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

The 2014 E-Journal Congress Team provided expanded coverage of this year’s US Go Congress, from top player previews before a single Congress stone was played to live online broadcasts of top boards at all nine rounds of the new US Open Masters Division, as well as more in-depth reporting on other non-US Open/Masters Congress tournaments. This year for the first time the EJ added social media, posting lots of updates and photos on Twitter @theaga and on Facebook, attaining an almost 10,000 reach on Facebook over the course of the week, an impressive 600% increase. Click here for all the EJ Go Congress reports.

This year’s EJ Congress team was led by Managing Editor Chris Garlock, with Todd Heidenreich,  Assistant Managing Editor and  Steve Colburn, Tech/Game Recorder Support. Joining the team this year was Tournament Liaison/Reporter Karoline Li, who brought much-needed depth and breadth to the EJ’s coverage of other Congress tournaments. Paul Barchilon once again coordinated youth coverage, including both EJ reporting and KGS broadcasts of youth games. KGS continues to be a tremendous partner, with admin extraordinaire Akane Negishi (sweety) and her team of KGS admins, including Sadaharu Wakisaka onsite at the Congress. Masters Division games with audio commentary are available for a limited time free on KGS Plus; look under “Recent Lectures” under USGO5.

The EJ game recording team was anchored as usual by the indefatigable Dennis Wheeler, who, along with Richard Dolen and Nathan Borggren, broadcast the morning US Open Masters Division games.  The evening broadcast team included Andrew Jackson, Bart Jacob, Dave Weimer, Nate Eagle and Diego Pierrottet, as well as Wheeler, Dolen and Borggren. Solomon Smilack was on the evening recording team and also did the Friday night live pro commentary simulcast.

Photographer Phil Straus did his usual fabulous job capturing indelible images of the Go Congress, and this year we were able to feature many more of them in a terrific series of albums on the AGA’s Facebook page. Sarah Small covered the Pair Go tournament and her album is also posted on the AGA Facebook page.

Many thanks to the professional go players who participated in the E-Journal’s live audio commentaries on KGS this year; this was a new and very well-received effort, thanks to He Xie 9P, Feng Yun 9P, Myungwan Kim 9P, Jungsang Park 9P, Yilun Yang 7P, Jennie Shen 2P, Stephanie (Mingming) Yin 1P and Shirley (Xuefen) Lin 1P.  Thanks to Pro Coordinator I-Han Lui for smoothly coordinating everything and to Daniel Chou and Kevin Hwang for translations.

Special thanks to the tournament directors who worked hard on the Congress tournaments and worked closely with the EJ team to report results throughout the week: Chris Sira for the US Open; Boris Bernadsky, Jon Boley, and Chris Kirschner, US Open Masters Division; Joshua Lee for 9×9; Jim Hlavka for 13×13; Keith Arnold for the Lightning; Todd Heidenreich for Pair Go; Will Lockhart for the Die Hard; Lisa Scott for the Women’s Tournament; Nader Goubran for Midnight Madness; Michael Fodera for the Self-Paired; and Terry Benson for Crazy Go.
– photos (and collage) by Phil Straus, except for the photo of Straus, which is by Steve Colburn, and the photos of Hwang and Pierrottet, by Chris Garlock.
Photo (top row, l-r): Garlock, Negishi, Dolen, Jacob; second row: Jackson, Colburn, Wheeler, Wakisaka; third row: Heidenreich, Sira, Borggren, Barchilon; fourth row: Weimer, Kevin Hwang, Nate Eagle, Diego Pierrottet; fifth row: Boley, Li, Small; bottom row: Smilack, Bernadsky, Straus.

Send in your US Open (or Masters Division) game record(s) in sgf format with all game info complete, including both players’ full names, and the round number(s), and we’ll add it (them) to the official US Open crosstab. Email game records – by Friday, August 22 – to journal@usgo.org.
– photo by Chris Garlock

Mark Lee 7D (Lee Sang Hyeop) defeated Songyan Jiao 7D in just 208 moves on Saturday morning to sweep the 2014 US Open Masters Division, 9-0. Conner Li 3P took second with 7 wins followed by Matthew Hu 2P in third place also with 7 wins. With 6 wins each, fourth place went to Songyan Jiao 7D, Ryan Li 7D took fifth, Andy Liu 1P took sixth, and Calvin Sun 1P took 7th. “My opponents were very tough but I think maybe I was a little lucky,” the modest 17-year-old former insei from Korea told the E-Journal after his final win. “After my first couple of wins I was able to build my confidence.” Lee (left) said that he was so focused on playing his best in each game that “I wasn’t really thinking about winning the championship, so it’s just now starting to sink in.” The Masters is the first title that Lee, who studied with Myungwan Kim 9P (at left, with Lee, reviewing Saturday’s game) when he was younger, has won since he was 11. “It was clear to me (back then) that he was very talented and smart and had a lot of potential,” said Kim. Lee, who’s thinking about moving to the US, will be visiting Kim in Los Angeles for a few months this autumn,  teaching go and studying English, and plans to compete in the Cotsen Open at the end of October. “As a former insei, he dedicated his whole life to studying go to be a pro,” said Kim. “While it may be still an ongoing project he hopes to find some other meaningful work in his new life in the US.” Click here for the Masters crosstab. NOTE: Masters Division games with audio commentary are available for a limited time free on KGS Plus; look under “Recent Lectures” under USGO5. photos by Phil Straus (right) and Chris Garlock (left)

