Registration is now open for the 2021 San Diego Go Championship hosted by the San Diego Go Club. This will be the 10th annual San Diego city championship. In 2019, the Open section featured one player with a rating of 10 dan – who finished 4th – and five 6 dans out of a total of 10 players. The handicap section had another 55 players.
This is an online 5 round tournament. One round will be played a week for five weeks beginning March 13. AGA Membership is required. There will be no entry fee and no cash prizes, but any AGA member can play to become the San Diego Go Champion. Redesigned 2017 U.S. Go Congress – San Diego t-shirts will be awarded to section winners as well as U16 Girls and U16 Boys winners.
There will be an Open section – in which five 6 dans have already registered – and a Handicap section in which all levels are welcome. Players must register by 11:59 p.m. PDT by March 11, 2021 to play in the first online round. Late registrants can play in any other round. Byes are acceptable if needed. Free registration is open at GoClubsOnline.
The Open winner will become the 2021 San Diego Go Champion, with their name on a perpetual plaque along with past winners: Mark Lee 10d, Chengjie Huang 7d, Ari Saito 7d, Leran Zou 7d, Yi Wang 6, and Yixian Zhou 6d.
The North American Go Federation (NAGF) has announced its intention to certify one new professional player through a Pro Qualification tournament this Summer at the National Go Center in Washington D.C.
Any player who is eligible and interested in participating in the tournament must submit this application form by April 1, 2021 to be considered for entrance. For more information on the tournament, including eligibility requirements, please click here. Final details of the competition, along with the selected contestants, will be announced in May.
by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal
Meijin League After three rounds of the 46th Meijin League, Ichiriki Ryo holds the provisional lead on 3-0, but Hane Naoki, on 2-0, is also undefeated. Shibano, the previous Meijin, has got off to a bad start on 0-3 and will have to focus on retaining his league place rather than on becoming the challenger. Results this year follow. (Jan. 7) Ichiriki (B) beat Yo Seiki 8P by resig.; Hane Naoki (B) beat Kono Rin 9P by resig. (Jan. 21) Motoki Katsuya 8P (W) beat Shibano Toramaru by half a point; Kyo Kagen (B) beat Anzai Nobuaki 7P by resig. (Feb. 4) Hane (W) beat Yo by resig. (Feb. 11) Ichiriki (W) beat Kyo by resig.; Anzai (B) beat Kono by resig. (Feb. 18) Yamashita Keigo 9P (W) beat Shibano by resig.
32nd Women’s Meijin league With the addition of a new sponsor, this tournament had resumed after a gap of one and a half years. Suzuki Ayumi and Ueno Asami share the lead in the seven-player league, with both on 3-0. Results to date: (Jan. 21) Nyu Eiko 3P (W) beat Mukai Chiaki 5P by 3.5. (Jan. 25) Ueno Asami (B) beat Xie Yimin 6P by resig. (Feb. 1) Suzuki Ayumi, Women’s Kisei, (B) beat Kato Chie 2P by 9.5; Xie (W) beat Tsuji Hana 1P by 2.5. (Feb. 4) Suzuki (B) beat Mukai by resig. (Feb. 8) Nyu (B) beat Kato by 7.5. (Feb. 11) Ueno (W) beat Mukai by resig.; Xie (W) beat Nyu by resig.; Kato (B) beat Tsuji by resig. (Feb. 18) Ueno (B) beat Tsuji by 6.5; Suzuki Ayumi 7P (W) beat Nyu by resig.
Shin Minjun wins LG Cup The best-of-three final for the 25th LG Cup was held at the beginning of February. Ke Jie 9P (aged 23) of China made a good start but Shin Minjun (aged 21) of Korea came back strongly to take the next two games and win his first major international title (he won the 6th Globis Cup in 2019). First prize is 300,000,000 won (about $270,000). Below are the results from the quarterfinals on. Quarterfinals (Nov. 9); Park Junghwan 9P (Korea) (B) beat Yang Dingxin 9P (China) by resig.; Ke Jie 9P (China) (W) beat Weon Seongjin 9P (Korea) by resig.; Shin Minjun 9P (Korea) (W) beat Lee Taihoon 7P (Korea) by resig.; Byan Sangil 9P (Korea) (B) beat Kang Dongyun 9P (Korea) by resig. Semifinals (Nov. 11). Shin (W) beat Park by resig.; Ke (W) beat Byan by resig. Final Game 1 (Feb. 1). Ke (W) by resig. Game 2 (Feb. 3). Shin (W) by resig. Game 3 (Feb. 4). Shin (W) by 3.5.
