Registration has topped 600 for the European Go Congress, scheduled for July 25-August 8 in Liberec, Czech Republic. The Congress will be 
held at Babylon, a hotel and entertainment complex, consisting of 4-star hotel, large conference halls, 10 restaurants and bars, a famous aquapark and many other facilities; click here for a cool promo video and find out more about the 2-week event on Facebook.
American Go E-Journal
Euro Go Congress Registration Tops 600
Sunday May 3, 2015
Your Move/Readers Write: Speed Ratings; Next Generation
Sunday May 3, 2015
Speed Ratings: “I stopped by the Hopkins Go Tournament on April 17, and I checked my rating a few days later and found that the tournament had already been rated!” writes Keith Arnold. “I am not sure who to praise on the AGA end, but good job by the first time tournament organizers in getting their data in so quickly. Makes me wish I had played.” photo (left) by Ning-Yuan Ernest Wang
Next Generation: “Thanks for all the work you put in to publishing the E-Journal every day,” writes Steve Schmeiser. “I recently showed my son my goban and 
stones and he had a lot of fun placing the stones on the board and hearing them ‘thunk.’ He is also a great kibitzer! I thought the other members might enjoy this photo of the next generation of go players.”
EuroGoTV Updates: Ireland, Turkey, Norway, Germany, Poland, Russia & Slovenia
Saturday May 2, 2015
Ireland: The 6th Galway tournament, played 4/25-4/26 in Galway, Ireland, was won by Philippe Renaut 2d. In second place trailed Geoffrey Crespino 3k and third was Piotr Gawron 6k. Result table.
Turkey:The 2nd Cukurova University Go Tournament, played 4/25-4/26 in Adana, in booming go country Turkey, was won by Eren Kurter 2d. Second came Hakki Burak Guner 1d and third was Ilyas Tanguler 1d. In total 57 players participated. Result table.
Norway: The Oslo Open, played from 4/25-4/26 in Oslo, Norway, was won by Paal Sannes 3d. In second place finished Oystein Vestgaarden 3d and third was Severin Hanevik 2d. Result table.
Germany: The 3rd Herkules Cup, played 4/25-4/26 in Kassel, Germany, was won by Hinnerk Stach 2d. Second came Gerd Mex 1d and third 
was Naichun Guo 1d. Result table.
Poland: In Rzeszów, Poland, freshly promoted 1 dan professional Mateusz Surma (right) organised the Rzeszów GO OPEN tournament. It took place on Saturday the 25th and was won by Mateusz himself. Second came Maciej Lubinski 1d and third was Piotr Dyszczyk 3k. Result table. In the B-group of the same tournament Szymon Pietrucha 20k was the victor, with Ilona Wrobel 18k trailing in second place Michal Dudkiewicz 17k ending 3rd. B group results.
Russia: Several tournaments took place in Russia recently, of which the Moscow Championship was the biggest with 48 participants. It was played 4/25-4/26 in Moscow, Russia and was won by by Andrej Kashaev 5d. Second came Anton Chernykh 4d and third was young talent Vjacheslav Kajmin 4d (left). Result table.
On the same weekend 26 kids participated in the Championship of Cheljabinsk Under 12, which took place in Cheljabinsk, and was won by Mikhail Podbolotov 11k. Second came Kristina Adrjushchenko 15k and Gleb Polovinkin 15k finished in third place. Result table.
On Saturday 4/25 two other Russian tournaments took place in the cities of Moscow and Perm.
In Moscow, the Be Ready for Go #2 tournament, played was won by Sofia Sgibneva 20k. Second came Grigorij Moreckij 20k and third was Julia Sgibneva 20k. Result table.
In the city of Perm the Dancing Dragon tournament was won by Artemij Pishchalnikov 7k, second came Sergej Korolev 2k and third was Pavel Makarov 2d. Result table.
Slovenia: The Vladimir Omejc Memorial, played 4/24-4/26 in Bled, Slovenia, saw many dan players. It was won by Dominik Boviz 4d. Second came Leon Matoh 5d and third was Gregor Butala 5d.Result table.
