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.
Dojang. A well-known top player in Europe, Hwang Inseong 7D has participated in major European tournaments since 2005 and is currently the top-rated player in the European Go Ratings. He trained at the Korean Yunguseng Academy, studied Go in Myong-ji University and worked for a baduk TV channel as commentator. The program consists of interactive online lectures, student league-play and game reviews on KGS. Students have access to all past lectures and reviews, including those from the European sister-school, as well as “personal go reports” to help students assess the progress they are making and the areas which need most work. “Great teacher, great sense of humor, and a penchant for understanding how people think,” says one student. “I feel myself getting stronger every day.” Click here for details on the program, schedule and pricing.