Next: Sumire’s progress; Takemiya wins 1200 games; Yoshida Mika first woman player to win 700 games
by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal
Kyo to challenge for Judan title
Kyo Kagen
The play-off to decide the challenger for the 59th Judan title, held by Shibano Toramaru, was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo on Jan. 28. Taking black, Kyo Kagen (Xu Jiayuan) 8P beat Yo Seiki (Yu Chengqi) 8P by resig. after 147 moves. This will be Kyo’s chance to take revenge for his loss in last year’s Oza title match. The match starts on March 2.
Incidentally, this tournament acquired an extra sponsor as of January 1: Daiwa House Manufacturing, based in Osaka. (The main sponsor since the tournament was founded has been the Sankei Newspaper.) The official name of the tournament now is: Daiwa House Cup Judan Tournament. There has been no increase in the prize money of 7,000,000 yen so far (the reason may be that the new sponsor joined halfway through the current term).
Ichiriki shares lead in Honinbo League
As the sole undefeated player, Ichiriki Ryo Tengen held the lead after the midway round of the 76th Honinbo League, but a fifth-round setback suffered at the hands of Shibano Toramaru Oza has thrown the lead into a three-way tie, with Ichiriki, Shibano, and Hane Naoki all on 4-1. Results this year:
(Jan. 7) Kyo Kagen 8P (B) beat Ko Iso 8P by resig. (Jan. 14) Shibano (B) beat Tsuruyama Atsushi 8P by resig. (Feb. 4) Shibano (W) beat Ichiriki by resig.; Ko Iso (W) beat Sada Atsushi 7P by resig. (Feb. 11) Hane (W) beat Tsuruyama by resig. (Feb. 18) Onishi Ryuhei 7P (B) beat Kyo Kagen by resig.
Next: Meijin League; 32nd Women’s Meijin league; Shin Minjun wins LG Cup
Kim Eunji 2p’s AI cheating incident Thirteen-year-old professional Go player Kim Eun-ji was suspended from competing for one year in late November after she admitted to using artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance her gameplay in an online Go competition. The Korea Baduk Association took the punitive measure against Kim Eun-ji, a 2-dan professional Go player who had been considered a genius in the Korean Go scene and the youngest professional player, for violating the rules as a professional Go player and on ethics which stipulate that a player cannot receive outside advice in official competitions. Fellow Korean pro Yeonwoo Cho devoted one of her videos to the incident. – Excerpted from a report in The Korea Times
Playing Go with Darwin In Playing Go with Darwin(Nautilus 12/16/2020), David Krakauer writes that “Meditating on some subtleties of (Go’s) strategy can, I think, illuminate our understanding of the strategic character of evolution.” He adds that “Go today has become an epitaph on the tombstone in the cemetery of human defeat at the hands of algorithmic progress” and says “Charles Darwin was very likely the first person to have understood nature in terms of a game played across deep time. I have wondered how much further the Chess-playing naturalist might have taken this metaphor if, like Kawabata, he had studied Go.” It’s a fascinating article about how new research elevates evolution from a tactical process to one of strategic possibility. Thanks to Peter Freedman for passing it along.
John Conway
Remembering John Conway John Conway is one of Three Mathematicians We Lost in 2020(The New Yorker 12/31/2020), and midway through the story there’s this: At Princeton, he could usually be found not in his office—which resembled a mathematical apothecary shop hit by a tornado—but in the large and somewhat soulless common room of Fine Hall, the massive looming tower, on the edge of the Princeton campus, that is the home of the mathematics department. The common room would come to life only in the mid to late afternoon, just as things were revving up for the daily “tea,” a small box-cookie reception roughly marking the time when most classes had ended and a few seminars were about to start. Conway would often hold court there, hard to miss, a cross between Rasputin and a Middle Ages minstrel, loudly talking philosophy and mathematics, playing the board game Go, or engaging in some other kind of mathematical competition, surrounded by adoring and admiring students, faculty, and visitors.
