlock

Just as this year’s US Go Congress set new records for attendance, the E-Journal provided a record amount of coverage of this major annual event. Karoline Li and Samantha Fede joined our reporting team — which included Paul Barchilon and Justin Teng covering youth events — to publish a whopping 37 reports, including daily tournament updates, “Why We Play” interviews and the new “Behind the Scenes at the US Go Congress” series. Steve Colburn, Todd Heidenreich and Dennis Wheeler once again anchored our amazing game recording team, which recorded and broadcast over 50 top-board game records. Special thanks to Andrew Jackson, Daniel Chou, Andrew Lu, Justin Teng and Louie Liu, who joined Richard Dolen on the morning recording team. Stephen Hu coordinated our streaming coverage on YouTube of not only the top-board games in the US Masters but events like the Redmond Cup, Blindfold Go and Pair Go events. Altogether, the EJ Congress team — including the wonderful pros who were so generous with their time and insights — was far bigger — nearly 50 volunteers all told — and better than ever and I hope you’ll join me in thanking them for their dedication, commitment and yes, sacrifice of time and energy to bring this amazing event to a global audience. See you next year in San Diego!
– Chris Garlock; Managing Editor

2016 EJ Congress Team
Todd Heidenreich: Assistant Manager; Steve Colburn: Tech/IT Manager; Dennis Wheeler: Room Manager/Relief; Paul Barchilon: Youth Editor; I-Han Lui & Chun Sun: Pro Coordinators; Karoline Li: Tournament Liaison; Stephen Hu; Tim Holman; Krishna Artem-Mickens: Video streaming team; Phil Straus & Chris Garlock: photos; Samantha Fede: General Assignment Reporter; Akane Negishi: KGS; Matthew Hershberger, US Open/Open Masters TD; Chris Garlock, EJ Managing Editor

Game Recorders: Morning: Andrew Jackson*, Richard Dolen*, Daniel Chou*, Andrew Lu*, Justin Teng*, Louie Liu*
Evening: Solomon Smilack**, David Weimer, Bart Jacob, George Schmitten, Yong Peng, Austin Harvey, Peter Gousios, Mike Scudder (* morning recording team; ** special thanks to Sol for handling the Friday Night Broadcast).
Video Commentary Hosting: Stephen Hu, Andrew Jackson, Solomon Smilack, Daniel Chou, Justin Teng, Louie Liu, Matthew Harwitt, Karoline Li

Professionals: Feng Yun 9P, Liao Guiyong 9P, Mingjiu Jiang 7P, Yilun Yang 7P, Maeda Ryo 6P, Hajin Lee 4P, Jennie Shen 2P, Hsiao Ailin 2P, Cathy Li 1P, Stephanie Yin 1P
photo by James Pinkerton

Yun Bao 7d defeated Zhongfan Jian on Saturday morning to complete his flawless 9-0 sweep of this year’s US Open Masters. In fact, Bao’s only loss this week was in his unrated blindfold match against Eric Lui on Monday (right); Bao had won his Masters game against Lui the previous night. Hanchen Zhang 1P was second and Andy Liu 1P third in the US Masters. 44 players participated.

Gaoyuan Zhang 6D, also undefeated, won the 2016 US Open, topping a record field of 498; Zefan Wen 6D was second and David Lu 6D third. See below for US Open division winners, listed 1st to 3rd for each division.
Matthew Hershberger directed both tournaments.

US Open Results
6-Dan: Gaoyuan Zhang 6D (6 wins); Zefan Wen 6D; David Lu 6D
5-Dan: Sai Sun 5D (6 wins); Michelle Zhang 5D; Forest Song 5D
4-Dan: Minh Vo 4D; Yong Chen 4D; Ruoshi Sun 4D
3-Dan: Soren Jaffe 3D (6 wins); Dominique Cornuejols 3D; Meng Cai 3D
2-Dan: Lee Huynh 2D; Daniel Puzan 2D; Michael Fellner 2D
1-Dan: Jochen Tappe 1D (6 wins); Ken Koester, Jr 1D; Terry Luo 1D
1-Kyu: David Frankel 1K (6 wins); Shawn Ligocki 1K; Bill Phillips 1K
2-Kyu: Lei Xu 2K; Michael Scudder 2K; Jeff Pratt 2K
3-Kyu: François van Walleghem 3K; Bart Jacob 3K; Darrell Speck 3K
4-Kyu: Chi Wong 4K; Mishal Awadah 4K; William Maier 4K
5-Kyu: Theodore Terpstra 5K; Phil Tracy 5K; Robert Ehrlich 5K
6-Kyu: Gurujeet Khalsa 6K; Robert Gilman 6K; Weiqiu You 6K
7-Kyu: Joel Olson 7K; Johnathan Gohde 7K; Tevis Tsai 7K
8-Kyu: Dave Whipp 8K (6 wins); Wen Lepore 8K; Joseph Chaves 8K
9-Kyu: Adam Isom 9K (6 wins); Wendel Silva 9K; Liya Luk 9K
DDK A: Jiamu Si 12K (6 wins); Dan Maas 10K; Jung Lee 10K
DDK B: Alexandra Patz 13K; Lawrence Gross 13K; Michael Williams 13K
DDK C: Lawrence Pierce 24K; Antonina Perez-Lopez 20K; Maya Boerner 20K
photos by Chris Garlock

