Wednesday May 7, 2014
Photographer (and former AGA president) Phil Straus has just posted an album of 28 high-resolution photos from the April 27-28
Washington Open Baduk Championships, which includes portraits of many of the players and dignitaries in attendance. The photos may be freely used but must credit Straus.
photo: Baltimore Go Club organizer Keith Arnold (left) gets a lesson; photo by Phil Straus
Tuesday May 6, 2014
Lithuania: Andrius Petrauskas 3d took the Vilniaus Taure on April 27 while Vladas Zaleskas 2d came in second and Ernestas Romeika 1d placed third. Turkey: The 3. Adana Go Tournament finished on April 20 with Cagdas Yeloglu 2d in first, Ertug Akkol 1d (left) in second, and Eren Kurter 2d in third. UK: Paul Taylor 2d bested Alistair Wall 2d at the Welwyn Garden City Go Tournament on April 26. Francis Roads 2d was third.
– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV
Tuesday May 6, 2014
The Amsterdam Go Club and European Go Centre will host the 43rd Amsterdam International Go Tournament May 29-June 1 at the European Go Cultural Centre. In addition to the main tournament, there will also be two deciding rounds of the CEGO EGF Pro Qualification Tournament for the first EGF professional go player, the Batavia Blitz Tournament, the DNM Rapid Tournament, and the Kunwa Children’s Tournament. The Rapid Tournament is open to main tournament players for a reduced price or for players who would like to only play a one day tournament. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top five players and special small money prizes for players with four to six wins. Players must register before May 25 or will be required to pay a late registration fee. For more information or to register, please visit the official Amsterdam International Go Tournament page.
—Annalia Linnan; for complete listings, check out the European Tournament Calendar; photo courtesy of the Amsterdam International Go Tournament
Thursday May 1, 2014
Feng Yun 9P, Myungwan Kim 9P, Yang Yilun 7P and Stephanie Yin 1P have confirmed that they’ll be teaching at this year’s U.S. Go 
Congress. Pro delegations from Japan, China and Korea are also expected. The weeklong event will be held August 9-17 in New York City and features pro lectures and simuls, as well as rated and unrated tournaments. Click here to register.
– photo: Stephanie Yin, playing on Board 2 at the recent Washington Open Baduk Tournament, checks out the Board 1 game between Andy Liu 1P (right) and Kevin Huang 7d. photo by Chris Garlock
Monday April 28, 2014
Twenty-year-old Israeli Ali Jabarin 6d (right) is leading the field at the end of the second series of online training leagues for the upcoming competition to qualify two players as the first European Go Professionals (see European Go Federation and CEGO Launch Online Training for Pro Students – 4/1 EJ).
Thirteen players have been competing in two online leagues and the A-league of the second series of five ended as scheduled last Friday, April 25, with Jabarin (“OohAah”) winning four out of five games, losing only to CEGO teacher Zhao Baolong 2P. Austrian Viktor Lin 6d (“Sandmann”) and Slovakian Pavol Lisy 7d (“cheater”) were demoted to the B-league, to be replaced by promoted Romanian Cornel Burzo 6d (“Cornel”) and Serbian Dusan Mitic 6d (“shinobi90”). Lisy is in fact temporarily withdrawing from training to devote himself to studying for his high school final exams. The B-league was not decided until Sunday April 27, as many players, along with teacher Zhao Baolong, attended the Korean Ambassador Cup 2014, 43rd Prague Go Tournament at the weekend.
All the training games are played in a public room, “Euro Dream Team” on KGS, default start-time 20:00 CEST, and European Go Federation (EGF) Secretary Lorenz Trippel, who manages the leagues, has noted up to 400 spectators watching the games at one time, and 100 – 200 typical.
The fourth series ends on May 21 and the double knockout qualification competition kicks off with the 1st round CEGO Pro Qualification on May 23 at the Strasbourg Tournament. Then at the Amsterdam Tournament, on May 29, the 2nd round CEGO Pro Qualification will see a player with four straight wins (two games per round) certified as the first ever European Professional. Finally, after a fifth training series May 2-13 and a “Power-week” of special teaching June 16-20, those with only one loss will compete in the 3rd Round CEGO Pro Qualification at the Vienna Tournament, running June 20-22, to select a second European Professional.
Click here for full details, including league tables, player profiles, game records and more.
Report by Tony Collman; photo courtesy of CEGO/EGF
Monday April 28, 2014
The American Go Foundation (AGF) is offering $200 youth scholarships to this year’s US Go Congress. Interested youth must write an essay on why they want to go; the application deadline is May 30th. Twenty-five scholarships are available, and up to 15 awardees will be selected by June 1. Five scholarships are available to residents of Canada or Mexico. Applications received after May 30th will be placed in a lottery with the remaining scholarships awarded at random from qualifying essays. The scholarships are available for youth who are under 18. For more information, and to apply, click here. – Story and photo by Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo: Calvin Sun 7d plays Lionel Zhang 6d, in the Youth Room at the 2013 Congress.
Friday April 25, 2014
Ukraine: The Second League Ukrainian Championship finished on April 13 in Kiev with Andrii Kravets 6d in first, Volodymyr Kokozei 5d in second, and Bohdan Zhurakovskyi 5d in third. Norway: Yaqi Fu 6d took the 2014 Nordic Championship in Bergen on April 20. Behind him were Paal Sannes 3d in second and Severin Hanevik 1d in third. Romania: Silvestru State 2d (left) led the Roman Youth Championship U 16 Final on April 13. Elian Ioan Grigoriu 1d placed second and Mircea Nitu 12k came 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
Friday April 25, 2014
The Ishi Go Club will host the Open IGC 2014 on May 17 and 18 at the Polytechnic School of Lausanne in Switzerland. Amateur and experienced players are welcome to play. Registration is 30 CHF for adults and 15 CHF for youth (under 18) and students. In addition to the tournament, Hwang In-Seong will provide lessons and lectures. For more information, please visit the official Open ICG 2014 website.
The Scottish Open Go Tournament will be May 24 and 25 at the University of Glasgow. Registration for non-BGA members is 9 GBP while BGA-members will receive a 3 GBP discount. In addition to the tournament, there will be an informal lightning event on Friday, May 23 for players already in town. Accommodations are available through local players or seeglasgow.com. For more information, please visit the official Scottish Open tournament page.
—Annalia Linnan; for complete listings, check out the European Tournament Calendar
Thursday April 24, 2014
The fourth round in the AGA City League is set for this Saturday, April 26th on Pandanet. Click here for the pairings: A League; B League; C League. “As always catch the action live on game day at 3PM EST on Pandanet using the new GoPanda2 software,” reports TD Steve Colburn. Games will be played in the AGA City League room.
Monday April 21, 2014
Frank Lantz, noted game theorist, developer and teacher, will deliver the keynote address at the 2014 US Go Congress opening 
ceremonies on Saturday, August 9th at 7 p.m., at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. Now the director of a graduate program in game theory and development at New York University, Lantz became known to the go community because of his lecture ‘Go, Poker and the Sublime’ at the at the 2011 Game Developers Conference (Life and Death and Middle Pair: Go, Poker and the Sublime 10/30/2012 EJ). In 2005 Lantz co-founded area/code, a New York based developer that created cross-media, location-based, and social network games. In 2011 area/code was acquired by Zynga and became Zynga New York. In 2012, The New York Times referred to Lantz as a “reigning genius of the mysteries of games” following his design of iPhone puzzle game Drop7.