The AGA is regularly asked for new chapters around the country. These are the newly registered chapters from February 2021:
Midway Go Club – We are located in Chicago with meetings upcoming. They are Online for now. Will be at the Japanese Culture Center at 1016 W BELMONT AVE – CHICAGO, IL 60657 – Contact William Shehan
Members should check their information from time to time. If you are not receiving the EJ make sure your email is up to date. Chapters can always update their current chapter through the AGA Membership Manager if they have changed.
by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal
Ueno wins Women’s Kisei
Ueno Asami
Ueno Asami, who is still a teenager (she turned 19 on October 26) has confirmed her ranking as the number two woman player in Japan by becoming a dual title-holder again. In the 24th Women’s Kisei best-of-three title match, she made a bad start but fought back to take the title from veteran player Suzuki Ayumi (aged 37). In the final game, Ueno scored a decisive win, capturing a group when Suzuki made an overaggressive cut in an attempt to maintain territorial parity. After the game, Ueno revealed that she prepared for the third game with intensive study of life-and-death problems, including competing with her younger sister, Risa 1P, to see who could solve 100 problems more quickly—she won three times out of five. On the morning of the game, she followed her usual routine before a game of skipping rope: 777 times (it took her about ten minutes). First prize is 5,000,000 yen (about $48,000 at $1 = 104 yen). She lost this title to Suzuki last year; she also holds the Senko Cup. Results:
Game 1 (Jan. 21). Suzuki (B) by resig. Game 2 (Jan. 28). Ueno (B) by resig. Game 3 (Feb. 8). Ueno (W) by resig.
Chunlan Cup
The quarterfinals and semifinals of the 13th Chunlan Cup were held in January (Details of the first two rounds are given in my report of August 25). Like all international events these days, games were played on the net. As in many international tournaments, the final (schedule not yet decided) will be Korea vs. China, pitting the world’s top-rated player, Shin Jinseo 9P of Korea), against Tang Weixing 9P of China. On the site “Go Ratings,” Tang is listed as no. 32 in the world; this is a little hard to understand, as he won the 24th Samsung Cup in 2019 and the 8th Ing Cup in 2016. Results follow.
Quarterfinals (Jan. 18): Ke Jie 9P (China) (B) beat Hsu Hao Hong 6P (Chinese Taipei) by resig.; Tang (W) beat Park Yeonghun 9P (Korea) by resig.; Lian Xiao 9P (China) (B) beat Byan Sangil 9P (Korea) by resig.; Shin (W) beat Fan Yuting 9P (China) by resig.
Semifinals (Jan. 20): Tang (W) beat Ke by resig.; Shin (B) beat Lian by resig.
Next: Kyo to challenge for Judan title; Ichiriki shares lead in Honinbo League
William Cobb’s reflections on taking time to think about Go moves (Empty Board, 2/17) prompted me to, well, think. I share his feelings about “speed” or “blitz” Go. If you enjoy it, fine, but it’s not my thing and never will be. Whether online or playing face-to-face, my mistakes usually result from playing too fast. Up to a point, slower is better for me – worth a handicap stone or two where the quality of my play is concerned.
But only up to a point. Having too much thinking time once threatened to spoil my pleasure in the game of Go. It happened like this. Back in pre-Covid days a good friend and I often played on Sunday evenings at a local Panera. We usually could time our games to end about when employees were closing the doors to new customers but before they needed to start cleaning tables. Now and then, however, we’d still be in the middle of a game. On those evenings we’d take cell-phone pictures of the board and any captured stones, make a note on whether Black or White would play next, and a week or so later, we’d pick up our game where we left off.
One evening it occurred to us that we didn’t need to wait a week to finish our game. With the board position captured on both our cameras, we could each set up the game on our Go boards at home. We’d text moves to each other and respond at leisure. It would be slower than face-to-face play but far faster than, say, correspondence chess. What could go wrong?
Technically, nothing. The process worked fine. However, I found it seriously stressful. At Panera we almost never used a clock, relying on our mutual instinct to decide when “slow” was becoming “too slow.” At those times, I could tell myself, “OK. I haven’t read this out the way a 9-dan would, but I can’t keep my opponent waiting. I’ll plunk down a stone and hope for the best.”
