American Go E-Journal » Go News

This year’s Salt City Go Tournament, held April 16 in Syracuse, NY “was remarkable for the efforts that several made to attend it,” reports organizer Richard Moseson.  Brandon Mills traveled the farthest, driving six hours up from Pittsburgh, PA and returning home that evening, while teenagers Justin Gagne and Lyndon Whitney caught an early train from Rochester and then skateboarded (!) the final eight miles to the tournament.  Winner of the Dan Division and taking home the $250 first place prize was another distant traveler, Phil Waldron 5d, who drove down from Ottawa, Ontario.  He and Jared Beck 2d of Ithaca, NY — who captured the $100 second place prize — both finished with 3-1 records. The top two finishers in the B Division, both with 4-0 records, were Seth Rothschild 10k and Tom Smith 11k, students from Syracuse University and the Rochester Institute of Technology respectively, while the first two places in the C Division were won by Lyndon Whitney 18k and Yuk Ki Chau 13k. Seventeen prizes –including several go books generously discounted by Slate and Shell — were awarded in all, out of a field of 30.

Photos: right: top two winners Phil Waldron (l) and Jared Beck (r) with Wayne Nelson and 3rd place winner Jonathan Wang watching. Left: Nonagenarian Milton Sack 11k, playing in his first tournament ever. photos by Richard Moseson

Jimmy Yang 4d (front, left) of Virginia swept the Open section of the annual Carolina Spring Go Tournament, while the Cary Chinese School Team B won the team event. The April 10 event was organized by the Cary Go Club and the Chinese-American Friendship Association of North Carolina and held in Raleigh, attracting 30 go players from 7 to 70 years old.

For the first time in the tournament’s 8-year history, reports organizer Owen Chen, a team event was organized for the youth players.   Each team consisted of three players, with each team member’s individual score being accumulated for the team score. Twelve go class students from the Cary Chinese School formed three teams while three students from the Raleigh Academy of Chinese Language formed the remaining team. “The team competition was fierce,” says Chen. “Young players kept reporting and checking the team scores posted on the wall after each round.” For the most part, the team scores were very close and each team had a chance to win the team tournament in the last round.  In the end, Cary Chinese School Team B, consisting of Alvin Chen, John Zhu and Byron Qi, won the team event with 7 individual wins.

Winner’s Report: In the individual competition, Jimmy Yang 4d of Virginia swept the open section with 4-0.   Jeff Kuang 5d and Owen Chen 5d tied for the second place of the open section, each with one loss. Andrew Zalesak 1k won Section A (7k-1d), Ralph Abbey 13k won Section B (8k-15k) and  Samuel Sites 18k won Section C (16k-19k).  All three of them went a perfect score of 4-0 to win their sections.  Larry Zhang 20k won Section D (20k-25k) with 3-1.   Alvin Chen 16k finished second in Section C with 3-1 and Byron Qi went 2-2 and yet still finished in the second place of Section D.

On April 9th, 16 players from around the Pittsburgh area and from Ohio and West Virgina gathered at Carnegie Mellon University for the Pittsburgh Spring Tournament.  Eric Lee 2d won the upper division with a record of 3-0, and Josaih Odhner 10k won the lower division with a record of 3-0.
– Kim Warzinski