American Go E-Journal » Go News

The North American Ing Masters (NAIM) Championship is the North American continental championship. Featured in a variety of formats over the years, this year’s tournament — which kicked off Sunday night at the U.S. Go Congress — is a 16-person, 4-round Swiss tournament that will determine the North American Masters Champion. This tournament is invitation only, and participants are determined by qualification tournaments played over the six months before Congress begins.

Qualification: All players must be rated 4 dan or higher, be eligible to represent the US internationally, and have earned enough points through qualifier competitions to be listed in the top 16 eligible, interested players.

Top row: Mingjiu Jiang 7P; Zi Yang Hu 1P; Huiren Yang 1P; Calvin Sun 7d
2nd row: Daniel Chou 7d; Dae Hyuk Ko 7d; Yongfei Ge 7d; Guozhong Zhuang 6d
3rd row: Kuo-Ruey Han 6d; Vincent Zhuang 6d; Zhaonian Chen 7d; Juyong Koh 7d
4th row: Curtis Tang 7d; Kevin Chao 5d; Philip London 4d; Yuan Zhou 7d
photos by Steve Colburn; collage by Chris Garlock

E-Journal photographer Phil Straus will be posting portraits of go players each day this week; here’s his first collection:

(7/31/2011; 10a PST) The first round of the 2011 U.S. Open is now underway at the U.S. Go Congress in Santa Barbara, CA, with the top three boards being broadcast live on KGS every morning starting around 9a PST. Pairings and game records — including game commentaries — can be found online. Check back for updated pairings, results and game records throughout the week!

The American Go E-Journal’s live broadcasts on Day One — Sunday, July 31 — of the 2011 U.S. Go Congress include:
– U.S. Open: top boards in Round 1 will be broadcast live on KGS starting around 9a PST (12 noon EST)
– Redmond Cup: the four finalists in the 2011 Redmond Cup will compete live from the U.S. Go Congress in a special E-Journal broadcast at 3p PST (6p EST) Sunday on KGS. The players are Gansheng Shi 7d vs. Calvin Sun 7d and Aaron Ye 4d vs. Sammy Zhang 3d.
– North American Ing Masters: top boards in this 16-player tournament will be broadcast live on KGS starting at 7p PST.
photo: Calvin Sun (l) plays Gangshen Shi in the 9×9 tournament Saturday night; photo by Steve Colburn

Now you can follow all the action at the 2011 U.S. Go Congress — which runs July 31-August 6 in Santa Barbara CA — in a number of ways:
– AGA website: we’ll be posting updates each day throughout the week, including news, photos and games
– E-Journal: daily reports drawn from the previous day’s website posts
– Twitter: follow us @gocongress for updates by the EJ’s Steve Colburn
– KGS: top boards at the U.S. Open every morning and top boards at the Ing Masters every night
Photo: American Go Association President Allan Abramson (r) enjoys a casual game Saturday morning as the 2011 U.S. Congress gets started on the UCSB campus in Santa Barbara, CA. photo by Steve Calburn.