– Kim Ouweleen, based on reports from EuroGoTV
Your Move/Readers Write: Go Barely Mentioned in “Full” History of Board Games Post
Saturday May 2, 2015
Go Barely Mentioned in “Full” History of Board Games Post: “Go is mentioned twice in The Full History of Board Games,” writes reader Uri 
Feigin. “I would expect it to be detailed much more but…”
Eric Lui Tops Revived Hopkins Tournament
Saturday May 2, 2015
The Hopkins Go Club resumed its annual tournament on April 19, after a several-year hiatus. Now called the Blue Jay Spring Cup, the 
tournament drew 16 participants for the 3-round event, which was topped by Eric Lui 8d, who was undefeated. The other three-game winner was Ning-Yuan Ernest Wang 11k.
photo: Eric Lui (left), playing Saki Fujita 5d; photo by Ning-Yuan Ernest Wang
UMD Wins Collegiate Go League Championship
Saturday May 2, 2015
The University of Maryland has won the Collegiate Go League championship, with UCLA coming in second. The University of Minnesota came
in third. Click here for complete results. Gansheng Shi 1p commentated the top board from several of the matches, and the reviews are available on the ACGA blog.
– Brian Lee
AGA Membership Go World Bonus
Wednesday April 29, 2015
Join the AGA for the first time, or renew your membership, and get free issues of Go World magazine, courtesy of the American Go Foundation (click here to take advantage of this offer). The more years you choose, the more issues you get. One year gets you two issues, two years gets five, three gets ten, four gets fifteen, and five years or more gives you twenty issues, and access to the rare issues that we have only limited supplies of.
With analysis of important games by top pros, instructional material for all levels, news and other features Go World Magazine is the ultimate resource for the serious player. The AGF has acquired the entire remaining inventory of this wonderful magazine. Some are quite plentiful — we have more than 600 copies of some issues — other rarer issues we have only a few of. When they’re gone, they’re gone! Click here to view the contents of each issue. Click here to make your choices and submit them online. Note: please renew your AGA membership first, and then fill out the form. We are offering this special through June.
The Power Report: Ida wins Judan title; Meijin League; Kisei leagues
Sunday April 26, 2015
by John Power, Japan Correspondent for the E-Journal
Ida wins Judan title: The final game of the 53rd Judan title match was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Ichigaya, Tokyo, on April 22. The challenger, Ida Atsushi 8P, had taken the lead in the match by winning the second and third games, but Takao Shinji 9P, the title-holder, evened the score in the fourth game. The nigiri to decide the colors was held again, and Ida drew black. The lead in the game switched back and forth, with both players having winning chances. Late in the game, a large group of Black’s came under attack, but instead of just making two eyes Ida countered by setting up a capturing race that he won. Takao resigned after 217 moves. This gave Ida the match by a 3-2 margin.This is Ida’s first title. At 21 years one month, he is the youngest player to win the Judan title and the third-youngest player to win a top-seven title. Ida became a professional in April of 2009, so it has taken him exactly six years to win his first title. This is a new record (it used to be held by Iyama Yuta, but he took seven a half years to win his first top-seven title). photo courtesy Go Game Guru; click here for the Game Guru report, which includes game records.
Meijin League: One game from the Meijin League was played last week. Takao Shinji 9P (B) beat Hane Naoki 9P by resignation. Takao improved his score to 3-1, drawing even with Kono Rin 9P and Yamashita Keigo 9P. The provisional leader in the league is Ko Iso 8P on 4-1.
Kisei leagues: The Kisei A and B Leagues have started this month. As I reported in early November last year, there has been a large-scale reorganization of this tournament. The Kisei tournament has always been the most complicated tournament since its founding, but apparently the sponsor, the Yomiuri Newspaper, was not satisfied. The biggest change was instituting five separate leagues instead of just
one. The top players from a large-scale knock-out tournament (with about 400 participants, including four amateurs) move up into the C League (32 players), above which are two B Leagues, the A League, and the S League (so the leagues are in four stages). The winners of the leagues meet in an irregular knock-out tournament, the winner of which meets the winner of the S League in a play-off. The latter is given a one-win advantage in this play-off, so he has to win only one game, whereas his opponent has to win two games to become the challenger. The six-player S League is at the peak of the tournament pyramid, so I plan to report just on its results. The members, in order, are Yamashita Keigo 9P, Murakawa Daisuke Oza, Takao Shinji Tengen, Yoda Norimoto 9P, Yamashiro Hiroshi 9P, and Kobayashi Satoru 9P.
