Sunday June 17, 2018
Sunday June 17, 2018
Mark Rubenstein and Bob Barber gave their second presentation about go at PechaKucha last week at Martyr’s in Chicago. Their first presentation in 2011 was about go in general; this one focused on AlphaGo. “It had been 7 years since we did our first one,
and we thought the time was right for version 2.0” said Rubenstein.
Wednesday June 13, 2018
The board of the American Go Association approved a Code of Conduct and creation of a committee to oversee Code of Conduct implementation at its meeting on May 20, 2018. The board also approved bylaw changes to be discussed and voted on by the AGA membership. The president’s report included a discussion of the Tibetan go community. The board also allowed for a budget item for Masters tournament prize money and initiation of the process of developing a formal resolution to address cheating.
Tuesday June 12, 2018
Rengo/Pair Go events are consistently popular at the Seattle Go Center, and last Saturday was no exception. Twenty-eight
players — fourteen teams of two — competed in the “Rengo with Pie and Coffee” tournament on June 9, organized by Pair Go stalwart Bill Thompson, who brought the fancy pies (strawberry-rhubarb, coconut, wild cherry, and apple), directed the tournament, and even played in it.
The event was run with the International Pair Go Association rules, but with no restrictions to team composition. Thompson used a spreadsheet from longtime Pair Go tournament director Todd Heidenreich to calculate the teams’ handicaps and komi, averaging the individual ratings of the team members.
Time limits were 45 minutes absolute (no byo-yomi). The players at Table 1 had competitive spirt — one of their games finished with 9 seconds on 
the clock for Black, and 6 seconds left for White; and another of their games ended in a tie.
Undefeated after two rounds:
Table 1: Lusha Zhou (9k) and Tzu-Jen Chan (3d) (in back).
Table 2: Yulissa Wu Lu (10k) and Lucas Wu Lu (9k) (front center).
Table 3: Hotaka Ozaki (3k) (at far left) and Abigail Chen (20k) (front far right).
Table 4: Joshua Yang (11k) and Shirley Yang (30k) (not pictured).
More pictures will be posted soon on the SeattleGo website.
– report/photos by Mike Malveaux, Seattle Go Center Programs Manager
Monday June 11, 2018
Sunday June 10, 2018
Eric Lui 1p will lead a Congress-Goer Mini Tune Up workshop on Saturday June 30 in Baltimore. “Turn your 3-3 Open record 
into a 4-2 with the latest joseki and fuseki developments from AlphaGo and the pros,” says organizer Keith Arnold. Aimed at low dan and single digit kyu, but all are welcome. Contact Keith Arnold (hlime81@verizon.net) or Eric Lui (eric_lui2002@yahoo.com) for details. Space is limited.
Monday June 4, 2018
Artificial Intelligence has taken go into new realms and this year at the US Go Congress attendees will be able to learn and improve their own games by playing against one of the new generation of AI players. Facebook’s OpenGo, which features a 20-0 record against top-30 professionals, will be playing teaching simuls early in the week.
The simuls will be held on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday afternoons (July 22, 23, and 24) with OpenGo playing 20 simultaneous no-handicap teaching games each day. Each player will be mailed an SGF file after the game with annotations from OpenGo.
Participants will play on physical boards, with volunteers relaying the moves to and from OpenGo. The Congress organizers expect high demand for the 60 simultaneous playing slots and are offering the opportunity first to those who have completed their Congress registration by June 20. If more than 60 of those registrants wish to play against OpenGo, a lottery will be held for the seats.
To sign up, select the OpenGo Simul event as part of your registration on the Go Congress website. If you’ve already registered, go to “My Account,” click on an attendee name, then find the “Simul against Facebook OpenGo” section to add the event to your registration. If you haven’t already registered, select the event as part of your new attendee registration.
The schedule of events has been added to the Congress mobile app along with other events and lots of information about the Congress. It is available as a free download for iOS and Android devices.
Saturday June 2, 2018
The Syracuse Go Club hosted a two-part event at the Manlius Library last month, consisting of a showing of the film The 
Surrounding Game followed by a simul given by 16-year-old club member Tony Tang 8d. “Tony played fifteen games over almost two and half hours and maintained a torrid pace, taking no breaks and averaging under five seconds per move throughout (see video of one circuit here),” reports Richard Moseson. Three players came from Buffalo for the movie and simul, “but most of Tony’s opponents (3 dan players, 9 single-digit kyu players, and 3 double-digit kyu players) were members of the Syracuse club. Even though Tony allowed everyone to choose their own handicaps, he ended up winning all but four of the games.” Pictures from the event can be seen here.
Friday June 1, 2018
of senior division were Chase (Bin) Fu, Andrew (Hancheng) Xu and Hanchi Ou. Top four players of junior division were Hantong Li, Yuheng Xue, Jin Greene and Jate Greene.– reported by Ke Lu
Friday June 1, 2018
Nominations have started to come in for the 2018 board seats. Incumbents Lisa Scott, central region and Gurujeet Khalsa, eastern region will be running to retain their seats. Former board member Paul Celmer is running for the at-large position. No nominations for the western position have been made. Nominations, including self-nominations, may be made by full members for the At-Large or for the regional seat in which the member resides and must be received by June 15, 2018. Nominations and questions must be emailed to elections@usgo.org. Click h
– Arnold Eudell