US Open: top winners (6/7D): 1st: (tie) Xiaotian Hu & Xuyu Xiang; 3rd: Daniel Chou; click here for complete winner’s list. NEW THIS YEAR: Send us your US Open game record in sgf format with all game info complete, including both players’ full names, and the round number, and we’ll add it to the official US Open crosstab. Email them – by Friday, August 22 – to journal@usgo.org.

Other Events: Jeff Wu 5k won the 13×13 kyu championship in a final game with Ann Wu 10k, while April Ye 1D took the dan championship. In the 9×9 tournament, Dirk Riedeman 3D won the dan division, while Matt Mo 10k won both of his playoff games to win the kyu division. Speedy players Yukino Takehara 1k and Will Lockhart 5D progressed furthest in Lightning Tournament’s kyu and dan divisions respectively. Julian Erville 1D took first place in the Midnight Madness, followed by Yukino Takehara 1k in second place, and Jeremy Chiu 6D won first place in the Die Hard Tournament on Wednesday with a perfect four-win record. In the Women’s Tournament: Top Bracket: 1st: Chen Jiahui (4-0); 2nd: Wan Yian; 3rd: April Ye. Middle Bracket: 1st: Kelly Liu (4-0); 2nd: Yoko Ohashi; 3rd: Amanda Miller. Bottom Bracket: 1st: Marjorie Hey; 2nd: Alexandra Platz; 3rd: Kaoru Hidaka. 13×13 photo by Karoline Li
NOTE (8/17): the US Open results PDF has been updated to the correct final report and the 9×9 dan winner has been added. 

Mark Lee 7D (right) locked up the US Open Masters Division championship on Friday night with his 8th-round win over Andy Liu 1P, giving the 17-year-old former Korean insei an impressive 8-0 record with one final round to play Saturday morning. Matthew Hu was 6-1 coming into the 8th round but his loss to Conner Li knocked him out of contention for the Masters, leaving the NAMT prize race still up in the air. Click here for the Masters Division crossgrid. photo by Chris Garlock

US Open players undefeated through five rounds (also with one final round left to play Saturday morning): Fan Chen 5D; Nick Blake 3D; Dan Alvira 2D; Gilbert Feng 1D; Yukio Ishiyama 1D; Erik Brummelkamp 4K; Dmitry Dimatov 5K; Adam Jiang 7K; Joe Suzuki 7K; Matthias Kramm 9K; Ann Wu 10K; Mackenzie Brown 10K; Mark Nahabedian 13K; Dowson Yang 20K; Gary Smith 24K. Click here for US Open crosstab results.

Longtime go player Steve Barbieri 1K was the high bidder at the traditional Friday night auction of a go board to benefit the American Go Foundation, his $1,000 bid winning a fierce bidding war for a two-inch kaya board signed by all the professional go players at the Go Congress. Barbieri was clearly inspired by AGA President Andy Okun’s example: he became shodan after winning the auction in 2008. “This kind of generosity is what’s enabled us to continue helping grow the game of go across the United States,” said AGF President Terry Benson. ““This contribution will cover one of the AGF college scholarships!” The auction, conducted as usual by American Go E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock and Terry Benson, followed a live game commentary by Jungsang Park 9P and Myungwan Kim 9P on the Masters board one game between Lee and Liu. As usual, the board was donated by Yutopian. photo (l-r): Chris Garlock, Myungwan Kim 9P, Steve Barbieri, Terry Benson, Andy Okun and Jungsang Park 9P; photo by Steve Colburn.

Matt Mo 10k defeated Jim Fienup 3k in the 9×9 Tournament final on Friday to win the kyu championship; Dirk Riedeman 3D still has to play Zheng Xiangnan 5D for the dan championship.

In the 13×13 Tournament, April Ye 1D beat Gabriella Su 5D to clinch the dan championship, while Jeff Wu 5k is still to face Ann Wu 10k in the battle for kyu champion.

In the Lightning Tournament, the dan finalists have yet to be determined, but Yukino Takehara 1k has advanced to the kyu finals and waits for the winner of a semi-final game to play for the kyu championship.

