American Go E-Journal » U.S. Go Congress

by Bethany Nyborg 18 kyu

I attended my first US Go Congress seven years after I first learned to play, and yet I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times I had played against someone who knew what they were doing. Go came to Bedford, Virginia seven years ago when my brother and I watched Hikaru No Go, joined the AGA, and started a go club at the Bedford Public Library, which garnered us some coverage in the local paper (right). We learned very quickly that no one knew about the game. Our only option was to teach as many people to play as we could. As teenagers, we had more success teaching children than adults. I knew I would not live in that area for long, so my goal was to create a pocket of people who had heard of go. When the next person passionate about go came along, I wanted them to find their work already begun.

Even though my dad’s new job was in Northern Virginia, I realized my obstacles had not decreased: I had just started going to college full time, and I didn’t have a driver’s license or a car. Go was put on the back burner for the next four years, but I always listed it in my top three favorite hobbies. Then I saw that the 2018 Go Congress would be at William and Mary College in nearby Williamsburg. With the support and blessing of my new husband (and a scholarship from the AGF), I decided to make this year’s US Go Congress my first AGA event.

On the way to the Congress my nerves tensed as I wondered what people would think of my inexperienced, self-taught go. I rarely played online because I was afraid people would think I was wasting their time by playing such bad moves. Still, I had positive experiences the three times I had been to an AGA go club, and I had high hopes for the Go Congress.

Starting at registration, I met people who were as excited about go as I am and by the end of the first evening’s 9×9 tournament my fears had evaporated. I found that years of studying go problems on my own had given me important skills, and through the tutelage of good players I was able to improve my game in the areas that had intimidated me before. It did not matter that my game was lopsided going in, I was there to learn and improve. Much to my surprise, I came away with two medals, winning the 9×9 kyu championship and coming in second in my division at the Women’s Tournament. Every day I reveled in being surrounded by people talking about go and playing morning, afternoon, and evening. I achieved all my goals, made new friends and, armed with my AGA teaching certificate, I look forward to jumping back into promoting go in my community and creating new spaces for people to play.

By Nate Eagle and Diego Pierrottet

Being co-directors of the 34th annual U.S. Go Congress is the biggest, hardest thing we’ve ever done, and the generosity of attendees in encouraging us has been tremendously meaningful. But the thing we feel, more than anything, is immense gratitude toward the huge team of volunteers, from our core team to all the people who showed up out of nowhere, ready to work, who made the event possible.

Anchoring our core team were Gary Smith, the registrar who made it all possible, Gurujeet Khalsa, whose creation of the first-ever official Go Congress app was such a huge success, Todd Heidenreich, the treasurer who also served as a font of institutional knowledge throughout the week, and I-Han Lui, who managed the pro schedule and was vital with many details of Congress operations.

We are also particularly proud of the National Go Center regulars who played big roles this year: Nathan Epstein, who, working with Xiaocheng (Stephen) Hu on broadcast, took the tech operations of the Congress and the E-Journal team (managed as usual by Chris Garlock; look for his Congress EJ team acknowledgements tomorrow) to new heights, Joel Cahalan, who provided vital Ruby on Rails experience to craft the first-ever SMS pairing notification system, which will now be passed to future Congresses, and Eli Ferster, the assistant registrar who could handle anything.

Daniel Zhao helped in dozens of vital ways throughout the week. Doug Wilkinson (left) poured sweat and, on at least one occasion, blood into the incredibly difficult task of managing the Congress’s substantial equipment needs. It was also Daniel and Doug’s first Congress!

Andrew Hall performed amazingly in his first year directing the U.S. Open, and his assistant TD, Dan Ritter, was up early every single morning or the last to leave at nights, making sure that players had ready clocks and orderly tables to waiting for them. Josh Lee directed a tremendously exciting U.S. Masters tournament in his first outing. Big thanks to tournament directors Steve Colburn, Keith Arnold, Peter Schumer, Andy Olsen, Lisa Scott, Jim Hlavka, Neil Ritter, Justin Teng, Terry Benson and Todd Heidenreich. And a particular thanks to Greg Kulevich, director of the Seniors Tournament, who worked hard this week, giving up most of his own Congress experience to make one of the biggest tournaments of the Congress a success. Thanks to our excellent translators, Jonathan Hop and Satoru Inoue. Huge thanks to Devin Fraze, who ran the wonderful youth room, and Paul Barchilon, to whom Devin passed the baton at the end.

