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Go miscellany Year End Edition (bonus)

Thursday December 14, 2017

Being a collection of interesting items – in no particular order – that have landed in our in-box in recent months but never made it into the E-Journal.

New adds to Kiseido’s year-end sale: Kiseido has added a few more items to their year-end sale of go books and go equipment, including the 2018 Ukiyo-e Calendar , shell & slate go stones, a new original ukiyo-e print and of course go books.

Stop, Go Murder: A story about murder, the game of go, and the role of happenstance in shaping our lives. Introduces Steven Crane, a homicide detective who has come to see his life, including his current case, as a deceiving game of go. A first novel — available on Amazon — from Paul Freeman, the former mayor of Laguna Beach, CA, who is available for book signings and other go club functions: call Ken Levine at (818) 414-6002. Bulk club discounts are available.

Categories: Go Spotting,Main Page,Tools: books, software & hardware

Elite Mind Games Day 4 report

Wednesday December 13, 2017

The last day of women’s team competition saw plenty of sparks, but the only surprising result was Fujisawa Rina defeating the

world’s top-ranked female player from China, Yu Zhiying. Japan was then in a position to tie or defeat China, depending on the outcome of the other game bewteen China’s Lu Minquan and Japan’s Nyu Eiko. In that a game, Nyu played well to be ahead for most of the game, but she slipped in the yose when both players were in byo-yomi. After 6+ hours of play, the score was an unusual W+1.5 point due to a single-shared-liberty seki. Another game that could have sent shockwave through the tournament was between Canada’s Sarah Yu and Korea’s Choi Jeong. Sarah was in a difficult position from the start, but she fought hard and was about to win a large-group semeai with a favorable yose-ko. Sarah was in byo-yomi

and could not read in out, missing her chance. She missed a second chance to create a triple ko, which would have tied the game according to the tournament rules. As a result, Korea took first place, China dropped to second, and Japan received a hard-earned bronze medal.

On the men’s side, the games were all lopsided. Taipei could not follow its previous day’s performance and lost to Korea 0-2. In the end Korea was first, China second, and Taipei third.

Tomorrow the action switches to Pair Go and men’s and women’s blitz go. In two days, there will be three more medals to be won. For all three tournaments, the first day will be a three-round preliminary. Participants are divided into two groups. Preset seedings separate China and Korea, Japan and Taipei, North American and Europe into the two groups. The groups’ top finishers will meet to determine 1st and 2nd place, etc, in the second day.
– Thomas Hsiang; photos: (right) women’s medalists; (left) men’s medalists

Categories: China,IMSA Elite Mind Games,Main Page,World

Seattle prepares for Pair Go Night this Saturday

Wednesday December 13, 2017

The fifth annual Seattle Pair Go Gala will be held this Saturday, Dec. 16, at the Seattle Go Center. Registration is at the beginning of the tournament, from 6-6:30 pm. The gala will follow International Pair Go Rules, so teams must have both a female and male player. Last year’s tournament had 24 players, and lots of cake. Photo by Anne Thompson, https://tenukihandcrafts.com/, report by Brian Allen.

Categories: Main Page,U.S./North America

Go miscellany Year End Edition (3 of 3)

Wednesday December 13, 2017

Being a collection of interesting items – in no particular order – that have landed in our in-box in recent months but never made it into the E-Journal.

New go mag launched: Myosu, a new Korea-based go publication, was quietly launched last June. Myosu is a Korean term meaning ‘excellent move’. The team is based out of Myongji University, headed up by Editor-in-chief Le Kieu Khanh Linh. “In this magazine, we want to share all kinds of stories from the Baduk world; not only news and playing techniques, but also insights into Baduk culture, people, etc. We hope that we can connect the Baduk world and bring our community closer.”

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making: There is a passing mention of go on page 149 of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente. It occurs when the main character, September, is talking to Death.
“Death, I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s very brave of you to admit that. Most knightly folk I happen by bluster and force me to play chess with them. I don’t even like chess! For strategy Wrackglummer and even Go are much superior.”
– Willard Haynes

Categories: Go Spotting,Korea,Main Page

Elite Mind Games Day 3 report

Tuesday December 12, 2017

On Day 3 of the IMSA Elite Mind Games, China and Taipei met in men’s team play. China’s number 1, Ke Jie, had no problem

2017.12.12_iemg-Joanne Missingham vs Sarah Yu

with Wang Yuan-Jyun; but the 2016 Ing Cup winner Tang Weixing lost to veteran Chen Shih-Yuan to make the team score 1-1. This result leaves the suspense of championship to the last round tomorrow – the winner between Taipei and Korea will be the champion. But if they are tied, the three teams will have the same team scores and a complicated tie-breaker will be used to determine the winner. In the other matches, Europe tied North America when Ilya Shikshin defeated Mingjiu Jiang while the young Canadian Ziyang Hu won a complicated fighting game against Mateusz Surma. Korea defeated Japan 2-0.

