The AGA board will hold its annual “Strategy Retreat” this Sunday, November 7, at 8pm EST – the first day of standard time after the end of daylight savings time that morning. An agenda is available on the AGA website here. AGA members interested in attending the meeting should email Board Chair Lisa Scott at lisa.scott@usgo.org for meeting information.
The AGA Board last met on Sunday, September 19. Minutes will be posted after they are approved this weekend, but the Board has released the following summary: “In the September meeting, the AGA Board of Directors discussed a new organization chart, including confirming Chris Kirschner as the Executive Vice President of the AGA and Lisa Scott as VP of Events. Other staff changes included the appointment of Justin Teng as an At-Large Representative, following the resignation of Ted Terpstra. The board also heard a report on the Fair Play Policy, which is ready to be implemented for City League online play, as well as status updates on ongoing projects and committee work.”
KGS is launching a new client with built in AI analysis. The effort is a partnership with OGS and will give both servers access to greatly expanded capacity for AI analysis. OGS users have had AI review available for the past couple years, but as demand increased, their cloud servers needed more capacity. Lead programmer Akita Noek wrote the code and implemented AI services for KGS in consultation with the AGF.
KGS, as always, will be free, and all users will now get a brief AI analysis after their games, with the top three mistakes highlighted and variations shown. Users who would like a full interactive analysis for the game can choose from a $5 monthly plan with 5 million deep reading operations or a $10 plan with 15 million operations. The service only works in the full Java version of the KGS client (cgoban) and is not available on ShinKGS or GoUniverse.
To download the new client visit the KGS AI page here or download from the KGS home page here.
The 3rd Virginia State Go Championship has adopted a best-of-three format for the final rounds. After a strong Open Elite division competed at the 10th Virginia Open in October, finalists from five cities will gather at the Korean American Baduk Association in Annandale on Saturday November 6th. The final will be held at the National Go Center on Wednesday 11/17 and 12/1 if necessary. Game records and results will be updated promptly on the Capital Go Club site.
Seeds:
Qingbo Zhang (from Fairfax)
Zhiyuan Zhang (Vienna)
Yaming Wang (McLean)
Ruoshi Sun (Charlottesville)
Irvin Pajarillo (Fredericksburg)
Semi-final games: 11am and 3:30pm ET on 11/6 Final: 5pm and 8:30pm ET on 11/17
The San Diego Go Club – in an effort to increase its diversity – is participating in the San Diego Japanese Friendship Garden’s eight week Pop-up exhibit in National City, California. Hosted in the National City Chamber of Commerce building, JFG is exhibiting art and providing free cultural and educational programming including demonstration games and teaching of Go by SDGC volunteers.
National City is a city of 61,000, ten minutes south of downtown San Diego, with sizable Mexican, Filipino, and Chinese descendant populations. The SDGC is hoping to increase its membership of under-represented populations in the AGA.
-report and photos by Ted Terpstra
SDGC volunteer Jiaying Wei & Ted Terpstra playing an exhibition game
SDGC member Jiaying Wiei looking at part of the Japanese Pop-up exhibit
Thirty-six go players trekked to Temecula in Southern California to contest the 3-round first Dapu Cup North America Go Open. The tournament was organized by Kevin Yang and directed by the San Diego Go Club.
In a strong Open section – which included two 7 dans and two 6 dans – King Bi 4d topped the field with a perfect record. Open players who tied for second with 2-1 records were Kevin Yang, Seth Cardew, Xingshou Liu, and Yixian Zhou.
In the handicap section, Tommy Liu 1d went 3-0 to top the strongest band (all dan players). Roxin Cao 1k, Nick Liddington 11k, and Donavan Chen 26k were all 3-0 in the other handicap bands.
-report by Ted Terpstra
Trophy winners at the Dapu Cup
King Bi (middle) accepting Dapu Cup from Kevin Yang (left) and his father Yimeng Liu
Youngster viewing first board competition between Kevin Yang (rt) and Yixian Zhou
At the launch of the 23rd staging of ‘The Three Kingdoms of Korea, China, and Japan Baduk’ and Nongshim Shin Ramyun World Baduk Championship.
My title may be a slight exaggeration, but the Nongshim Cup does get a lot of attention among Asian fans. “Nongshim” in English is “spicy noodles” and the event is named for the Korean instant noodle company that sponsors it. The 23rd running of the event – officially the Nongshim Shin Ramyun World Baduk Championship – began this month. The tournament is being held online again this year; the second round starts November 26 and the finals begin February 21, 2022.
The tournament is a win-and-continue contest among three teams of five players each from China, South Korea, and Japan. The games are played one at a time so there have to be at least ten games (all of the members of two teams must lose), though thirteen or fourteen is normal.
The competing countries send their strongest players to this popular event, which makes for a lot of exciting games and, since they are representing their own countries and not just themselves, the players feel more pressure/stress than in regular international events. The Korean team for the up-coming session contains the top five ranked players, which will be the strongest Korean team ever in terms of ranking. The Chinese team always includes all the current holders of world titles, and the Japanese team is normally the major seven Japanese title holders.