Thanks to James Pinkerton, Qucheng Gong, and to Facebook, for bringing OpenGo to the American Go community this year: over 66 players got the chance to personally play and learn from the strongest open-source Go AI in the world, and over 10,000 people got to tune in and watch Andy Liu and Ryan Li play Pair Go with OpenGo as a teammate. (It was a particular honor for Nate to get to be one of the hands of OpenGo as Andy’s partner.) And thanks to the volunteers who made the simuls possible by serving as the eyes and hands of OpenGo, which was not an easy job: it required multiple hours of back-straining, brain-draining effort. You did great.

Thanks to the people who showed up early on Friday to help us get everything set up and to help on registration morning, among them Chris Kirschner, Marianne Palhamous, Lee Schumacher, John Grenier, Ted Terpstra, Mark Nahabedian, Wayne Nelson, Keith Arnold, Patrick Bannister, Kristal Soo, and so many more. Particular thanks to Neil and Dan Ritter, who assembled the two giant monitors that became the center of the Congress experience, and then disassembled them again so they can travel to next year’s Congress in Madison.

Thanks to Lisa Scott for managing the AGA meetings and for working to bring us the first year with an official Code of Conduct, a hugely valuable tool for making the Congress a welcoming place for everyone.

Thanks to the front-desk staff at William and Mary—all students—who handled the largest group they’d ever had come through with kindness, patience, and helpfulness.

We will have inevitably missed people—please know that no matter what it was, your contribution toward making Congress happen was essential and appreciated. Thank you, and we hope to see everyone next year in Madison!

photos: top right: Nate Eagle (left) and Diego Pierrottet (right) with the National Go Center’s Gurujeet Khalsa (second from left) and AGA president Andy Okun (second from right), photo by Phil Straus; bottom left: Doug Wilkinson, Equipment Manager and first-time Congress attendee, photo by Nate Eagle; bottom right: Masters TD Josh Lee teaching go.

The photos posted to the 2018 US Go Congress app’s social feed — one of the app’s most popular features — have now been posted to the AGA’s Facebook page. E-Journal reporter Julie Burrall will also be transferring the photo captions over the next few days; help spread the word by tagging folks you know. EJ photographer Phil Straus is adding more photos to his 2018 Go Congress album, and we’ve posted an album of photos from the 2018 Pandanet City League finals, where you can also tag folks.

Tim Song 1P snatched the US Open Masters title from Ahn Dalhoon 9P, defeating the Korean professional in the ninth and final round by resignation in a thrilling game watched by hundreds on Twitch and KGS. Tianyi Chen won the top section of the US Open (click here for the official final standings), and in an interesting wrinkle, 15-year-old Brandon Zhou 5d (right) went 6-0 to top the 5-dan division, defeating three 6-dans, including 6-dan division winner Tianyi Chen.
Commentator Yilun Yang 7P’s assessment in the Masters final was that Ahn had a good position until he ran into time trouble in the late middle game, but AI analysis indicated that Song had an advantage from fairly early in the game. Either way, Song (left), a young Chinese pro who now lives in the US, relentlessly pressured Ahn until, with the last few seconds ticking away in his final byo yomi – and with two weak groups at stake, he turned off the clock in acknowledgement of his defeat. “I’m really impressed with way the field has developed in recent years,” said AGA president Andy Okun. “It bodes very well for the future of American go.” The upset was not the only one of the day. On board 2, Chinese pro Ding Wei 9P fell to Michael Chen 7d, also losing by resignation. The losses by the two top professionals threw the results into tiebreaks; both Ahn and Song were 7-2, but Song prevailed by a single SOS point. Song is the title winner, but because they had the same win/loss records, they’ll split the $7,500 first and second place prize money evenly. Four players had 6-3 records, and Ding Wei won the third place trophy on SOS; Andy Liu, Ryan Li and Michael Chen are the runners-up. Latest Masters crosstab here.
– report by Chris Garlock and Dennis Wheeler; photos by Garlock
7/29: updated with link to official final US Open standings

