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

On the weekend after Thanksgiving, Saturday and Sunday, November 24 & 25, the San Diego Go Club will host the first annual California State Go Championship. The 5-round tournament will include an Open Section and Handicap Sections, and the best record in the Open by a California resident or student will earn the title of 2018 California State Champion, win cash and a trophy and have her or his name engraved on a permanent champion plaque. A total of $600 and trophies will be awarded for the best results in the various sections. AGA membership is required. Pre-registration by 11:59 p.m. Thanksgiving Day is required to play in Round 1. The site for the competition is the San Diego Chess Club in Balboa Park.

In conjunction with the Open Championship, the SDGC is hosting the 2018 13×13 State Go Championship. This competition will be 5-round, 30-minute games, intended for 20-Kyu to 30-Kyu players and beginners. The best boy and girl will be declared the 13×13 California State Champions and win appropriate trophies. The site is the same as the Open State Championship. Pre-registration by 11/23, 11:59 p.m. is required to play in Round 1 but walk-ins can play in later rounds. AGA membership is required but the California Go Association will have Chinese professional Hai Li rate the games for it. Players in this tournament can choose to play in the first three rounds of the AGA-rated 19×19 State championship on Saturday and take byes for rounds 4 & 5 on Sunday.

Register here for both tournaments.

The Evanston Go Club’s November 10 fall tournament drew 42 players from five states; Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and, “Wait for it,” said TD Mark Rubenstein, “Hawaii!” The diverse field included players ranging in rank from 26k to 7d. Albert Yen 7d, a regular at the Evanston tournaments for many years, was able to play his first-ever even game against another 7 dan, Boya (Eric) Hu.

“With 13 dans, 15 single-digit kyus, 14 double-digit kyus, and ages ranging from 7 to 70, this tournament was one to be remembered!” said Rubenstein. “And exactly half the participants were first-time attendees; a new record!”

Daniel Lambert, who streams his games on Twitch, was recording his games at the tournament and has posted them online with commentary. And Xinming Simon Guo, the AGA’s 2015 Teacher of the Year, was there teaching some of his youngest students.

Prizes were supplied by Yellow Mountain Imports. “YMI has been donating prizes to us for many years; thanks Yellow Mountain!” said Rubenstein.

“You’ll notice all the DDK winners played six games,” Rubenstein added. “In fact, thirteen players played more than four games, which is the minimum to be eligible for a prize. This is one of the advantages of self-paired tournaments; players can play as many games as they like. You’ll also notice that Jim Benthem is holding three coins in his hand, and is the only one without a prize. That’s because there were only two prizes available for the Dan section, so the three players agreed to flip coins for them… and Jim lost the toss.”

As is the tradition, about a dozen players and family members went out for pizza after the tournament.

Click here  for more photos.

Winners:
Dan division:  3-way tie for first place (no second place): Albert Yen 7d (3-1), Yang Yang 3d (3-1); James Benthem 1d (3-1)
Single-Digit Kyu division: Tied for first place: Laura Moon 2k (4-0), Steffen Kurz 4k (4-0); Second place: Daniel Lambert 6k (4-1)
Double-Digit Kyu division: First place: Blake O’Day 10k (6-0); Tied for second place: Mike O’Day 15k (5-1), Jowita Wisniewski 20k (5-1)

Update (11/14): Links added for Daniel Lambert.

Alexander Yehsakul of the Columbus Go Club partnered with volunteers from three other go clubs in the area to set up a go workshop room at the Youmacon anime convention in Detroit on November 3. About 60 conventioneers came to the workshop, with perhaps 40 on average in the room at any given time. Attendees learned the rules of go and got to play on 9×9 boards. Volunteers taught individuals one on one and groups using a demo board, and were always on hand to answer questions. Go games from OGS were displayed on a projector in the background. “I think the event went really well!” reports Yehsakul. “Turnout was great and we got some really positive feedback.”

