Saturday February 15, 2014
Highlights from the 2013 SportAccord World Mind Games — held in Beijing last December — have now been posted on YouTube. The overview (the go 
part starts at about 35:50) includes some brief commentaries by Michael Redmond 9P on the finals, an interview with Thomas Hsiang and a visit to a go class. There are also links to the daily reports published during the event, including more interviews and Redmond’s game commentaries with EJ Managing Editor Chris Garlock.
Tuesday February 11, 2014
France: The 29th Antony Tournament finished February 2 with Junfu Dai 8d in first, Benjamin Blanchard 3d in second, and Francois Mizessyn 4d in third. Germany: Also on February 2, Viktor Lin 5d took the 17. Erdinger Go-Turnier in Erding. Behind him were Jonas Fincke 4d in second and Sebastian Koller 3d in third. Russia: Natalia Kovaleva 5d (left) bested Rusian Dmitriev 5d at the Festival Lariks in Moscow on February 2 while Igor Nemlij 5d placed third.
– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV
Sunday February 9, 2014
In the run-up to this year’s New Jersey Open (NJO) in three weeks (March 1&2), Princeton senior Tiansheng (Eric) Guo ran an introductory go class on campus during the intersession break, reports organizer Rick Mott. “Guo got more than 20 attendees, and hopes more novice players will enter the tournament this year,” Mott says. As well as drawing some of the strongest players in the mid-Atlantic region, the NJO honors Bob Ryder, formerly of Bell Labs and a longtime AGA organizer who held the NJO at Rutgers for many years, with a memorial Beginner’s Prize. Registration Sat. 3/1 9AM-10AM at Frist Campus Center, Princeton University. Click here for tournament details.
Wednesday February 5, 2014
Romania: Constantin Ghioc 5d bested Lucretiu Calota 5d at the National Veteran Championship in Bucuresti on January 26 while Liviu Oprisan 4d placed third. Netherlands: Also on January 26, the Dutch Female Championship finished in Amstelveen with Marika Dubiel 2d (left) in first, Mirjam Visscher 4k in second, and Annemarie de Putter 2k in third. Hungary: Dominik Boviz 4d led group 1 in the Kondor Dragon Cup on January 26 in Budapest. Behind him were Robert Csizmadia 1d and Attila Teby 1k.
– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV
Monday January 27, 2014
The first round of play has mostly been completed for the AGA City League, reports TD Steve Colburn. In the A League,
Boston defeated Los Angeles (2-1), Greater Washington beat Toronto (3-0), and Canwa Vancouver 1 defeated Seattle 1 (2-1). In B League, Chicago beat Washington DC 1 (3-0), NC Raleigh defeated Washington DC 2 (2-1), and New York City defeated San Francisco 1 (3-0). In C League, Seattle 2 won over West Tennessee/Memphis (2-1), Canwa Vancouver 2 defeated Katy TX 2 (3-0), Brentwood/Nashville def Lincoln (2-1) and Central New York/Syracuse vs Katy TX 1 is in progress, currently 1-1. Check the Pandanet site for all the most up to date information. Here’s the game record for the Evan Cho (LA) vs Huiren Yang (Boston) game.
Monday January 27, 2014
Tony Buzan, the inventor of mind-mapping and author of numerous books on enhancing the power of the brain, has made his debut appearance at a go tournament at the age of 71. The man once named by Forbes Magazine alongside Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and Michail Gorbachev as one of the world’s top five international lecturers played in round one of the annual Maidenhead Go Tournament, held January 18 at Hitachi’s European Headquarters in Maidenhead, south-east England, after seeing publicity about the tourney in his local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser.
He entered with a nominal grade of 10k, but it seems this may have been wishful thinking as opponent Colin Maclennan of Twickenham Go Club, with a thick grade of 10k, won by a large margin. Maclennan says, “In our game it soon became apparent that I was building a huge moyo that he allowed me to turn into territory. He then invaded with little hope of life. In the end I won by over 100 points.”
It appears that Buzan has long wanted to find the time to learn to play go well, though it is hardly surprising, with his prodigious output and many speaking and other commitments, that he has not so far been able to put in the many hours required to master the game. British Go Association VP Tony Atkins says Buzan approached the Association some twenty years ago, enquiring about learning at the time when manytime British and European Champion Matthew Macfadyen 6d was actively teaching. He added, “I still have fond memories of a festival of the brain that [Buzan] organized at the Royal Albert Hall some years ago, which we were privileged to teach go at”. Atkins organizes the go competition in the Mind Sports Olympiad (see Taylor Wins Gold at London’s Mind Sports Olympiad, EJ 8/28/13), which Buzan co-founded.
However, the novice promised tournament organizer Iain Attwell that he will be attending some of Maidenhead Go Club‘s Friday evening meets in the future. If he does, he will be in good hands: the club and tournament, sponsored by Hitachi, grew out of the Furze Platt School go club which Attwell founded some twenty-five years ago with fellow teacher France Ellul who had taught him to play, and the school produced every single Under-16 and Under-18 British Youth Champion for a number of years. Attwell described his guest as “a very nice gentleman”, and expressed hopes that Buzan will be as good as his word.