The annual auction benefiting the American Go Foundation got a boost this year when go bowls signed by AlphaGo programmer Aja Huang and Fan Hui 2P were added to the auction, conducted at the closing banquet at the US Go Congress on Saturday, August 6. Brady Daniels’ $500 bid won him the bowls, while John Tromp’s $1,700 bid enabled him to take home the board signed by all the professional go players attending this year’s Go Congress. The American Go Foundation is dedicated to promoting go in the U.S. With its support, thousands of American children have learned go in hundreds of schools, libraries and community centers across the country. The AGF also provides scholarships and resources for youth who play go, and supports go in institutional settings such as prisons, and senior centers.
photo: Tromp and Daniels with AGA president Andy Okun (far left); photo by Steve Colburn

Newly-elected AGA board member Lisa Scott is definitely not new to the AGA scene. She served as a Central Region board member from 2010 to 2013, and has just been appointed US Go Congress Coordinator for the AGA. Scott learned to play go on KGS during her first year of college, and found out about the Go Congress in 2006, when she asked around about why most go players seemed to drop offline during the first week of August. Scott has directed the Women’s Tournament at the Go Congress every year since the Lancaster, PA in 2007, her first Go Congress. The first year, 23 women played in the tournament. Participation has been lower some years, but at the 2015 Go Congress in St. Paul 40 women played, and this year that number grew to 46. “With around 90 rated women registered for the Go Congress this year, including pros,” Scott says with a smile. “That means over 50% of them are playing in the Women’s Tournament!” Scott’s biggest goal of the tournament is to build community and give women a chance to meet other female players outside their own clubs. With the number of female registrants and Women’s Tournament players rising each year, more players are getting the chance to meet and play against new people. “I like finding people good games to play.”
– report/photo by Karoline Li, Congress Tournament Liaison

Although just one name goes on the annual Congress Director plaque, there are literally dozens of volunteers who work for months to ensure a fun-filled week of go for the hundreds of go players who attend the largest event on the U.S. go calendar. To those volunteers we say Thank You for a job well-done!
– Walther Chen, Director, 2016 US Go Congress 

Our core Congress team went far above and beyond: Jason McGibbon, Chun Sun, Yuan Cao, Matthew Hershberger, Becci Torrey, Stephen Hu, James Carrier, Neil Ritter, Dan Ritter, Andrew Hall, Li Chen, James Peters, Tim Holman, Brian Lee, I-Han Lui, Milan Mladenovic.

The core team would like to give a special thanks to the following people, who made the Boston 2016 US Go Congress possible by helping plan and prepare ahead of time, by working all day on registration day, by staying late to set up boards, by helping run events, and so much more. These people are all extended members of our core team: Srividya Kalyanaraman, Krishna Artis-Mickens, Greg Kulevich, Cat Thu Nguyen Huu, John Kane, Chris Kirshner, Ted Terpstra, Alice Peng, William Wright, Dan Steinbrook, Audrey Wang, Joe Chaves, William Luff.

We would like to thank the following people for volunteering to help prepare and run the Boston 2016 US Go Congress: Wei Shi, Shurun Fan, Keith Arnold, William Wright, Graham Higgins, Helen Higgins, David Hampton, Shawn Ligocki, Wen Zheng, Mark Huang, Eva Casey, Wanda Metcalf, Cat Huu, David Spitz, Mark Nahabedian, Gabriello Adler-Abramo, Alice (Siyu Peng), John Fuhrer, James Putnam, Rob Campbell, Thao Tran, Julia Grunewald, Michael Williams, Eric Reid, Danni Chen, Alan Yin, Spence Konde, Briana Sextonstalone, John Piermarini, Henry Galperin, Brianna Sextone-Stallone, Spence Kande, and many others!