At home that line of reasoning didn’t apply. With no one across the board from me, I could take lots of time without keeping anyone waiting. In the restaurant, especially with closing time approaching, a less-than-optimal move (not to say “dumb move”) seemed excusable. At home, with lots of time for reading out sequences, mistakes began to feel embarrassing, almost shameful. As a result, I spent a lot more time on every move. I may have played somewhat better than I usually do, but I enjoyed the game a lot less. I learned that my own Goldilocks game time is “not too fast, not too slow.” “Too fast” means I make even more mistakes than usual, while “too slow” makes me feel ashamed to play so badly.
William Cobb might point out – patiently, no doubt – that a Zen-like mindset might help me transcend that kind of puritanical self-criticism. That thought somehow just makes me feel worse.
by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal
Legends Yoda (l) & Kobayashi (r)
Korea wins Go Legends National Competition This is a special event that was held in January in conjunction with the 22nd Nong Shim Cup. It pitted teams with two former stars from Korea, China, and Japan against each other, with the games, which were not official, being held on the net. It was won by Korea with 6-2; China came second with 5-3; and Japan came third with 1-7. Prizes from 1st to 3rd were: 50,000,000 won (about $45,000, at $1 = 1100 won), 25 million won, and 15,000,000 won. Note that I didn’t have access to all the details of the games.
Round 1 (Jan. 15) China vs. Korea; Cho Hun-hyun 9P (Korea) (B) beat Chang Hao 9P by resig.; Lee Changho 9P (Korea) (B) beat Nie Weiping by 15.5. (Jan. 16) Japan vs. China; Nie (China) (B) beat Yoda Norimoto 9P by 4.5; Chang beat Kobayashi Koichi. (Jan. 17) Japan vs. Korea; Lee Changho 9P (Korea) (B) beat Kobayashi by 8.5; Cho beat Yoda.
Round 2 (Jan. 22) Japan vs. Korea; Cho beat Kobayashi; Yoda (B) beat Lee by 1.5. (Jan. 23) Japan vs. China; Nie (W) beat Kobayashi by 4.5; Chang (W) beat Yoda by resig. (Jan. 24) Korea vs. China: 1-1
Ing semi-finalist Ichiriki
Ing Cup Japanese go fans were encouraged by the outstanding performance last year of Ichiriki Ryo in international tournaments, especially his three successive wins in the 9th Ing Cup, which took him to the semifinals. However, managing your time skillfully is part of the challenge when playing in this tournament, and here he got into trouble, leading to a 0-2 loss to Xie Ke 9P of China. The time allowance is three hours per player, with no byo-yomi. However, you can buy extra time twice, at the rate of 20 minutes for two stones. Ichiriki was doing well in both games but had to buy extra time twice in the first game and once in the second game. He commented: “I’m still not strong enough at converting a lead into a win. Things didn’t go the way I wanted, including my management of my time.”
In the other semifinal, Shin Jinseo 9P of Korea, currently the world’s top-rated player, beat Zhao Chenyu 8P of China 2-0. Dates for the final, also best-of-three, have not yet been decided.
Incidentally, the Nihon Ki-in does not recognize Ing Cup games as official games, because of differences in the rules, such as buying time with stones instead of having byo-yomi. Also, the Ing Rules recognize suicide moves, which can be used as ko threats. Ironically, this rule was not applied this time, as the games were played on the net and the software couldn’t be modified in time.
Semifinals (best-of-three) Game 1 (Jan. 10). Xie Ke (W) beat Ichiriki by resig.; Shin Jinseo (B) beat Zhao Chenyu by resig. Game 2 (Jan. 12). Xie (B) beat Ichiriki by 3; Shin (W) beat Zhao by one point.
Registration is open again for the New York Go League! Now in its sixth iteration, players can expect to play one round robin game per week with players of similar rank over the two-month league. The organizers continue to hope that organized competitive play can endure even during the pandemic and plan to offer small prizes to the winners of each division, which in the past have included discounts for New York Institute of Go lessons and programs. Registration is open to anyone with a stable rank with any association or online go server.
The New York Go League is organized and run by the New York Go Honor Society, with the first iteration beginning in May of 2020 with over 80 players. Registration for the league will be open until March 13th and the league will officially begin the week of March 15th. Interested players can click here to read the rules and regulations, and click here to register.