In a surprise finish, Toby Manning 2d of Leicester this year stole the tournament from British Championship Challenger Andrew Simons 4d of Cambridge in the third and final round. Click here for full results.
Report by Tony Collman, British correspondent for the E-Journal; photo courtesy of Buzan’s mindmappingsoftware blog.
Monday January 20, 2014
A delegation of Cuban go players has been invited to attend this year’s U.S. Go Congress for the first time and AGA board 
member Robert Gilman is coordinating fundraising efforts to support the visit. “The Cubans have greeted our invitation with ‘immense joy’,” Gilman — who organized the 2013 visit by US players to Cuba (Traveling Board: U.S.-Cuba Friendship Match “A Rare Opportunity”) — reports, “but the key question is money. Cuba is a poor country, the Cuban internal currency is worthless in the U.S. and the AGA does not have the budget to sponsor the delegation, so we’re asking the go community to step up. Cubans have made strong efforts to develop go there, but isolation from the international go community and limited internet have handicapped them. This visit will help them develop and extend bonds with our neighbors to the South.” The invitees are Cuba’s top two players and the president of the Academia Cubana de Go. The video here describes this effort.
Contributions can be made through either the AGA or the American Go Foundation (AGF); contributions to the AGF are tax deductible. In either case, put “CC2014” in the memo field, and mail the check to Gilman at P.O. Box 40020 in Albuquerque, NM 87196-0020. Checks will be acknowledged as they are received but not cashed until its clear the project is a go. If you are contributing, please complete the form here.
Monday January 20, 2014
The second season of the Pandanet AGA City League is set to begin shortly. “We have 18 teams of players ranging from professionals to 12-kyu players,” reports TD Steve Colburn. The first round will start on January 25 at 3p EST on 
Pandanet.
The A League teams include Boston (Ke Lu, Huiren Yang, Jie Liang, Yunzhe Zhang and Chun Sun), Greater Washington (I-Han Lui, Eric Lui, Jie Li, Yuian Zhou and Daniel Chou), Toronto (Colin Zheng, Xiaofei Deng, Tiger Gong, Sarah Yu and Hank Xie), Vancouver 1 (Cathy Li, Tianyu Lin, Juyong Koh, Leo Tian and Michael Ma), and Seattle 1 (Michael Cho, Dong Baek Kim, Edward Kim, Ho Son and Sung-Chui Cho).
B League teams include Washington DC 1 (Edward Zhang, Lin Lu, Liang Yu and Yangan Li), Chicaho (Laura Scott, Bill Chen, Albert Yen and Kevin Zhou), Raleigh (Owen Chen, Liqun Liu, Changlong Wu, Feng Ye and Bradley Jones), Washington DC 2 (Zhenging Gu, Justin teng, Kevin Wang, Zhixiong Shi and Zhenying Gu), San Francisco 1 (Steven Burrall, Matthew Burrall, Aaron Ye, Jeremy Chiu and Hugh Zhang) and New York City (William Lockhart, Stephanie Yin, Zhaonian Chen and Yingzhi Qian).
The C League teams include West Tennessee/Memphis (Daniel Miller, Wangqian Li, Liang Zhao, Xue Li and Yixian Chen), Seattle 2 (Oren Laskin, Bert Hallonquist, Andrew Jackson, Nick Sibicky and Steve Stringfellow), Katy TX 1 (Pete Henninger, Shijiang Lu, Jurn Kwan, Ji Lian and Yuanbiao Li), Katy TX 2 (Pete Henninger, Yue Wu, Bao Doan, Katherine Zhang and Chris Clark), Vancouver 2 (Cathy Li, Jack Yang, Qi Zheng, David Lu and Harrison Dow), Lincoln (Joshua Edmonds, Grant Brownyard, Chris Rodgers and Mitchell Allen), Brentwood/Nashville (Anthony Long, Anna Liu, Shawn Ray, Seth Cardew & Michael Miceli) and Syracuse (Richard Moseson, Xinde Ji, Chang Kim, Jared Beck and Richard Sollish).
The captains of each teams are listed first. Leagues A and B will have five rounds and League C will have seven. Click here for the 2014 schedule.
photo of the 2013 Pandanet-AGA City League finals by Steve Colburn
Saturday January 18, 2014
Croatia: Lovro Furjanic 1d bested Zoran Mutabzija 5d at the 2. Velika Gorcia Open on January 12 while Mladen Smud 1k placed third. Turkey: The Istanbul City Championship Finals finished on January 4 with Ozgur Degirmenci 2d in first, Mustafa Morca 2k in second, and Hayri Killic 1d in third. Ukraine: Andrii Vdovin 2d conquered the 2014 Championship of the Dnipropetrovsk region on January 5. Kostiantyn Lopatenko 2d came in second and Volodymyr Oblovantyi 1k was third.
– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news
Lee Sedol Off and Running as MLily Jubango Begins with Gu Li
Sunday January 26, 2014
— Annalia Linnan, based on a longer article by Go Game Guru; photo and game record courtesy of Go Game Guru
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