Thanks also to the translators: Moon Ki Cho, Yumin Guo, Tracy Zhao, Yekan Ji, Xinying Jiang, Seon Kinrot, Brian Kirby, Chenchen Luo, Wei Tang, Tony Cha, Richard Dolen, Joshua Guarino

Special thanks
Community: David Kahn, the Massachusetts Go Association, and the Boston Go Community; all the friends and family who don’t play go but helped anyways
For Amateur Team Relay Go: Neil Ritter, Dan Ritter, Chun Sun, Andrew Hall, Becci Torrey, James Peters, John Kane, Tim Holman, Dave Felcan, Yuan Cao, Shawn Ligocki, Dan Steinbrook, Andrew Jackson, Nick Sibicky, Brian Lee, Tim Holman, Steven Xhu. And finally, a special thanks to the professional players who volunteered to be team captains and do commentary: Jenny Shen, Mingjiu Jiang, Yilun Yang, Feng Yun, Willian Shi, Andy Liu, Eric Lui, Calvin Sun, and Ryan Li

photo by James Pinkerton

Bao Yun Clinches ’16 US Open Masters; Battle Underway for Runner-Up: There’s still one more round to play in the 2016 US Open Masters but the name of this year’s winner can already be inscribed: Bao Yun 7D. Bao defeated Song Zirui 1P Friday night by 3.5 points to build an unassailable 8-0 lead and clinch the 2016 title. The action now moves to the battle for second place. Zhang Hanchen will have to beat Ito Kenryo to take second place; if Ito wins, tiebreaks will determine the winner. In other Round 8 action, Andy Liu let certain victory against Zhang Hanchen slip away when he neglected to secure the life of a group in the endgame on Board 2 (click here for an sgf of the commentary by Feng Yun 9P and Yilun Yang 7P); Ito Kenryo 1P beat Ryan Li by half a point on Board 3, Eric Lui 1P defeated Sun Shuo 7d by 4.5 points on Board 4, Jian Zhongfan 7d beat Zhang Siyuan 7d by a half-point on 5 and Zhaonian Chen 7d won by 8.5 points over Albert Yen 7d on Board 6. Click here for the 2016 Masters Division crossgrid, with results and top-board game records. Click here for the US Open crosstab, updated through Round 5. 

Broadcast Schedule
10a: US Open Masters Round 9 (final): Live pro commentary on the AGA YouTube Channel.
10:30a: US Open Masters Round 9: Live pro commentary on KGS.
PLUS: Check all the pro game commentaries from the week here.

US Go Congress Tournaments Schedule: Saturday 8/6
9:00a: US Open, round 6; US Open Masters, round 9

Diehard
Exactly 100 players ranging from the low 27 kyu to 7d decided they did not need a day off on Wednesday 8/3 — “because rest is for babies” — and gathered in the main playing room for the annual Diehard Tournament. Both Ted Lin 3k and Alexander Foti 4k were undefeated with four wins.

Pair Go
Click here for a Facebook album of all this year’s pairs, and read here for the tournament story and results to find out who will be representing North America in the International Pair Go Championships in Japan!

Senior Cup
Visit live.gocongress.org for final tournament crosstabs. Chunlin Xu 7k won all four games to be the only undefeated player in the tournament.

Women’s Tournament
Visit live.gocongress.org for final tournament crosstabs.

Lightning Tournament
Players are on their own to find and complete their playoff games, and both the dan and kyu section playoffs have not yet reached the semi-final round. With just one more day left of play, will they complete before the end of the Go Congress? Will we be left without lightning champions? Stay tuned to find out!

– report by Karoline Li, Congress Tournament Liaison; photos by Chris Garlock

As you might imagine, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into broadcasting games from the annual US Go Congress, whether on KGS, Pandanet, YouTube or Twitch. Most of the time, everything works, and go fans around the world can follow the top-board action from the comfort of their own homes or at work.

But sometimes things go sideways. Like Thursday morning. With just minutes to go before the sixth round in the US Open Masters was scheduled to begin, and with Bao Yun and Ito Kenryo — the last two undefeated players left — seated at Board 1, the internet connection for the game recorder’s computers and the livestream feed went dead. The E-Journal team quickly scrambled to troubleshoot the problem, find workarounds and implement backup plans. The BU tech guys were called in, cables and adapters were swapped and software settings were rapidly reconfigured. As always, the priority was to ensure no disruption or distraction for the players while working to bring the best possible broadcast to viewers on the various platforms. At home, viewers probably didn’t even notice the 2-minute delay in the start of the round, which otherwise went off without a hitch. The way we like it.
– Dennis Wheeler & Chris Garlock; photo by Garlock