American Go E-Journal

The Seattle Go Center will soon be taxing empty triangles, according to General Manager Brian Allen.  This will be for all games played at the Go Center, including those made during open play periods on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  “Our expenses are going up on many fronts.  The new Seattle sugar tax has increased our cost of fruit juice and soda as much as 50%, and the cost of delivered pizza has gone up twice in the last 6 months.”  The proposed rate is $.50 per empty triangle created on the board.

The triangle tariff can be appealed to a committee of dan players, if the shape was necessary.  However, Go Center members  should be aware that it is hard to get the dan players to meet.  “They are always procrastinating, saying they have a more important move elsewhere”, he reports.   Photo: a big money maker for the Seattle Go Center.  Report/photo by Brian Allen

Thirty-two players, some traveling from as far as Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, competed in the Salt City Tournament on March 24. The 4-round tournament in Syracuse, NY included fifteen students this year, and one of them, 16-year-old Zhengbokang Tang 8d, shared top honors in the Dan division with Qirui Chen 5d, both finishing with 3-1 records and taking home $80 apiece. Yunhan Li 1d claimed the $40 third place prize. Phil Tracy 5k, Bob Crites 6k, and Eric Hookway 9k all won three games to finish at the top of the SDK division, and Theo Eckert-Budis 15k, Casey Beach 16k, and Noel Kinnear 11k were the first three finishers in the DDK division. Every player was able to take home a prize at the end of the day, with most choosing to select a new go book from Slate and Shell. The tournament’s traditional Problem Cake (left) was easier than usual; three quarters of the players correctly submitted black’s first move.
– Richard Moseson

Last weekend, at the San Diego Go Club’s spring go soiree, Chinese professional Jai Li was welcomed back to the city by more than two dozen attendees. Jai Li, a 5P Chinese professional, and his wife, Ya Wen, last week relocated to southern California from China. They both attended last summer’s Go Congress in San Diego and brought students from their go school in China. The club was honored that he would play a simultaneous exhibition at the soiree against six of the club members. The Lis were accompanied by their son, Bochen, who is a PhD student in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Rochester. Bochen, who is a go enthusiast himself, acted as the official translator for his parents.

The Club was hosting its first event at the newly renovated San Diego Chess Club which is in Balboa Park. The Chess Club is a beautiful facility seating 100 for competition and has a separate lecture room big enough for 30 attendees. Included in the building is a large office, several storage areas, bathrooms and a large patio with picnic tables.

While still in the planning stage, the SDGC is hoping to have a series of go lectures by Jai Li and Ya Wen at the chess club on Sunday afternoons. The facility is large enough that Jai can be teaching the stronger dan and kyu players in one room, while Ya is working with the younger and less experienced players in another. Ya Wen is an outstanding go teacher of youth, having developed advanced go teaching methods in China.

– Ted Terpstra, president, San Diego Go Club
photos: (top right) Henry You (left) taking on Jai Li as part of a simultaneous exhibition; photo by Ephraim Borja; (bottom left) Arunas Rudvalis, Ted Terpstra, Jai Li, Bochen Li, Yixian Zhou and Henry You at the San Diego Go Club Spring Soiree; photo by Ted Terpstra.