Events/Tournaments « American Go E-Journal

US Go Congress Tournament Ratings Expected to be Posted Soon

Monday September 29, 2014

The 2014 US Open Masters tournament has now been rated, and the other Congress tournaments are expected to follow suit soon. “We are
cleaning up the last few membership issues and glitches in the data,” said AGA President Andy Okun. “I hope to have the games from the US Open rated within the coming week, with the Die Hard, Self-Paired and Midnight Madness very close behind. I am grateful for everyone’s patience.” Okun said that the kinds of issues that sometimes delay ratings “…errant digits in AGA ids, getting everyone’s renewals and new memberships processed, handling overseas guests and the like…” are amplified in a tournament with more than 300 players like the US Open. Watch the EJ for news about Congress ratings.
photo of the 2014 US Open main playing area by Chris Garlock

Categories: U.S. Go Congress,U.S./North America

Park Junghwan Breaks Chen Yaoye’s China Korea Tengen Streak

Sunday September 28, 2014

Korea’s Jeju Island hosted the 18th China Korea Tengen from September 23 to September 26. Defending champion China’s Chen Yaoye 9p (left) has won the tournament for the past three years. With four total wins, Chen matches the accolades of Gu Li 9p and Lee Changho 9p. However, Park Junghwan 9p seemed determined to seek revenge for fellow Korean player Park Younghun 9p who was unable to stop Chen in last year’s tournament. As the only person to defeat Chen at the Tengen in the past, the pressure on Park Junghwan was high but he prevailed. Park won games one and two by resignation and restored the game record for overall wins to 9-9.

The China Korea Tengen is an annual tournament where the winners of Korea’s Chunwon and China’s Tianyuan play a best of three match. For more information about this year’s Tengen including photos and game records, please visit Go Game Guru.
—Annalia Linnan, based on a longer article by Go Game Guru; photo courtesy of Go Game Guru

Categories: Events/Tournaments,Go News,Korea,World

EuroGoTV Update: Romania, Russia, Switzerland

Sunday September 28, 2014

Romania: The 5th Radu Baciu Grand Prix — stage 6 Sibiu finished on September 14 with Adrian Nedan 1k in first, Alexandru Acsinte 4k in second, and Sorin Padurariu 3k in third. Russia: Igor Nemlij 5d bested Andrej Kulkov 6d at the Russian Championship Semifinal in Moscow on September 21. Grigorij Fionin 5d placed third. Switzerland: Also on September 21, Sylvain Praz 1d (left) took the Veyrier-Ko Go Club 2014. Behind him were Semi Lee 3d in second and Sebastien Ott 2d in third.
– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV

Categories: Europe,Events/Tournaments,Go News

Last week to sign up for the Pandanet-AGA City League

Monday September 22, 2014

pandalogo-4885cf7392ac5bc75a68d553b7287b04 This is the last week to sign up your city’s team for the upcoming year of the Pandanet-AGA City League. “We almost have a full roster for this season,” reports League Coordinator Steve Colburn. Any information can be found on the rules page or at steve.colburn@usgo.org.

Categories: Pandanet-AGA City League,U.S./North America

Peter Nelson Wins Seattle Pandanet Team Qualifier

Monday September 22, 2014

Peter Nelson, a recent arrival to Seattle from Minnesota, was selected for the Seattle 1 Pandanet-AGA City League Team, after winning the Qualifier Tournament at the Seattle Go Center by a narrow margin. Longtime Northwest player Edward Kim placed second at the tournament, with the same win/loss record, and will also join the team. Returning first team members are Simon (Ximeng) Yu, and Ho Son. The Seattle Pandanet-AGA team placed second last August in the A League competition, losing to the team from neighboring Vancouver B.C. The board order for the teams in the online tournament is determined by AGA ratings, so Nelson will probably have the alternate position. Nelson had an AGA rating of 3 dan last month, and has a 4 dan rating at present. However, he won two even games against a 7 dan at the tournament, plus a game against Xiaowu Li, who is a 5 dan in China, so observers expect his rating to continue to improve.

