World Go News from the American Go Association

April 9, 2007
Volume 8, #30

ERIC LUI COMPLETES 2-TOURNEY SWEEP
YUANXIN XI WINS DAVIS-SAC TOURNEY
CRUMPLER & MILLER TOP ALL-IOWA
LIEF TOPS IN OAHU
YASUHIRO WINS EURO TOUR FINAL
TOP EURO PLAYER TO VISIT US
IBEROAMERICAN/TOYOTA TOURNEY SET FOR ECUADOR
3 US PROS CONFIRMED FOR US GO CONGRESS
MIND GO CLUB LAUNCHES FORUM

ERIC LUI COMPLETES 2-TOURNEY SWEEP: In an impressive back-to-back performance, Eric Lui 8d (l) won the dan section at the University of Maryland John Groesch Memorial tournament on April 1, adding to his March 31 NoVa Cherry Blossom Tournament trophy (ERIC LUI SWEEPS DC CHERRY BLOSSOM 4/2 EJ). Eric Eller won the John Groesch Memorial Prize for the best result by a player under the age of 20 who is new to tournament go. Twenty players participated, Chuck Robbins was TD and the Groesch family provided refreshments.
WINNER'S REPORT: DAN (4 players): 1st: LUI, Eric 8d (3-1). 2nd: BERNARDO, Neil 2d (3-1) 3rd: BENGSTON, Matthew 1d (3-1). KYU DIVISION A: 1-10k(11 players): 1st: PETERSON, Max 4k (4-0). 2nd: MOUNT, Steve 4k (3-1). KYU DIVISION B: 11-30k(5 players): 1st: XU, Stephanie 16k (4-0). John Groesch Memorial Prize: ELLER, Eric 14k (2-2). photos courtesy Steve Mount (at left in top right photo, playing Todd Heidenreich)

CRUMPLER & MILLER TOP ALL-IOWA: Ken Crumpler and Matt Miller topped the April 1 All-Iowa Tournament, while the Cyclone Go Club retained the All-Iowa Cup for the fifth straight time. Crumpler, from Kansas City tied for first with Matt Miller, from Ames, IA, both with 3-1 records. “Ken went home with the Yunzi stones and bowls,” reports Ramon Mercado, “while Matt took the bamboo board, both items donated by Yellow Mountain Imports.” The Cyclone Go Club’s All-Iowa Cup win made it the club’s fifth consecutive Cup win. “We hope to inspire other surrounding clubs from Iowa and beyond to come and challenge the Cyclones for the title of Iowa's strongest,” said Mercado. The Ames-based Cyclones sponsored the tourney, which drew 18 players, from as far away as Chicago and Kansas City. The money raised will be used to help the winner of the CyGo Congress Scholarship with room and board expenses. This year's scholarship winner was Tyson Williams (l), ”who also received a beautiful Duel Timer clock donated by Slate and Shell.”
WINNER’S REPORT: 1st: Ken Crumpler & Matt Miller (tie); 2nd: Lee Huynh (Chicago), Jeff Bradshaw (Ames), and Bob Ayres (KC) (3-way tie); 3rd: Louis Schenck (Des Moines), “who has the distinction of being the only player to beat our local 4D Hong Hua. photos by Ramon Mercado

YASUHIRO WINS EURO TOUR FINAL: Paris Nakano Yasuhiro 7P won the 2007 Tournoi de Paris last weekend in Paris, France. The final event in the 7th season of the Toyota - IGS-PandaNet European Go Tour drew 291 players from over 20 countries to the 3-day event . Cho Seok-bin 8d (who's visiting the US later this month; see story below) took second and Noguchi Motoki 7d was third. Fan Hui 8d - a regular contributor to the E-Journal - was 4th and Merlijn Kuin 6d took 5th. In 6th was Mero Csaba 6d, while Jeff Seailles 5d was 7th and Cornel Burzo 6d - another EJ contributor - was 8th. Balogh Pal 7d was 9th and Hubert Thomas 4d was 10th. Full results

TWO US YOUTH CAMPS: "Youth go summer camps are a great place to become immersed in go and to meet and play with other enthusiastic go players of all ages and skills," say camp organizers.