22nd Nongshim Cup winners
Occasionally, one of the players will have an amazing winning stretch. In the 22nd Nongshim Cup, for example (which ended in February of this year), Shin Jinseo 9p, Korea’s number one player, who was the fourth player on the Korean team, won five games in a row to win the event for Korea. He defeated the top two players of the Japanese and the Chinese teams: Iyama Yuta 9p and Ichiriki Ryo 9p of Japan, and Yang Dingxin 9p and Ke Jie 9p of China. The year before, Yang Dingxin was the first member of the Chinese team up, and he managed to defeat three members of the Japanese team and four of the Koreans before being defeated by Iyama Yuta 9p of Japan. The lone remaining Korean was Park Junghwan 9p who won four times: defeating the last member of the Japanese team, Iyama Yuta 9p, and three of the remaining Chinese. However, Park Junghwan lost the final game to Ke Jie 9p of China.
In 2018, another Chinese player, Fan Tingyu 9p, defeated Ichiriki Ryo 7p in the second game (Ichiriki had just defeated Lee Sedol 9p of Korea) and went on to win seven games in a row before losing to Park Junghwan 9p of Korea. Park Junghwan then knocked out the last Japanese player, Iyama Yuta, but lost the final game to Fan Yunruo 5p of China. Korea has won the Cup 13 times. The Chinese team has triumphed more than the others in recent years, their cumulative record is 8 Cup wins. Their last previous loss was in 2010 when Choi Cheolhan 9p of Korea won the last five games of the match, defeating Kong Jie 9p of China in the final game. Lee Changho 9p of Korea won the first six runnings of this Cup, starting in 2000, and then twice more. The Japanese have won the Cup only once: in the seventh running, Yoda Norimoto 9p of Japan defeated Lee Changho in the final game.
Yuan Zhou is a popular teacher and longtime contributor to the E-Journal; find out more on his website.
Over forty AGA members competed in the first weekend of the 10th Virginia Open, held on OGS October 9-10. Former Maryland Open and Salt City champion Zhengbokang Tang 8D (3-0) edged Li Yi 7D (2-1), the newly minted NC State Champion in in their Round 3 match, a ‘high note’ to conclude the first weekend of the online tournament directed by Devin Fraze and Jeff Zhang.
The board 1 game remained close throughout the long game, yet Tang steadily kept a half-point lead in the final 80 moves. Shuaiheng Tao 7D and Jimmy Creeks 6D are also contenders for the title with 2-1 records.
An additional 150 players watched the tournament online, where all 70 games are listed on one webpage.
VA Open’s final rounds resumed this weekend, Saturday, Oct. 16 (12p ET and 7p ET) and Sunday, Oct. 17 (12p ET)
Here are the division leaders after 3 rounds.
Open: Zhengbokang Tang 8D (3-0), Li Yi 7D (2-1)
Expert (1-4D): Evan Tan 3D (2-1), Cheuk To Tsui 4D (2-1)
Proficient(1-4K): Derek Zhou 1K (3-0), Massa Jin 3K (3-0)
Intermediate(5-9K): Jim Sandy 6K (2-1), Anna Zhou 9K (2-0)
The Canadian Go Association’s annual Canadian Open tournament will be held online from October 23-31st. Interested players of all levels worldwide are welcome to participate. “I hope to see many of our AGA friends join the tournament!” says TD Ron Mackenzie. All of the tournament information is available on the CGA website.
The tournament will feature an open division for 5d+ players with cash prizes. Other divisions will feature other prizes including those donated by sponsors. There will be six rounds run over 4 days, with rounds at 1PM and 5PM EST each day: Saturday, Oct 23: Rounds 1 and 2 Sunday, Oct 24: Rounds 3 and 4 Saturday, Oct 30: Rounds 5 and 6 Sunday, Oct 31: Open division playoffs, Pair Go, and Blitz tournaments
Yoonyoung Kim 8p will provide two review periods for players to share their games with her for analysis, which will be broadcast on her twitch stream. Interested players may join the review sessions regardless of whether or not they are playing in the tournament. Ryan Li 3p will also be offering a lecture on the New York Institute of Go Youtube channel on October 23rd at 7:30PM EST, the topic of which will be a review of one of the games from the open division.
Regular registration is $20 and will close on October 17th. Registration between October 17th and October 22nd will be $25. Any questions after not answered on the tournament page may be sent to TD Ron Mackenzie at ronm.cga@fastmail.com.
Applications are now being accepted for the American Go Foundation(AGF) college scholarship. The program recognizes high school students who have served as important youth organizers and promoters for the go community. To apply, download and complete the application form here. Applicants should describe their accomplishments and volunteer work in a short essay. Letters of recommendation may also be included. Applicants whose enthusiasm and ambition have helped spread go in under-served areas will be given special consideration. Strong players who spend much of their time voluntarily teaching will also be considered, although the award focuses on promoters and organizers who have made substantial contributions during their go career. Applications are due Nov. 5th this year. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.
“Registration for the annual American Go Honor Society Youth League is now open,” says AGHS Vice President Katherine Xie, “We welcome all players who are citizens of the US, Canada, or Mexico and under the age of 18 to participate. Every month will consist of four to five rounds and players will be paired with opponents of similar strength using a ladder system. All games will be played in the AGHS Tournament room on KGS. Top players of each division will receive awards at the end of each monthly league.”
The registration and dropout deadline is November 1st, 2021, at 11:59 pm PT. The first round will start on November 6th. If you have any questions, feel free to email aghsregister@gmail.com.
