The AGF is proud to announce the new PrideGo scholarship for students aged 13-22 who openly identify as LGBT+. Three recipients will receive $500 towards the 2022 Go Congress. Applications are open at https://www.pridego.org/#apply and will close on May 8th.
The PrideGo program is spearheaded by popular Twitch go streamer Eva-Dee M. Beech (better known online as “Gooplet”) who has run two successful fundraising events with the help of several volunteers. She looks forward to meeting the scholarship recipients at this year’s Go Congress. More information about the program can be found at https://PrideGo.org.
The next PrideGo fundraising event will be the second annual Pride Month Rengo tournament, during the last weekend of June. Further details will be released in May. Live commentary of the event will be hosted by Gooplet on the official AGA Twitch channel, guest commentators TBA. Previous PrideGo guest commentators included LionGuySai, Dwyrin, Vadim from GoMagic, and In Sente. If you are interested in contributing to the PrideGo program with your time or your money, or if you have questions about the program, check the website or contact Eva-Dee at evadee.beech@usgo.org!
My friend and colleague Scott Nollet is a long-time donor to the American Go Foundation. In our email exchanges in March the topic came up, and below are the relevant passages from Scott.
“Once Covid hit, I stopped getting requests to contribute to the American Go Foundation and wondered if the organization might have folded. But now I got a request in December, and they said that they simply had had lower needs (I imagine because the Go tournaments were done over Zoom). It’s pretty nice that they didn’t ask for money when they didn’t need it!
“I give quite a bit to charities, and the usual practice is that once $500 is given, immediately $600 is asked for next. So the AGF behavior was a pleasant surprise. I gave them double my usual donation.”
I am fortunate enough to have been supported by the AGF before. It is heartening that it has distinguished itself among the many organizations that depend on donor support—I am glad to add that the honesty is paying off, too! The leaders of AGF deserve praise from all go players. Bravo!
It’s unsurprising that music and go found an intersection for Neal Wright. He had been involved with both for years. “I started playing go in middle school at the Boulder Go Club in Colorado,” Wright told the E-Journal. “While I didn’t study the game more seriously until years later, I always looked back fondly on that time. We were all just there to play a game we loved.”
Neal Wright
Music came soon after when Wright started writing songs at 19. Following his time in an indie rock band, he began experimenting with the electronic stylings that would eventually become his current project, Wave Collector. When he attended his first U.S. Go Congress in 2017, the two worlds came together.
“I…really got excited about studying the game. From there I came to appreciate the strategy on a deeper level and started learning about the history of the game. As I dug into some of the notable games in history, I realized it would be a perfect theme for an album.” That album would become Wave Games. Check it out on Spotify.
The first song to manifest was inspired by Lee Sedol’s famous ladder game; it appears on the album under the name Broken Ladder. The song is reflective of Wave Collector’s style, which has been called downtempo electronic or even—appropriate for a go-themed album—”intelligent dance music.” The initial arpeggio of Broken Ladder is meant to “mimic the sort of back-and-forth nature of a ladder being played out.”
Then there’s Ghost Moves, named after the 1835 Blood Vomiting Game, one of the most famous games of the Edo period, in which it is said Jowa was given three brilliant moves by ghosts of long-dead players who rivaled the Inoue House. The vocals in the song are affected with a sort of ghostly quality and are meant to represent the spirits speaking to Jowa.
Wave Games cover art
The album was in the works for five years. Though the last of the nine songs were finished in 2020, the pandemic delayed production of the vinyl by more than a year. “I had always wanted to press this album to vinyl. So by the time I finally got (it), it was February of 2022…(and) I released it as soon as I could.”
Over the course of production, some song ideas didn’t make the cut, such as the Mirror Game, a call-and-response melody inspired by Go Seigen’s famous match against Kitani Minoru, and the Self-Atari Game, a melodic reincarnation of Nakano Yasuhiro’s famous game-losing self-atari. Others that did make the album include Bright Pearl Comes Out from the Sea (based on a famous go problem), Game Between Gods (inspired by the mythical Axe Handle Game), The Masterpiece (named after a Dosaku game), Move 78 (based on Lee Sedol’s winning move against AlphaGo), Move 127 (based on the Ear-Reddening Game) and Triple Ko.
Meanwhile, Wright is enjoying the satisfaction of completing a years-long project. “Despite the long delay, I’m really happy with how it turned out.” – Hailey Renner
Nominations for the American Go Foundation’s Teacher of the Year award are due by May 5th. The winner will receive an all expenses paid trip to the US Go Congress in Estes Park this summer. To be eligible a teacher must be a member of the AGA and have been teaching go to children for at least one hour a week for two years. The award is now open to other kinds of teachers as well, including online efforts. Teachers of the Year for 2020 and 2021 are also invited, and all three will be honored at the awards banquet. Click here for more information. If you would like to nominate someone for this award, including yourself, email mail@agfgo.org. Nominations are due by May 5th and should include a description of the teacher’s activities, how long they have been teaching, and how many students attended their program. – Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo: 2021 Teacher of the Year Pete Schumer
An enthusiastic crowd of 58 go players turned out on April 2 to welcome Spring and the return of the National Go Center’s Cherry Blossom Tournament after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Because of the large group and general uncertainty over ratings with no recent tournament play, all games were played even without handicaps.
