A year after the launch of the NY Go league, the New York Go Honor Society has announced their first official tournament. The NYGHS Summer Open will take place over two days – June 27th and July 3rd – and feature a traditional bracket style tournament on the second day. On the first day players will be split into divisions of 16 people and will play four Swiss-style rounds to qualify for a finals bracket in their division. Registration for the tournament is $15. Click here for more information about the tournament, and reach out to co-president.nyghs@ny-go.org with any questions.
Buddhist Philosophy and the Game of Go is the second, enlarged edition of the book titled Reflections on the Game of Go, written by William Cobb in 2005. This book contains a clear explanation of the basic principles of Buddhist philosophy using Go as examples. A large number of the entries have been published in the American Go Association’s journals as “The Empty Board”.
Xinming Guo, founder of Go and Math Academy in Illinois, will speak at a workshop to teach Go to new players on Wednesday, May 26th at 6 pm CDT. The workshop is hosted by the Association of Chinese Americans, Inc. for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Registration for the 2nd Annual California Pair-Go Championship – Online is now open at https://www.goclubs.org. All AGA members can enter this free five-round competition which will take place over five weeks – one game per week – beginning June 5, 2021. Registration will close on June 3 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. There will be Open and Handicapped sections. Although any pair of players can make up a team, the best male/female pair in the Open section will be crowned California Rengo Champions for 2021. Team-Wang made up of Yixian Zhou 6d and Seowoo Wang 5d were the 2020 Champions.
Japan invented Pair-Go to encourage more women to play the game – rules can be found at http://www.pairgo.or.jp/setumei/rule.htm. At its base, Rengo is Go played by a team of two, where the teammates cannot communicate with one another. For handicap games, a team’s rating is the average of the individual players’ ratings. All games will be played on KGS in the San Diego Go Club room. KGS prevents players from playing out of turn and handles the clock which is shared by a team. GoClubsOnline will handle registration, formation of teams by the players, and the pairings. Prizes for section winners will be San Diego Go Club T-shirts. Full details can be found at GoClubsOnline. Send questions to Ted Terpstra, President of the San Diego Go Club, at Ted.Terpstra@gmail.com.
The AGA Board will be meeting this Sunday from 7pm EDT until 10pm EDT. They will be discussing a number of important topics, including AGA budget and financials, COVID recommendations and reopening plan, and the status of the Strategic Plan (passed in November). Minutes of past meetings and the agenda for the upcoming meeting can be found here. If you are interested in joining, please contact Chair of the Board, Dr. Lisa Scott at lisa.scott@usgo.org.
The North American Go Federation (NAGF) is joining the European Go Federation’s (EGF) Pro League to form a new Transatlantic Pro League, starting on May 15th. All EGF-certified and NAGF-certified pros have been invited to compete. Six European pros – Ilya Shikshin 4P, Ali Jabarin 2P, Artem Kachanovski 2P, Pavol Lisy 2P, Andrii Kravets 1P, Tanguy le Calve 1P – and two North American pros – Ryan Li 3P, Calvin Sun 1P – have confirmed their participation. The EGF held a qualification round for top European amateur players, in which Remi Campagnie 6D and Oscar Vazquez 6D earned seats in the league. The ten Pro League competitors will be divided into two groups, with the top two players from each group advancing to a play-off.
The Transatlantic Pro League is sponsored by the EGF, NAGF, AI Sensei, and BadukPop. The prize money for the winner is €1000 EUR. League games will be live-streamed on the EGF Twitch Channel on Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 EDT (18:00 Central European Time) starting May 15th. For more information, visit the league website.
The North American Go Federation (NAGF) has published its new professional rank promotion system, opening the way for NAGF pros to earn higher ranks based on their performance in professional tournaments. The new system will be applied to all the NAGF-certified professional players retroactively. As a result, Ryan Li and Eric Lui have been promoted to 3P and 2P respectively. For details about the system, please refer to the official NAGF Professional Rank Promotion System document or visit the NAGF website.
Three American Go Association (AGA) Board of Director seats are in play for the Eastern, Western, and Central regions. The current terms of office expire this September. If you know of someone who you believe would offer guidance and service to the AGA consider making a nomination. Nominations, including self-nominations, may be made by full members for the regional seat in which the member resides and must be received by June 15, 2021. Nominations and questions must be emailed to elections@usgo.org. Click here for complete election information and qualifications.
Rujun (Larry) Ding 6d of Palo Alto, California beat Qipeng Luo 7d of Champaign, Illinois in the final round of the Open section to win the Tenth Annual San Diego Go Championship with a record of 5-0. Ding won a ko fight at the end of the game to pull ahead for a 7-stone victory. Kyle Fenimore (NY) and Mani K Sanford (MI) placed second and third with 4-1 records in the 18-player Open section.
The 2021 SD Go Championship had its largest turnout ever with 73 players, representing 17 states, competing. Among the 32 players from California, 21 were from the San Diego Go Club. This was the second year that the tournament was held online due to the pandemic, with one game per week over five weeks. AGA membership was required of all players and there is hope that since the AGA Board has approved online ratings, that the tournament will be rated by the new AGA online rating system.
In the Handicap division there were eight sections. The winners were:
1) 3d-1.5d Patrick a Ferl (CA) 2) 1k-1.5k Wanqi Zhu (IL) 3) 1.6k-2.3k Michael Mei (CA) 4) 2.8k-3.7k Jerry Young (TX) 5) 4.2k-5.5k Duncan Harris (MI) 6) 5.7k-6.5k Juliet Zhang (NJ) 7) 7.3k-10k Terri Schurter (NJ) 8) 11.5k-25k Lewis Lin (NY)
All winners were awarded a redesigned 2017 Go Congress San Diego Go Club T-Shirt. This was the fourth online tournament organized by the San Diego Go Club during the pandemic. The club will continue to provide opportunities for online go competition as long as it is unsafe to play face-to-face. Hopefully, by Thanksgiving weekend SDGC will be able to hold the 4th Annual California State Go Championship in person.
“Registration for the AGHS Youth vs. Adult Charity event is now open!” says Promotion Head Jenny Li, “Anti-Asian violence and hate crimes have been on the rise, so we want to take this time to raise awareness and appreciation for Asian culture. As much as it is an inspiration for all, the game of Go we have today is a result of millennia of Asian culture, built up and passed down through the generations. We hope the AGHS values of collaboration and opportunity can translate to supporting the AAPI community. We welcome all players to participate. The three rounds will be held in KGS’s AGHS Tournament Room on June 12 at 1 PM, 3 PM, and 5 PM EDT. Each table will be played in a round robin format between 3 adult players and 3 youth players. The registration deadline for this event is June 5, 11:59 PM EDT.”
