American Go E-Journal » U.S./North America

The AGA IT Team will be upgrading its web server on Tuesday May 14th starting at 7PM EST/4PM PST. “As we upgrade to the new server we will be placing the them into maintenance mode so no data is lost in the transfer,” says Steve Colburn. “We hope to have the changes completed in a timely manner that night.” The largest changes users will notice are that the site will be fully secure HTTPS and should ensure that there are no errors with the Membership Manager when paying membership fees. The site may take 24-48 hours to fully update.  “We are hoping that most users will be able to access the new site by Wednesday morning, and thank you for your patience during this time,” Colburn added.

The 46th Maryland Open is coming up on Memorial Day weekend, May 25-26. The longest running tournament in the nation, many go players use it to prep for the annual U.S. Go Congress, coming up in July. The event – held at the Catonsville Senior Center — includes five rounds, three on Saturday, two on Sunday. “Come for one day or both!” say organizers. So far, 16 players, ranging from 23 kyu to 6 dan have already registered.

Twenty six players turned out for the Cinco de Mayo/May the 4th Be With You Tournament at the National Go Center on Saturday. Sombrero winners were: High Dan – Justin Teng (6D) 4-0; Low Dan – Raymond Hong (3D) 3-1 (Raymond’s first visit to the NGC, a great showing); Single Digit Kyu – Chizuko Sento (6K) 4-0 (Chizuko was also a winner the night before at Pair Go/Paella night); Double Digit Kyu – Betsy Small (13K) 3-1.

The next tournament at the NGC will be the traditional Congress Tune-up in June, and Pair Go/Paella with Chris Garlock’s delicious paella will resume in September.

– report by Gurujeet Khalsa; photo by Jeff Fitzgerald

Elwyn Berlekamp, a UC Berkeley mathematician and game theorist whose error-correcting codes allowed spacecraft from Voyager to the Hubble Space Telescope to send accurate, detailed and beautiful images back to Earth, died April 9 at his home in Piedmont, California, from complications of pulmonary fibrosis.

A professor emeritus of mathematics and of electrical engineering and computer sciences, Berlekamp was 78.
One of his passions was the Asian game of Go, which he analyzed in the book Mathematical Go — one of the rare books on Go to be translated from English into Japanese, rather than vice versa. He focused on Go’s endgame, said mathematician and colleague David Eisenbud, and once challenged a top Japanese Go master to a series of endgames selected by Berlekamp. He beat the Go master in seven straight games, playing both sides of the board — white and black. “It was mathematics against intuition, and mathematics won,” said Eisenbud, director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI). “It was an impressive demonstration of which he was very proud.”
– excerpted from Berkeley News; read more about Berlekamp here.
photo: Berlekamp playing the game Amazons with Georg Menz in 2015. Menz was that year’s Berlekamp Postdoctoral Fellow at MSRI. (Photo courtesy of David Eisenbud)