Eric Lui (1P) was the overall winner at 4-0 beating Alan Huang (7D) 3-1 in the final round for the championship. Cash prizes were awarded to the top players, and all 4 or 3 game winners got their choice of an NGC t-shirt or a go book. The other 4-0 winner was Ning-Yuan Ernest Wang (6K), back in the US on a business trip from Taiwan and still fondly remembered from his days at the Johns Hopkins Go Club.
The other three-game winners were Qi Huang (5d), Qingbo Zhang (5D), Joel Kenny (4D), Ching Long Lam (3D), Samantha Soo (2D), Alex Fan-Cui (1D), James Bonomo (2K), Ken Onishi (2K), Joseph Craig (3K), Anderson Barreal (4K), Robert Qi (5K), John Gipson (6K), Zhaorong Ma (8K), Mi=ulan Liu (10K), Amber Boyden (13K).
“We had one player, Siddhant Rajoriya (28K), who had only been playing the game for one week,” says TD Gurujeet Khalsa. “He showed real aptitude for go, and we hope to see him playing at a Dan level next year. A shout-out goes to Samantha Soo’s mom also. She left New York City at 2 AM to bring Samantha and two other players to the event, which was great!” photo courtesy Gurujeet Khalsa
Tune in on the AGA’s Twitch channel this Sunday, April 10 at 7p ET for another live game commentary by Michael Redmond 9P, hosted by E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock. Redmond will be reviewing a game between Honinbo Jowa and Shinomiya Yonezo.
Honinbo Jowa (1787-1847), the 12th head of the Honinbo house, became Meijin–Godokoro in 1831. He has been noted for his extremely strong playing strength, murky origins, and infamous intrigues. Shinomiya Yonezo (1769-1835), a self-taught go hustler, played a famous jubango against Honinbo Jowa.
Per a recent report by the Korean Baduk Association, which regularly updates professional player ratings, Shin Jin-seo 9P has been No. 1 in the among Korean professional rankings for 27 months. Popular go teacher and Asian Games gold medalist Yoonyoung Kim 8P ascended to #5 after going 3-1 in the recent Daeju Cup.
As a new mom, Kim says she enjoys a balanced life juggling family, tournaments and teaching. Speaking of promoting go via Twitch streaming, where she has 3,600 followers, she said “I hope to meet many of you over there.”
She and her husband temporarily moved from Canada to Korea a year ago and in January, Kim defeated Jung dongsik 6P, Cha Sukwun 8P and Kim Chanwoo 6P to make the final 16. Her fourth match was broadcast live on TV on Feb. 11. The Daeju Cup, which invites men over 50 and women over 30, has a top prize of 15 million Won ($12,400 USD).
Registration for the 2022 Go Congress is proceeding briskly with over 170 attendees so far,” reports Co-Director Eric Wainwright. “Rooms in the Main Lodge are almost filled up, but there’s still plenty of rooms left in the East Lodges. If you’re thinking about staying at one of the many offsite locations around Estes Park, now’s the time to make your arrangements.
The main playing site is Assembly Hall situated in the center of the YMCA campus. Built in 2009, it’s a modern facility with over eleven thousand square feet of space for tables to be spread out. Lectures, game reviews, and other events will take place in other buildings and cabins scattered nearby. ”It looks like we’ll have sizable group of young players this year, as many pros and teachers are bringing their students,” reports Wainwright, “It’s a good thing that our Youth Room will be the size of a basketball court. Actually, it is a basketball court!”‘
More information and registration are at GoCongress.org.
Five years in the making, the all-new version of SmartGo for iPhone and iPad will be released today. SmartGo One includes an improved user interface, more features, better integration, and stronger computer play. “One app for all your go needs,” says creator Anders Kierulf. “Whether you want to learn the game, play against the computer, solve problems, or read go books, it’s all there.” SmartGo One is “is SmartGo Kifu and Go Books rolled into one, and taken to the next level.”
Kierulf says every part of SmartGo has been improved, including: • Stronger computer play, based on KataGo, and thus much stronger than previous versions of SmartGo. • Better problem solving: problem solving flow is much better, with improved statistics, and you can add additional problem collections. • File management: Folders, game collections, sync using iCloud Drive, open ZIP files, and more. • Additional features include dark mode, syncing, books, player biographies and easy board rotation. Click here for a full comparison.
The books from Go Books are all integrated into SmartGo One, so if you bought books in Go Books, you can read those in SmartGo One.
SmartGo One is a free download, and all the game recording and organizing features are available for free, as is computer play up to 13×13. Advanced features, computer play on 19×19, and updates to the complete GoGoD collection (current 114,000+ game records and 4,400 mini-biographies) are available via a modest $12/year subscription (with a 14-day free trial). To get a full month free, use this link.
Kierulf also notes that a Mac version of SmartGo One is in the works.
The AGA Board of directors is seeking candidates to take on the Presidency of the AGA at the end of the current term (September 1, 2022). “The position involves a lot of work and a lot of responsibility,” says outgoing President Andy Okun, “but also the opportunity to join with the board, the chapters, and the members of the AGA to build a remarkable future for our game and our organization.”
The search committee established April 15 as the deadline for submissions in its initial March 15 announcement, so there is only a week to go. A brief functional description of the position can be found here.
Interested members should email a statement of candidacy and a CV to the AGA Presidential Search Committee at president-search-committee@usgo.org by April 15, 2022. Qualified candidates will be sent a preliminary questionnaire to submit for further review.