This was the first time Yehsakul and this group of volunteers organized a go event like this. They hope to run another go workshop at Ohayocon in January, 2019. “Events like this are really important to spread and develop the go community in North America,” Yehsakul added.

The 8th season of the Collegiate Go League (CGL) is currently underway with last season’s third-place team, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign leading the A-League, and UCLA’s B team leading the B-League. Rounds take place on KGS every two weeks during the academic year, where schools can meet and compete with other university students around the continent. The A-League features highly-competitive even matches, with last season’s average playoff team strength hovering around 5 dan and above. Schools may also join the B-League, which features handicap matches for mainly kyu-level players. Cash prizes are given to top finishers in both leagues.

Last season’s broadcast of the A-League Finals was watched by thousands of viewers on Twitch.tv, featuring a nail-biting half-point victory on the first board for UC Irvine over UCLA to win the championship. If you’re an undergraduate or graduate student at a university in North America, gather at least two other students from your school and you too can compete for glory and eternal posterity on the perennial championship trophy.

Check out the detailed rules, and register to join the next round of the CGL.

California go players have a couple of interesting events coming up.

This Saturday, November 3 from 9:30 a.m. – 2 p.m., three visiting Korean pros — Paul Ah 9P (now living in Southern California), Seo Nungwuk 9P, and Na Joonhoon 8P — will play simultaneous exhibitions and do game analysis in San Diego. The site will be at the University Community Public Library (4155 Governor Dr, San Diego 92122, 858-552-1655. Free parking is available and doors open at 9:30a. Hosted by the San Diego Go Club. Click here for more upcoming events.

And next Wednesday,  November 7, Google DeepMind’s Thore Graepel will give a lecture on “Training Artificial Intelligence by Playing Games” at the David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley. Registration is optional, but space is limited. Register to reserve a seat. The lecture is at 6p; refreshments at 5:30p.
“Intelligence can be viewed as the ability of agents to achieve goals in a wide range of environments. If we wish to use machine learning to train intelligent agents, we need ways of creating rich environments that provide appropriate challenges and feedback signals to learning agents. Just as in real life (and evolution), the most challenging environments for learning agents arise from interaction with other co-adapting learning agents. So, let’s play games with AI!”
“The first example is learning from self-play in the context of the AlphaGo project which led to the first computer program to beat a top professional Go player at the full-size game of Go. Similar ideas can be used to study the age-old question of how cooperation arises among self-interested agents. Finally, we look at training artificial agents to play the game of Capture-The-Flag, a competitive team game played from a first-person perspective in a complex 3D world.”
Theoretically Speaking is a lecture series highlighting exciting advances in theoretical computer science for a broad general audience. Events are held at the David Brower Center in Downtown Berkeley, and are free and open to the public. No special background is assumed. This event is made possible in part by a grant from the Simons Foundation.

NOTE: San Diego is in Southern, not Northern California. The post has been updated with this correction. 

This Saturday, November 3, local go players will run a workshop at Youmacon, an anime convention in Detroit, Michigan, from 5 to 7p. “Representatives from the London and Windsor go clubs from Canada, as well as the West Michigan and Columbus go clubs from the United States will be running a go workshop to hopefully spread interest and teach people about this game that we all love,” reports the Columbus Go Club’s Alexander Yehsakul. The workshop will be held in Room 141 at the Cobo Center. “It should be a good time, with plenty of play equipment, friendly convention goers, and even some prizes,” Yehsakul adds. “Also, if you follow the Twitch Go scene, streamers such as DanielML001, Balonator, and Skatmaker will be there for the duration of the event.”

Ten players participated in the Vermont Go Championship on Saturday, October 27th. Dave Felcan 2d (standing at far left) went undefeated with three wins to take first place. Second place went to Jack Homer 1k with a record of 2-1. Rich Chalmers 1d claimed third place, also with a 2-1 record. “It was a very fun and exciting day with lots of great games and tough matches,” reports organizer Pete Schumer.  All players received prizes including trophies, books, magazines, go playing cards, and DVDs. “We look forward to hearing from our fellow states!” Pete tells us.