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

Both divisions of the Redmond Cup will come down to a showdown between the US and Canada at  the Go Congress this year, with Jianing Gan 7d and David Lu 6d leading their age divisions, while Americans Andrew Lu 6d and Aaron Ye 5d placed second.  In the Jr. Division, 11 year old David Lu, from Vancouver is new on the scene, and proved to be a force to be reckoned with, scoring a perfect record in the online finals.  Lu’s skillful play left last year’s Redmond Champ, Aaron Ye, and this year’s current US Youth Go Champion Jeremy Chiu 5d to duke it out for second.  Ye prevailed and will face Lu in a best two-out-of-three final live at the Go Congress in Tacoma.  For an exciting match between Lu and Ye in the qualifiers, check out Guo Juan 5P’s insightful commentary on the members only game record included with this weeks E-J.  Ye gets off to an early lead, but Lu stays the course and makes a big comeback in the end.  Youth members can join the AGA for only $10, and receive free commentary like this every week.

“David started learning go when he was six, and loved the game immediately,” says Lu’s mother Jessie Fan.  “Almost every summer, he goes to Beijing for go camp, where he has studied with Tian Feng Fang 9P for the last two summers. Currently, he doesn’t have much time for studying go, except for participating in the CGA (Canadian Go Association) Dragon League, as well as the City League. He just came back from the Canadian Open, where he was ranked 12th, and is the only one in the open division (6 – 7 Dan) who is under 15 years old.”  

In the Senior Division, defending champion Jianing Gan is intent on holding his title.  His showdown last year, with Calvin Sun 7d, resulted in two consecutive losses for Sun.  Gan also fought superbly in the Tygem AGA pro certification test at the same time, and came within a match of going pro.  Gan again has a perfect record going into the finals, having already faced and defeated his two biggest rivals: Calvin Sun and Andrew Lu 6d.  Lu is having a good year, having finally overcome his longtime rival Calvin Sun, to take this year’s US Youth Go Championship title, and now also finishing second in the Redmond qualifier.  Lu will get his chance against Gan again at congress, with a live broadcast on KGS, at 3 pm PST on August  4th, 5th and 8th in the AGA Tournaments Room.  The Jr. Division matches will also be broadcast.  The Redmond Cup is now in its 20th year, and was directed by Michael Bull.  Twenty-three players competed in the Senior Division (12-17) with another ten competing in the Junior (under 12).  -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.  Photos: Upper Left, David Lu, by Jessie Fan; Lower Right Jianing Gan cementing his Redmond win at last year’s finals, by Paul Barchilon.

Richard Moseson 5k has been chosen as the American Go Foundation’s Teacher of the Year, winning a free trip to the US Go Congress in Tacoma, where he will be honored at the final awards banquet.  “The most satisfying thing about introducing go to young kids has been seeing many of them become totally involved in the game, and eventually zipping past me in playing strength,” Moseson told the E-Journal.  Moseson started the go club at Manlius Pebble Hill (MPH), in Manlius NY, when his two sons were both students at the school, in 2003, and has continued ever since.  “At various times I’ve also run short eight-week sessions for students in the first grade and third grade classes, and we’ve had some of those students eagerly join the club when they reached middle school age,” Moseson reports.  “I’m also running a club with Chinese elementary school age kids, at a ‘Chinese young adult ministry’ that meets every Friday evening for dinner and bible study. I meet with the kids for an hour before dinner.

“We had five students from our two clubs play in the annual Salt City Go Tournament last month (one of them won the C Division with a 4-0 record and another won three games and finished in third place).  I have most of the students at both clubs playing on KGS now.  We had two three-person teams from MPH participate in this year’s AGHS School Team Tournament, and they both finished with respectable 2-2 records.  Some of the kids have come to play at some of the Syracuse Go Club weekly meetings as well. Membership  at MPH has waxed and waned (our high has been 15 students), but I’ve had the satisfaction of seeing three of my students head off to college stronger than I am,” adds Moseson.

In addition to his current clubs, Moseson has run programs at other schools in the past, and has been active in the Syracuse go community.  He has also served as an AGF Mentor for several years, helping new go programs across the nation with advice, support, and resources, via e-mail.  “The AGF board faced a very tough decision this year,” reports President Terry Benson, “with four extremely strong candidates, each of whom fully deserved the award. Fortunately, we choose a new teacher every year, and the other candidates will all have a chance again next year.” -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.  Photos by Richard Moseson: Upper left: Moseson; center: at the MPH club; bottom: at the Chinese Young Adult Ministry.