Dalhoon Ahn has a firm but not quite final grip on this year’s US Open Masters trophy, after winning both rounds on Friday and improving his record to 7-1. With two players with 6-2 records nipping at his heels — Wei Ding, Zirui Song — and one final round to go, the outcome is still to be determined Saturday morning in Round 9. Check the latest results on the US Open Masters crosstab. See the chart at right for the division leaders in the US Open, which also has one more round to go Saturday morning; click here for the US Open crosstab. Watch top boards in the Masters live on KGS and Twitch (Friday night’s coverage attracted more than 12,000 viewers) starting at 9a EDT and check out this week’s videos on YouTube.
– report/photo by Chris Garlock; Wei Ding (left) playing Dalhoon Ahn in Round 7 Friday morning. Chart by Matthew Burrall

The AGA Girls Cup and Women’s Tournament provide space at the annual US Go Congress for female go players to meet one another and to further develop and maintain a larger community of go players. In a historically male-majority event, it is motivating to see how women can inspire other women to attend the Go Congress and Congress events through friendly competition. By promoting the U.S. Go Congress as a place for women to study go and compete, the hope is that there will continue to be an increase in the number of women attendees and strong female competitors.

There was an interesting start to the tie-break game between Melissa Cao and Tina Li in the Girls Cup (left). Knowing that a perilous game was in the offing, both players were reluctant to hit the clock and begin the festivities. So Justin Teng did it for them, and they were off on the game that would determine the Girls Cup Champion. After black (Melissa) settled a group in white’s developing moyo, it looked to be a tough game for Tina. Both players had dangerously weak groups at different points in the game, but they all lived and at the end, Tina Li edged out a victory to claim the 2018 AGA Girls Cup Championship.

The fourth and final round (right) of the 12th annual Women’s Tournament left just one player with a perfect record. Annie Wang 2d swept all her games to emerge as the top division winner. Other division winners were Alice Li 8k and Victoria Xie 10k. Lisa Scott and Laura Sparks directed.
– Report/photos by Julie Burrall

Updated 11/5/2018 with final division winners.

Thursday evening at the US Go Congress means that time for Pair Go. This year, 36 pairs gathered in the Sadler Center to compete in this popular tournament. Sophia Wang 3d and Alan Huang 7d won the Open Section and will represent the United States in the 2018 International Amateur Pair Go Championship in Tokyo during the first weekend of December.

Open Section: 1st – Sophia Wang 3d and Alan Huang 7d (left); 2nd – Melissa Cao 4d and Jeremy Chiu 7d; 3rd – Tina Li 3d and Justin Teng 6d; 4th – Sophia Wang 3k and Fred Bao 4d
Table Winners: Yoonyoung Kim 4p and Diego Pierrottet 4k; Seowoo Wang 2d and Nhat Minh Vo 5d; Cathy Liao 10k and Michael Chen 7d; Vivie Truong 5k and Bill Gundberg 2k; Yoko Ohashi 6k and Mark Fraser 6k; Bethany Nyborg 18k and Keith Arnold 4d; Vidie Pong 12k and John Uckele 4k; Tonya Perez-Lopez 20k and Tevis Tsai 6k.
Report by Pair Go TD Todd Heidenreich; photos by (left) Dennis Wheeler and Phil Straus

The Seniors Tournament featured tough competition in both the Dan and Kyu divisions. “Special shout out to Motoyoshi Makino for being able to defeat champion David Cho,” said TD Greg Kulevich. Makino defeated Cho in the final round, but Cho’s score on tiebreaks prevailed to make him the Dan champion. In the Kyu division, Moonhun Oh was the only undefeated in the end, making him champion of that division. Steffen Kurz won the sportsmanship prize. Shunichi Hyodo (4-1) was second in the Dan division and David Frankel (4-1) was third. Pete Schumer (4-1) took second in the Kyu division and Jim Pickett (4-1) was third.
– report/photos by Matt Burrall; (right) Motoyoshi Makino vs David Cho; (left): Moonhun Oh