The open tournament was a challenge to both players and Tournament Directors Sonny Cho and Dennis Wheeler. Due to “circular wins” four players had identical records after four rounds, necessitating a playoff round. The tournament lasted 9 hours and some players had five games. In addition to Peter Nelson and Edward Kim, Dong Baek Kim and Xiaowu Li were finalists. This was the first Seattle event for Xiaowu Li, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Washington Law School, and former director of the faculty go club at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Photo: Simon (Ximeng) Yu watches the game of Peter Nelson and Xiaowu Li. Report/photo by Brian Allen

Categories: Events/Tournaments,Go News,Pandanet-AGA City League,U.S./North America

1-Day SAWMG Qualifier set for Monday on KGS

Sunday September 21, 2014

The AGA is holding a 1-day tournament on KGS on Monday, September 22 to select the replacement for Gansheng Shi, who was selected to represent North America at the SportAccord World Mind Games (SAWMG) but could not go. Mingjiu Jiang will play Eric Lui on Monday at 12 noon EDT in the AGA tournament room, and the winner will later play a deciding game with Jie Liang. The time for the second game is yet to be determined, but we’ll try to post it on our Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Categories: SportAccord World Mind Games,U.S./North America

Cotsen Open Registration Opens

Sunday September 21, 2014

Registration for this year’s Cotsen Open is now open. The 2-day tournament will be held on October 25-26 at the Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Sponsored by Eric Cotsen (at right), the tournament is one of the biggest on the annual U.S. go calendar and features thousands of dollars in prizes, an extremely competitive Open Division, live KGS commentary on top board games, free masseuses for players, and free food truck lunches to all those who pre-register for both days of the tournament. There will also be a demonstration game between Yilun Yang 7P and Yigang Hua 8P. As usual, everyone who pre-registers and plays in all five of their matches will have their full entry fee refunded; click here to register. Follow the Cotsen on Twitter and Facebook for the latest tournament news.

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

EuroGoTV Update: Hungary, Luxembourg, Croatia

Sunday September 21, 2014

Hungary: Pavol Lisy 1p took the Hungarian Open Go Championship on September 14 in Budapest while Pal Balogh 6d was second and Viktor Lin 6d placed third. Luxembourg: Also on September 14, Yaqi Fu 6d (left) bested Jonas Welticke 5d at the 7th Luxembourg Go Tournament in Hollenfels. Andreas Goetzfried 4k came in third. Croatia: The 491st Velika Gorica weekend go tournament finished on September 13 with Mladen Smud 1 in first, Marko Popovic 7k in second, and Filip Galekovic 20k in third.
– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV

Categories: Europe,Events/Tournaments,Go News

Phil Straus Wins OGS SDK Tourney

Sunday September 14, 2014

Phil Straus won the Online-Go.com SDK Round Robin tournament that ran February 3 through September 1. Straus, 3k on OGS, swept the 8-player field with seven wins and 21 points. Mpopovic 12k was second with 5 wins and 14 points. OGS allows both turn-based and real time play; this was a turn-based tournament. In turn-based play, players make a move, opponents are notified via email and have a set time in which they must respond. This tournament had time limits of about one day per move. Click here for info on other OGS tournaments.

Categories: Events/Tournaments,Youth

Sportaccord Set To Launch Biggest-Yet World Mind Games Online Tournament

Wednesday September 10, 2014

Registration for the 2014 SportAccord World Mind Games – Pandanet Online Tournament continues through September 30.The winner will participate in the 4th edition of the SportAccord World Mind Games (SAWMG), scheduled for December 11-17 in Beijing. Following last year’s success with participation in the SAWMG reaching 700,000 players worldwide, SportAccord — in partnership with RSportz, the community-based global sports network, and online platforms Bridge Base Online, Chess.com and Pandanet — is launching the World Mind Games Online Tournament Portal, a community-based destination for all participants featuring information on the online games’ rules, mind sports’ news and tournaments’ results. Follow the games on Twitter at WorldMindGames, hashtag #mindgames2014

The Bridge, Chess and Go online games will be operated and hosted by platform partners Bridge Base Online, Chess.com and Pandanet respectively. Registration is open for players from all levels, advanced to beginner. All participants get a chance to win prizes including Samsung TVs, tablets, Rado watches, and more. 12 000$ prize money will be shared among the winners of the tournaments. The tournaments will start from September 15 on all platforms.

SportAccord, the Union of International Sports Federations, operates four Multi-Sports Games, the World Combat Games, the World Beach Games, the World Urban Games and the World Mind Games. The 4th edition of the SportAccord World Mind Games will once again feature bridge, chess, draughts, go and xiangqi (Chinese Chess) in cooperation with the respective International Sports Federations. “The SportAccord World Mind Games reunites the world’s best players who compete for glory and prize money,” said SportAccord. “SportAccord is constantly looking to engage more people in mind sports in a fun and exciting way through cultural programs and online games.”

Categories: SportAccord World Mind Games,World

American Go E-Journal » Events/Tournaments