Teams from Virginia and Maryland will face off on Thursday, May 26 as Edward Zhang 6d and the Capital Go Club host a
Team Relay go event and a simul with Qiao Shiyao 1P in McLean, VA. “Team Relay Go features excitement, suspense, substitutions, timeouts and coaching,” Zhang says. “Let’s learn together!” The evening begins at 6:30p with a simul with Qiao Shiyao 1P, who took second place in the 2004 National Women Go Individual Competition, first in the 2008 Ing Cup University Championship and was a special envoy and teacher for thef Chinese Go Association at the 2010 US Go Congress. Each Team needs 6-8 players and 1-2 coaches. Sign up FREE today at agatd1@gmail.com with name and strength. The simul teaching game is free, first come first serve, AGA membership required. Event location: 2010 Corporate Ridge, Ste 700, McLean VA.
photo: Team Relay Go, Team Europe, 2013. Photo: Sohu Sports
American Go E-Journal
Maryland and Virginia Square Off in Team Relay Game May 26
Sunday May 22, 2016
Want to Host a Go Congress?
Sunday May 22, 2016
With this year’s US Go Congress in Boston on track to be the largest-ever, American Go Association president Andy Okun 
wants to hear from communities that would like to put on a Congress in the coming years. “We are trying to fix a venue for a California Congress in 2017, but we need to look further ahead, or possibly consider returning to one or two of our successful Congress sites from the past.” Interested chapters should contact Okun at president@usgo.org; a future Congress organizers meeting will be held in Boston as well.
photo: at the 2015 US Go Congress in Minneapolis/St Paul; photo by Chris Garlock
US Go Congress Announces More Professionals & Topics
Sunday May 22, 2016
More pros and their lecture topics have just been announced for this year’s US Go Congress, set for July 30- August 7 in 
Boston, MA.
Feng Yun 9P will talk about: “Invading,” Jennie Shen 2P will co-host with Myungwan Kim 9P, and they will have a joint session on “AlphaGo 5 games summarized commentary” and William Shi 1P will talk about “Star point josekies and recent developments (strong kyu to weak dan)” and “Avalanche Opening Joseki (lower dan and up)”
Go Photos: DC Sakura Matsuri
Saturday May 21, 2016
At the National Cherry Blossom Festival Sakura Matsuri on April 16. DC area go club volunteers have supported the Sakura 
Matsuri Go Workshop every year since 1998.
– report/photos by John Goon; collage by Chris Garlock
Eric Zhang’s beautiful sweep in North Carolina
Saturday May 21, 2016
Eric Zhang 5d swept all four games to win the at the 2016 North Carolina Spring Go tournament “on a beautiful Sunday,” 
reports Tournament Director Jeff Kuang. A total of 28 players turned out May 15 to enjoy the competition.
Here are the tournament results. Open section: Eric Zhang 5d (4-0), Brian Wu 1d (3-1). 1-7kyu: Daniel Evan 1k (3-1), Adam Bridges 3k (3-1), Bob Bacon 6k (3-1). 8-12kyu: S. Y. Teague 8k (3-0), Alex Kuang 10k (3-1). 14kyu and up: Justin Su 21k (3-1), Ganning Xu 15k (2-1), John Schollenberger 14k (2-2).
photo: Ellen Zeng 10k and William Daland 8k concentrate
AlphaGo Updates: What the AI Behind AlphaGo Can Teach Us About Being Human; A glimpse inside AlphaGo? Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo Game 1 Go Commentary; Lee Sedol overtaxed?
Saturday May 21, 2016
What the AI Behind AlphaGo Can Teach Us About Being Human: AJA HUANG DIPS his hand into a wooden
bowl of polished black stones and, without looking, thumbs one between his middle and index finger. Peering through wire-rim glasses, he places the black stone on the board, in a mostly empty zone, just below and to the left of a single white stone. In Go parlance it is a “shoulder hit,” in from the side, far away from most of the game’s other action. Across the table, Lee Sedol, the best Go player of the past decade, freezes. He looks at the 37 stones fanned out across the board, then stands up and leaves…Read the rest of Cade Metz’ report in Wired. photo by Geordie Wood
A glimpse inside AlphaGo? “Here’s a picture of the machine 
Google used in the match against Lee Sedol,” writes Steven Schmeiser. “It turns out that they were using custom designed chips that are optimized for machine learning.”
