The AGA’s YouTube and Twitch channels will cover the Samsung Cup finals this week. Coverage of the match between world
#1 Ke Jie 9p and Tuo Jiaxi 9p will start at 8p PST, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (Dec. 5-7th). This week a new professional will join the AGA team: Stephanie Yin 1p. Yin will comment on the first game on Monday and the final game on Wednesday (if the match goes all three games). Myungwan Kim 9p will be providing commentary on the second game on Tuesday.
American Go E-Journal
Samsung Cup Finals on AGA’s YouTube This Week
Monday December 5, 2016
Kim Sooyoung and Park Jongwook of Korea Win Amateur Pair Go Championship
Sunday December 4, 2016
A Korean pair won this year’s 27th International Amateur Pair Go Championship in Tokyo, besting a Taiwanese team in the 
finals. Kim Sooyoung and Park Jongwook of Korea beat Pai Shin-Hui and Huang Wei of Taiwan. Pai and Huang had paved the way, however, by beating a strong Chinese pair in round one of the 32-pair five round event. The US team of Jeremy Chiu and Gabriella Su (right) ended with a solid 3-2 record, losing in rounds one and three to a Japanese pair and the team from China, but beating Germany and Austria before facing a strong Russian pair, Grigorii Fionin and Elvina Kalsberg, also 2-2, in the final round. In the 3rd edition of the World Students Pair Go Championship, North American pair Amira Song of Canada and Andrew Zalesak of North Carolina went 1-3, beating the Mexican pair but failing to beat the percentages in their other games against a Japanese pair and not one, but two, Korean university pairs. A Japanese pair took first.
– report by Andy Okun (standing in photo); photo by Thomas Hsiang
AlphaGo a Top Contender for “Breakthrough of the Year”
Saturday December 3, 2016
AlphaGo is a top contender for the 2016 “Breakthrough of the Year” in Science’s annual survey of momentous scientific 
discoveries, developments, or trends. Voting continues through Sunday, December 4; click here to vote. At 14%, “AI Ups its Game” is second only to “Human embryos in a dish,” with 20% response, narrowly leading “Ripples in spacetime” with 13%. After voting closes on Sunday, a second round of voting will be conducted with the 5 finalists to pick the official winner, and the People’s Choice selection, along with Science editors’ pick, will be announced on December 22.
Maui Go Club Hosts First Rating Tourney
Saturday December 3, 2016
The Maui Go Club held its first rating tournament on November 19 in Wailuku HI. Five members participated in five rounds
of play where the ranks of many of the players was formally set for the first time. Play strengths ranged from 13k to 5k. “Not too bad for a club that was only formed in 2015,” reports Danny Topp. The number of AGA members also increased from one to five as a result of holding the tournament.
photo (sitting l-r) Danny Topp and Jason Coughlin; (standing l-r): Ruby Truly, Ty Nakama, Andrew Walker and Konoa Stevens
Cho Chikun 9p defeats AI DeepZen 2-1; Michael Redmond’s Commentary
Saturday December 3, 2016
“Zen plays well in the opening and in open areas that are difficult even for top pros to judge,” says Michael Redmond 9P in his commentary on Game 3 in the recent Cho-DeepZen match, in which Cho bested the AI program. “It makes local mistakes, a problem that seems to be a characteristic weakness of the neural network system. It is playing at a pro level, and is approaching the strength of AlphaGo that we saw in March 2016. In Game 2 I saw some patterns that Zen has been playing for years, so it has not turned into a copy of AlphaGo, but has kept it’s original ‘style’.”
Michael’s game 3 commentary:
Nihon Kiin Announces New World Championship Will Include AI Program DeepZenGo
Wednesday November 30, 2016
The Nihon Kiin on Tuesday announced a new World Championship tournament that will include top professional players 
and a strong AI program, to be held in Osaka in March 2017. The tournament is sponsored by NTT Docomo, Mitsui Sumimoto, Daiwa Securities, Hankyu Inc. and Nikkei Inc., and is organized by the Nihon Kiin. With a top prize of \30M (about $270K) and runner-up prize of \10M, the tournament has one of the highest prize structures among go championships.