On the women’s side, China and Korea met for the top match of the day. China’s Yu Zhiying played a beautiful territory game to win over Choi Jeong. In the second game, which was also the latest to finish for the day, Korea’s Oh Yu-Jin won against Lu Minquan to tie the team score at 1-1. Japan beat Europe and Taipei beat North America, both at 2-0. In tomorrow’s fourth and last round, on the men’s side, China will play vs Europe, Taipei vs Korea, and Japan vs North America; on the women’s side, North America will play vs Korea, Europe vs Taipei, and China vs Japan.

– Thomas Hsiang; photo shows the matches between Taipei and North America. In the front are Joanne Missingham and Sarah Yu; in the back are Yang Tzu-Hsuan and Wan Chen.

Categories: China,IMSA Elite Mind Games,Main Page

Yong Chen wins Slate and Shell tourney at NGC

Tuesday December 12, 2017

The annual Slate and Shell tournament was held at the National Go Center on December 9 with 26 players competing. The winner in the Dan division was Yong Chen (1D). Runner-up among the Dan players was Ran Zhao (5D). Mike Lash (6K) had the only perfect 4-0 score to score first in the high single-digit Kyu players followed by James Funk (5K). In the lower single-digit Kyu section, Anderson Barreal (7K) and Daniel Acheson (7K) took first and second respectively. Betsy Small (12K) won the double-digit Kyu section followed by Julian Turim (15K).
photo of winners with TDs Gurujeet Khalsa and Gary Smith taken by Jason Turim.

Categories: Main Page,U.S./North America

Go miscellany Year End Edition (2 of 3)

Tuesday December 12, 2017

Being a collection of interesting items – in no particular order – that have landed in our in-box in recent months but never made it into the E-Journal.

Modern ruins of Japan: A floor-style goban and bowls on the couch. From the book Haikyo: The Modern Ruins of Japan, by Shane Thoms.
– David Matson

The Stone of Kannon: A friend recommended the book, The Stone of Kannon, by O. A. Bushnell, to me a couple of weeks ago. The book tells the story of the first Japanese contract laborers who were imported in 1868 to work on sugar plantations in Hawaii. This was the first year of the Meiji reign and there was a lot of turbulence in Japan. Go is mentioned a number of times, but it is not a major aspect of the book. Go is present in many scenes both in Japan and on the ship sailing to Hawaii. There is a sub-plot about a retired prostitute who announced on the first day at sea that she was going to choose a husband before they landed in Hawaii. It is described starting on page 201. “O-Miya’s search for a husband worthy of her helped to lighten those long hours – and gave gamblers endless reasons for laying bets…she did not lack suitors. They surrounded her day and night, paying court. They played Go with her, at which she was very proficient, and hanafuda, at which she excelled…” The story focusses on a group that worked the Wailuku Plantation and Sugar Mill. It describes locations that are still in Wailuku and locations where the Maui Go Club has met. We made it the official book of the Maui Go Club. There is a longer version this story on our website.
– Danny Topp

Categories: Japan,Main Page,U.S./North America

Elite Mind Games Day 2 report

Monday December 11, 2017

In today’s IMSA Elite Mind Games team competitions for both men and women, China drew North America, Korea drew Europe, and Taipei drew Japan. China and Korea easily defeated their opponents to win 4-0; the suspense was with the closely matched games between Taipei and Japan. For men, the top two Taiwanese players Wang Yuan-Jyun and Chen Shih-Yuan defeated Japan’s new stars Shibano Toramaru and Mutsuura Yuta. For women, much attention was focused on the match between Joanne Missingham (Hei Jia-Jia) and the multiple title winner Fujisawa Rina (granddaughter of Fujisawa Shuko). The game lasted over five hours, with Rina finally prevailing over the seemingly rusty Joanne. The other game featured two shodans, the 15-year old Yang Tzu-Hsuan and the 17-year old Nyu Eiko, both having reached major title challenges this year in their countries. Eiko, daughter of multi-time world xiangqi champion Zhao Guorong and Go 5p Niu Lili who is famous for have written Go Seigen’s books for the past 20+ years, calmly won over Tzu-Hsuan in their first of many anticipated matches to come.