Google supercharges machine learning tasks with TPU custom chip
Go Commentary: Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo – Game 1: If there’s any recent game that needs no introduction, it’s this one. On March 9, 2016, the computer Go program ‘AlphaGo’ defeated Lee Sedol 9p in the first game of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match. Go Game Guru’s Youngil An takes a look at the game.
Lee Sedol overtaxed? In a related story, Gordan Castanza reports that “I just learned from KBS News (Korean Broadcast System) this morning that Lee Sedol has left the Korean Baduk Association over the issue of its imposing a 20% ‘tax’ on him.” Stay tuned for more details as they become available.
Strong Open Section for Upcoming Maryland Open
Saturday May 21, 2016
Pre-registration for next weekend’s annual Maryland Open has topped 20 and will feature a strong Open section, including 
Xinying Jiang 7D, Zhaonian Chen 7D, Zhengbokang Tang 7D, Calvin Sun 1P, Shiyao Qiao 1P, Xiaocheng Hu 6D, Willis Huang 6D, Edward Zhang 6D and Justin Teng 6D.
One of the oldest chapters in the American Go Association, the Gilbert W. Rosenthal Memorial Baltimore Go Club has sponsored the Maryland Open go tournament every Memorial Day weekend for 43 years. Details and register here.
photo: at the 2012 MD Open; photo by John Pinkerton
Three Years of Colors Chosen for Santa Monica Coffee Cup; 2016 Tourney is June 11
Wednesday May 18, 2016
The design committee of the Santa Monica Coffee Cup has finally chosen this year’s theme color, along with the colors for 
the next two years after. The eponymous “Coffee Cup” to be awarded to the first place winners in each division, as well as the tiles awarded the placers, for the 10th Annual Santa Monica Coffee Cup will be painted “fulvous,” a kind of dark yellow with some brown in it, said tournament organizer and AGA president Andrew Okun. “There were good arguments for mikado and sarcoline, but fulvous won the day.” The 2017 theme color will be something between glaucous and Nattier blue, followed by sang-de-boeuf in 2018.
Oh, and the tournaments itself will be June 11. The three-round AGA-rated go tournament is held, courtesy of owner Pam Stollings, at the UnUrban Coffeehouse in Santa Monica, CA. Check in starting at 9 a.m., rounds at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., prize giving around 5:30 p.m. Prizes will also include coffee, go books, bacon-flavored toothpicks and UnUrban T-shirts. Help is gratefully accepted for setting up and clearing up. Preregistration is essential as the field must be held to 64 players at most. Please register immediately.The 2017 and 2018 tournaments have not had their dates fixed yet, but the organizers will seek to hold them on the usual middle weekend of June. Please contact Okun at andy@okun.name if you know whether or not “mikado” should be capitalized in the sentence above, or have other questions about the tournament.
Final rounds of the AGA City League this Sunday
Wednesday May 18, 2016
The last round of the Pandanet AGA City League is this Sunday, May 22nd. Each of these teams has played six exciting rounds so far with one more and the finals to go. Play starts at 3pm EST/12pm PST on Sunday unless otherwise noted on the schedule pages. Schedules: A League / B League / C League
Vancouver has climbed slightly ahead of Greater Washington in the A League. They are 5-1 each against the rest of the field. With two professionals for each team (Chinese and American professionals), play has shown the strength of their players. Los Angeles has been hot on their heels all year with Boston one game behind them.
Washington DC 2 has taken a commanding lead all year with their undefeated streak. Edmonton has taken one loss this year. We’ll have to see who leads the middle of the pack between Washington DC 1, New Jersey, and San Francisco 1.
The C League is led by Atlanta 2, followed by Boston 3, and Atlanta 1.
UCLA wins CGL Season Five Championship
Saturday May 21, 2016
UCLA triumphed earlier this month in the Collegiate Go League (CGL) Season Five Championships, defeating U Toronto to
claim first place. The winners took home $250 to spend on their club. Although UCLA was unable to overcome Ryan Li 1P on Toronto’s first board, their second and third boards won the day. Cornell University took third place.
YouTube commentary on the final was provided by Gansheng Shi 1P and Michael Gallucci.