From March 20-24, three top players from Japan, China, and Korea will join DeepZenGo in a four-round round-robin tournament at Nihon Kiin’s Kansai branch office. Additional playoff will be held in case of ties.
Iyama Yuta (right) has been chosen as the Japanese representative. The ‘seven-crown champion’ who holds all the major Japanese pro titles, Iyama said that he was honored to be chosen and this would be the first time in a long while that he could play in an international tournament without conflicts with the tight domestic competition schedule. He promised to do his best to get good results for Japan. Chinese and Korean representatives will be determined soon.
DeepZenGo was chosen to represent AI. Hideki Kato, DeepZen’s author, expressed gratitude to the great effort and support of the organizers and promised that DeepZenGo would work hard to improve in the next few month to achieve a good result in the tournament.
– Thomas Hsiang
The Traveling Board: Go and the Family Robot
Tuesday November 29, 2016
By Lisa Schrag
We got a glimpse of the future when our good friend Matsumoto Mamoru recently had us as guests in his home near Osaka, Japan. His family robot, Pepper, entertained us with conversation and song. Then Pepper politely looked on while Matsumoto and Roger played a few games of go.
Matsumoto — who attends the U.S. Go Congress most years — also took Roger to play at the Kansai office of the Nihon Ki-in one afternoon. There were 25-30 people there that day, and Roger met some very nice local players.
While in Tokyo, we had the pleasure of a nice visit and dinner with go teacher Kazunari Furuyama, author of the E-Journal “Lessons with Kaz” series.
Thanks to the game of go, we have made some wonderful friends in the beautiful country of Japan. This was our third trip, and we visited several small towns, did a four-day pilgrimage walk, and learned about the rich history of Japan. But most of all, we enjoyed spending time with our Japanese friends. And Roger was lucky to get in some go games along the way!
Roger Schrag is a co-founder and past president of Bay Area Go Players Association. Photos by Lisa Schrag.
Latest Attempt to Create International Map of Go Clubs
Tuesday November 29, 2016
There have been a number of attempts to create an international map of go clubs, so that instead of each country maintaining a separate map, there can be one reliable map of go clubs which transcends national boundaries.
One such project is being developed by a member of the German Go Federation (Deutsche Go-Bund). It is open-source and based on free data (OpenStreetMap and umap), so even if the creator were to disappear, it could be taken over and continued with minimal effort, and it would never incur licensing costs of any kind.
The database is currently located here, and the map (which is updated regularly from the database, and therefore
doesn’t include recently-added clubs) is here. The source code is at GitHub here and here.
The map can be freely embedded on any website, and a few regional, local and national sites are already using it to display their country’s clubs, but at the moment, although European and South American coverage is quite good, the coverage of US clubs is rather sparse, and the Far East isn’t really covered at all.
You can look for your local club by sorting the list here (for example by ZIP code), and if your club is not there, you can add it here. Clubs can be added, removed and edited by all users of the site, and registration is free, but requires authentication via a third-party account: at the moment, GitHub, Google, Facebook and VK are supported.
French Go News Updates
Sunday November 27, 2016
Grenoble has won the French club championship for the third year in a row; details here. JunFu Dai won the French 
championship; details here. Registration for the next Paris Tournament is now open; the tournament runs April 15-17.
championship; details here. Registration for the next Paris Tournament is now open; the tournament runs April 15-17.National Go Center Has Location, Seeks Contractor and Volunteers
Saturday November 26, 2016
The National Go Center planned for Washington, DC has found a space and expects to sign a lease in December, reports Gurujeet Khalsa. The location has 2900 sq/ft near the Tenleytown Metro in Northwest DC. “It’s a great location with lots of restaurants nearby and off-street parking,” Khalsa tells the E-Journal. “Before signing a lease, we need a fit-out estimate from a contractor licensed to do commercial work in DC; recommendations for a reliable contractor that will do smaller jobs is urgently needed.” If all goes as planned, fit-out will occur in February and the Center will open in March. “There is a lot of volunteer work and a wide variety of skills needed to make this vision a reality,” Khalsa adds. Accounting, non-profit planning and marketing, web and social media, space layout and design, teaching go, “or whatever expertise you can bring,” are welcome; contact gurujeet.khalsa@