For readers who are not familiar with the IMSA Elite Mind Games, this event is a replacement of the previous SportAccord World Mind Games held from 2011 to 2014. A unique feature of these events is their strong involvement of Western players. Not only is the prize fund spread out to all players, the format of play, which does not use simple knock-outs, also allows the Western players to play many games with the top pros from Asia, thus allowing valuable training experience for the former. In today’s IMSA Executive Meeting, it was announced that IEMG will be continued for at least another two years. In addition, new events are being developed, aiming to hopefully reach three IMSA events per year by 2019.

– Thomas Hsiang; photo: Mingjiu Jiang (left) vs. Ke Jie

Categories: IMSA Elite Mind Games,Main Page,World

Go miscellany Year End Edition (1 of 3)

Monday December 11, 2017

Being a collection of interesting items – in no particular order – that have landed in our in-box in recent months but never made it into the E-Journal.

Legend of the Five Rings: Fantasy Flight Games publishes a card game called “Legend of the Five Rings” which takes inspiration from Japanese, Chinese, and Korean history and legend. A short story posted to FFG’s website contains an image of a gentleman engaged in an interesting game of go while holding a white stone correctly. The short story, itself, contains a discussion between two characters about Shogi, with a passing comment that one prefers the “purity” of go.
– Joe Marino

Atari origins: “Started in 1972, Atari was named by one of its founders, Nolan Bushnell, for a move in the ancient Asian game of Go. ‘Atari was what you said to your opponent if you put their stones in jeopardy, kind of like check in chess,’ Mr. Bushnell explained in an interview. ‘I just thought it was a cool word and a cool name.’ From Atari (Remember It?), a New Console With Old Games, in The New York Times 11/24/2017
Bushnell gave the keynote address at the 2012 Go Congress.
– Ted Terpstra

Can A.I. Be Taught to Explain Itself? As machine learning becomes more powerful, the field’s researchers increasingly find themselves unable to account for what their algorithms know — or how they know it.
– From The New York Times, 11/21/2017

Categories: Computer Go/AI,Go Spotting,Main Page

IMSA Elite Mind Games 2017 edition underway in China

Sunday December 10, 2017

The second version of the IMSA Elite Mind Games (IEMG) is underway in Huai’an City, Jiangsu Province, China. The event runs December 9-16, and features 72 male and 62 female top athletes from five sports — Bridge, Chess, Draughts, Go, and Xiangqi — competing for medals and the boasting right as world champions. In addition, a total prize pot of €900,000 will be distributed to the participants.

The Go tournament’s first day started shortly after lunch and did not all end until six hours later. In the men’s team, China drew Korea to feature the clash of four superstars from these two teams – Ke Jie (at right, taking the Player’s Vow), Tang Weixing, Park Jeong-Hwan, and Shin Jin-Seo. Shin played white against Tang and used a clever sacrifice to build a big moyo and scored the first win of the day. Ke, on the other hand, fought brilliantly with Park to force the team score to 1-1. On the women’s side, the North American team played against Europe. Sarah Yu from Canada and Wan Chen from US both lost by resignation to Natalia Kovaleva from Russia and Manja Marz from Germany. The North American team is now likely to fall to the last place. All other matches had expected results: for men, Japan over Europe, Taipei over North American; for women, China over Taipei, and Korea over Japan – all with 2-0 score.

Tomorrow, for both men and women teams, America will play vs China, Europe vs Korea, and Taipei vs. Japan.

The Mind Games launched on Saturday with a grand opening ceremony (left) at the Great People’s Hall of Huai’an. In addition to the same five sports as last year, the Chinese National Guandan Championship will be held at the same venue. Guandan is a traditional Chinese card game which was showcased as a demo sport in 2016. The International Federation of Card Games (FCG) will also run an international tournament in Huai’an as a parallel event.

In Go, IEMG will have five medal competitions: men’s and women’s team play, men’s and women’s individual blitz play, and pair go. Six countries/regions are represented: China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, USA (joined by Canada), and EU (joined by non-EU European countries). The all-star casts include: from China, Yu Zhiying, Lu Minquan, Ke Jie, and Tang Weixing; from Japan, Fujisawa Rina, Nyu Eiko, Shibano Toramaru, and Matsuura Yuta; from Korea, Oh Yu-Jin, Choi Jeong, Park Jeong-Hwan, and Shin Jinseo; from US-Canada, Sarah Yu, Wan Chen, Mingjiu Jiang, and Ziyang Hu; from EU, Natalia Kovaleva, Manja Marz, Ilya Shikshin, and Mateusz Surma.
– report/photos by Thomas Hsiang

Categories: China,Main Page

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