In the Self Paired Tournament, just 129 games have been played, with Matt Pruner 4D leading in Most Games Played, with 12. No other prize category leaders were available at press-time Friday night.
– reporting by Chris Garlock and Karoline Li; bottom right photo of kids playing a casual game Friday night by Phil Straus. Click here for his latest album of Congress photos.

In a final showdown Friday afternoon, the Pair Go team of April Ye 1D and Daniel Ko 7D defeated Wan Chen 4D and Jie Liang 7D for the title of 2014 US Pair Go Champions. Eight pairs competed at two top tables at Thursday night’s Pair Go tournament to produce Friday afternoon’s finalists. As first place winners and this year’s US Pair Go Champions, Ye and Ko will represent the US at the International Pair Go Championship in Tokyo the last weekend of October. Wan Chen and Jie Liang took second place, Gabriella Su and Justin Ching were third and Amy Su and Forest Song placed fourth. After two rounds of competition Thursday night, the rest of the tournament produced 13 other table winners: Dahye Lee/Ben Lockhart, Xinying Jiang/Michael Chen, Zhiwei Gao/Chun Sun, Yingzhi Qian/Will Lockhart, Sophia Wang/Lionel Zang, Kaoru Hidaka/Shigeo Hidaka, Samantha Fede/Andrew Jackson, Miyoko Miyama/Yoshitomo Nakata, Melissa Cao/Raymond Feng, Alexandra Patz/Marc Palmer, Yoko Ohashi/Mark Fraser, Jesy Feliccia/Samuel Suastegui, Elan Ma/Eric Wu, and Melanie Arnold/Keith Arnold.
– report by Karoline Li; photo by Phil Straus. Click here to see a selection of Sarah Small’s Pair Go images on Facebook.

Mark Lee Takes Lead in Masters; Xiaotian Hu Leading in US Open: Eighteen-year-old Mark Lee 7D (right) has taken the lead in the US Open Masters Division, beating Zirui Song 1P in the sixth round Thursday morning to stretch his winning streak to 6-0. The former insei from Korea is a student of Myungwan Kim 9P and will be going to school in Los Angeles this Fall. Masters players with 5-1 records are Matthew Hu, Conner Li and Ryan Li; click here for the cross-tab, including game records for games broadcast on KGS by the EJ. In the US Open, Xiaotian Hu is leading with a 4-0 record; click here for the cross-tab. There will be two Masters rounds on Friday, Round 7 starting at 9a and Round 8 starting at 7p; top board games will be broadcast live on KGS; as usual there will be pro game commentaries beginning around 10a on KGS.

Chiu Wins Die Hard Tourney: Jeremy Chiu 6d topped a field of 81 players at Wednesday’s Die Hard Tournament, emerging as champion with a perfect 4-0 record.

Pair Go Photo Album Posted: Photographer Sarah Small’s gorgeous images from Thursday night’s Pair Go Tournament have been posted on Facebook; we’ll post results tomorrow.

Keep up with breaking news at the 2014 US Go Congress by following us on Twitter @theaga and Facebook at American Go Association. 

With next year’s Go Congress set for St Paul, Minnesota, organizers today released a beta version of the 2015 US Go Congress website and encouraged go players to check it out. “Sign up now for updates and you’ll be the first to know as we finalize details” says Congress Director Josh Larson. The St Paul Congress proposal – tentatively scheduled for August 1-9 – will be presented to the AGA General Assembly on Saturday but after a year of planning by the local organizing team, and with no other 2015 proposal on the agenda, approval is expected to be a formality. “The weather is great in the Twin Cities area this time of year,” Larson told the E-Journal, “and we’ve become nationally known for great food, craft breweries, outdoor activities, the Minnesota Twins and of course the nearby Mall of America.” Organizers will release updates as the dates are confirmed and once venue details are finalized, Congress registration will open, “hopefully by early 2015 if not sooner,” Larson said. photo by Phil Straus

While most of the action at the 2014 US Go Congress happens on the top floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania in midtown Manhattan, perhaps the most popular – the lectures by professional go players – takes place down on the 6th floor in nondescript conference rooms named after European capitals like London, Paris and Budapest. Each afternoon and evening finds  dozens of players raptly following every word of a go professional as he – or just as often, she (click here for the impressive list of pros at this year’s Congress, including four 9-dans) – explores the fascinating mysteries of the game of go. On Thursday night, Feng Yun 9P (left), after an exhaustive review of several josekis, blithely added, “But you can also tenuki: in the opening there are many many big moves, so you can just move on.” Across the hall, Mingming “Stephanie” Yin 1P (right) was exhorting her audience to study life and death problems. “You don’t have to study for hours every day,” she reassured them, “just pick a number of problems to do and then do them every day. They shouldn’t be too easy, and they shouldn’t be too hard, but you must do them every single day. If you do just two every day that’s more than 700 a year; that’s a lot! But you have to do them every day.”
– report/photos by Chris Garlock