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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

Wei Ding and Dalhoon Ahn leading in US Masters: Wei Ding and Dalhoon Ahn shook off their Tuesday losses in the US Masters Open to win their Round 6 games on Thursday morning, defeating Andy Liu and Ryan Li to set up a potentially decisive showdown between the two 5-1 players. Latest Masters crosstab here. Click here for the latest US Open crosstab. photo: Dalhoon Ahn, Ryan Li and Stephanie Yi 1P review the Ahn-Li game; photo by Chris Garlock

Rain helps boost Diehard turnout: This year’s Diehard Tournament — the traditional 4-round Day Off tournament — had 95 players, up from 90 last year. “The rain may have caused some people to revise their day off plans,” says TD Andy Olsen, “because many players registered at the last minute Wednesday morning.” The field attracted a good spread of players, from three 7 dans to many double-digit kyus.
Top section Winners: 1st: Tianyi Chen 6d; 2nd: David Cho 5d; 3rd: Ary Cheng 5d.
Additional prizes awarded to undefeated players: Eli Ferster 5k and Dave Whipp 7k.
photo by Steven Burrall

Aaron Ye clinches Redmond Cup Senior Division; Bao and Cheng tied in Junior; : Aaron Ye clinched the senior division Monday against Jeremy Chiu. Frederick Bao bounced back against Ary Cheng in the junior division, making the series 1-1.

Sibicky and Nyborg tops in 9×9:  Nick Sibicky 4d is the dan division winner in the 9×9 tournament and the kyu division winner is Bethany Nyborg 18k.

“Why We Play” returns: E-Journal reporter Samantha Fede has been posting new “Why We Play” profiles in the Go Congress app social feed, like this one for Greg Steltenpohl 8k (left), who’s from Madison, WI and has been playing for two years.  Greg’s favorite thing about go: “It’s kind of like programming in that you build a mental game/problem space and you get to navigate through that. I like doing that in programming and go. Solving a big puzzle. I also like to play games of go on my phone anytime I have a little time.” This is his first go congress, and he has already volunteered for next year’s Go Congress in Madison.

– reports by Julie Burrall and Matt Burrall

More than 10,000 viewers tuned in on Twitch Tuesday night to watch Andy Liu and Ryan Li pair up with AI partners in the Facebook Open Go Pair Go match. “It was a huge success,” said event organizer James Pinkerton. “I was so impressed with the incredibly high quality of the game. It was amazing how often the human players’ moves were exactly what the AI would have chosen.” The match featured $4,500 in prizes and paired both players with Facebook’s Open Go AI, which was set for approximately 30,000 roll-outs and 15 seconds per move. Stephanie Yin 1P and Managing Editor Chris Garlock provided live commentary for the audience in the Sadler Center auditorium at William and Mary College, where this year’s US Go Congress is being held. Qucheng Gong contributed insights into the AI’s assessments of the game in real time. Andy Liu/Open Go won the game by resignation after a dramatic middle-game. “Sometimes Ryan and I would just look at each other and be like ‘We have no idea,’” laughed Liu in the post-game analysis. The game included 3-3 invasions in all four corners, most initiated by the human players, both of whom have been studying AI play extensively in recent months. And as in human Pair Go games, there were periods where two partners seemed to be playing entirely different games. “It was often hard to know just what my partner was thinking,” admitted Li; “I was just trying to follow its lead.” The broadcast team included Steven Hu, Nathan Epstein, Joel Cahalan, Nate Eagle, Josh Lee and Dennis Wheeler; Solomon Smilack did the KGS simulcast. “We’re really excited to bring this open source go AI to the go community,” said Pinkerton, who works at Facebook. “We hope it’ll become an increasingly useful tool for go players around the world.”
photos by Phil Straus; top: (l-r) Yin, Garlock and Gong commenting; bottom (l-r): Garlock, Yin, Gong, Pinkerton, Liu, Li.

With the US Open at the halfway mark, here’s a quick snapshot of the leaders in each band. They’re almost all undefeated, though in the 6D section only Tianyi Chen is undefeated and in the 2D section, only Brian Wu is undefeated. Click here for the US Open crosstab. If you’d like to preserve your Open game records for posterity, send them to journal@usgo.org and we’ll add to the crosstab (be sure to complete all the game info, including result).
– Matt Burrall

“Crazy Go was insane as usual,” reports organizer Terry Benson, who says there were over 20 variants at Tuesday night’s event at the US Go Congress, including Coupon Go, courtesy of Elwyn Berlekamp and relatively new entrants like magnetic go, 9-13-19 go, and diagonal go. “It was a moveable feast of go with a voracious herd of players grazing the many weird boards or laughing at Blind Go and the intersection of go and diplomacy in 4 color go,” Benson says. Rengo Kriegspeil, the granddaddy of Crazy Go games, “was hilarious as usual” and after Benson ran one session a young player, Seth Liang, asked if he could referee the game. Benson said Sure, so Seth did “and another kid followed him, having as much fun running the game as playing. Talk about passing the baton!” Zen go had only winners and blind go got some unwanted “help” from other kids. Treasure Go took some rule interpretations. As usual, “A good time was had by all.”