Correction: The phrase “same whole-board decision” in the Nihon Ki-in rule quoted in my previous report is a typo for “same whole-board position.”
Zhang & Cary Chinese School Top Carolina Tourney
Sunday April 26, 2015
Cary Chinese School won the team competition and Eric Zhang 5d (right) topped the individual competition in the 2015 Carolina Spring Go 
Tournament. The 12th annual tournament Carolina Spring Go Tournament, held in Raleigh on April 19th, co-organized by the Chinese American Friendship Association of North Carolina (CAFA), Confucius Institute at NC State, and the Cary Go Club, attracted 28 go players with a wide range of ages and go experience but with an equal amount of love for go.
Nine young players from Cary Chinese School’s go classes formed three teams to compete in the team competition. As expected, the team competition generated a lot of excitement, with young players eagerly reporting and checking the scoreboard during the breaks between rounds. CCS Team 1 of Alvin Chen, Alex Kuang and Ellen Zeng, and CCS Team 2 of Andy Chen, Jasmine Ye and Ethan Wan scored the same 9 wins (out of 12 games), thus tied as the winners of the team competition (photo at left).
In the individual competition, Eric Zhang 5d, of Chapel Hill, won the open section championship with a score of 3-1. Andrew Zalesak, 1d, of Cary High School, won Section A with a perfect score of 4-0, including an impressive win over a 3-dan player on a non-handicapped game with no komi. One of the youngest players, Ethan Wan of Cary Chinese School won Section D with a perfect score of 4-0. Alvin Chen won Section B with a score of 3-1 while Ellen Zeng and Alex Kuang tied for the first place finish in Section C with the same score of 3-1. Below is the complete list of winners.
Individual Competition Winners:
Section: open (3d-5d) winner: Eric Zhang, 5d. Final score: 3-1
Section: A (3k-2d) winner: Andrew Zalesak, 1d. Final score: 4-0
Section: B (10k-4k) winner: Alvin Chen, 10k. Final score: 3-1
Section: C (11k-20k) winners(tied): Ellen Zeng, 14k, and Alex Kuang 16k and both with a final score of 3-1.
Section: D (30k-21k) winner:Ethan Wan, 28k, final score: 4-0
Team Competition Winners (tied):
Cary Chinese School Team 1: Alvin Chen, Alex Kuang and Ellen Zeng
Cary Chinese School Team 2: Andy Chen, Jasmine Ye and Ethan Wan
– report by Tournament Director Owen Chen; photos by Jeff Kuang
Leran Zou 7D Sweeps San Diego Go Championship
Sunday April 26, 2015
For the fourth year in a row, the San Diego Go Championship went to a UC San Diego student. This year, it was Leran Zou 7d who won the Open
section with the only undefeated record of 3-0. Tying for second place were Paul Chen, Seth Cardew and Jerry Cheng, president of the UCSD Go Club. Twenty-nine players showed up on Sunday, April 19 at UCSD to compete for the 2015 San Diego Go Championship. The event was organized by the combined efforts of the UCSD Go Club, the SDSU Go Club and the San Diego Go Club. The tournament Director was Evan Cho, 9-dan who runs the go school in Arcadia and also the new Atari Go club.
In the Kyu section, Paul Margetts, 3-kyu visiting from England, won with a 3-0 record. The only other undefeated player in the kyu section was Stephen Zhu, 22-kyu, at 2-0. There were four members of the Margetts family in the kyu section, all playing under a family membership in the British Go Association.
– report/photo by Ted Terpstra, President, San Diego Go Club; photo: Competition in the Open Section with winner Leran Zou, in the right foreground playing John Whang.