Click here for details. Photo: Michael Redmond 9P teaching a beginner's class at a 2006 camp; photo by Jodee Raines.

GO WORLD OFFER RETURNS: If you missed the January offer, here’s another chance to purchase 24 issues of Go World magazine for just $60. That’s just $2.50 for each copy of the superb chronicle of contemporary go featuring commented games and a wealth of instructional material in every issue. Those who already took advantage of the January offer can now expand their collection with a "fill-in" offer of a limited number of 11 additional issues for just $30. Or, order the whole enchilada -- 35 packed issues -- for just $80, the best deal of all. Plus, the first nine purchasers of any offer will receive an additional "mystery issue". Supplies of the "fill-in collection" are limited -- there are only 12 complete sets -- so we will reduce the charge accordingly if you receive fewer than 11 issues. Note: AGA membership required! Click here to download the PDF order form. Check out Go World

SAKAI HIDEYUKI WINS SIX STRAIGHT IN RYUSEI: Sakai Hideyuki 7P, the former World Amateur champion, has an amazing six-game winning streak going in the Ryusei tournament in Japan. The Ryusei begins with ten groups of eleven players each. The members of a group play each other in the "win and continue" style and the last player standing at the end of the series in each group joins a final, single-elimination tournament. At least one player -- Kono Rin 6P -- has managed to win all ten games in his section, but even six wins is remarkable. The players in the groups are arranged in order of rank, so a streak like this means Sakai is consistently beating players rated above him.

    "Jessica and Katherine Lin were among the first regular members of the Boulder Public Library Kids and Teens Go Club in Colorado,” says Barchilon. “They started coming after the second or third meeting, some three years ago now. I remember teaching both girls to play on the 9x9 board while their mother looked on. They were identical twins, just eight years old and cute as a button. Both girls got the hang of the game quickly, and we soon saw that they were very competitive with each other and the other kids too. Today the girls are rated at 4 and 5 kyu, and I struggle to hold white against them in an even game. They both compete in all the adult tournaments, and Jessica won the 2006 Denver Pair Go tournament with her partner Stuart Horowitz. The girls will be turning 12 just before the World Youth Championships, which bumps them into the senior bracket.
    “There they will play a very strong opponent indeed,” Barchilon continues, “12-year-old Kellin Pelrine, 3.6d. I remember when Kellin and his mother first came to club, about 18 months ago. Kellin had read about go in a book and had been trying to play 19x19 with his mother. She looked completely lost while Kellin was full of enthusiasm but not quite clear on the concepts yet. I explained that it was better to start on the 9x9 board, and proceeded to teach them from the beginning. Between the first and second weeks he came to club, Kellin checked out and read several go books. Within a few months he had gone through every book we had in our go library (some 30 volumes at the time). In just six months Kellin was Shodan and giving me handicaps! He was always extremely polite and had a great attitude. Even when he lost games by a large margin, he would just smile and say ‘Would you like to play again?’ Somewhere along the way this very sweet little boy suddenly started saying things like ‘Those stones of yours aren’t going to be finding any eyes there’, as he plopped a stone down on the vital point and destroyed a large group of mine. It soon became apparent that we were not going to be offering enough of a challenge to this gifted young man! Kellin now takes weekly lessons with Jung Hoon Lee 8d, who studied professionally in Korea. Kellin still comes to our club though, and he helps out with teaching games for all the other kids as well as many adults. In the junior division we have two more little prodigies on their way up. Another set of twins, Matthew and Nathan Harwit, are currently making rapid progress. They have been playing for about five months and have hit 10 kyu already – a rate we haven’t seen since Kellin caught us all by surprise. These ambitious 9 year olds are crazy for go. Their mother told me she has found them playing go under the bedsheets, with a flashlight, well past their bedtime."
photos -- Katherine Lin, left, and Jessica Lin, right -- courtesy Lin family.

PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING: On Training the Spirit and the Apprentice System
from the Asahi Shimbun
    Though the apprentice system is dying out in the go world, Obuchi Morito 9P is not only keeping it alive, but has seen many of his students enter the professional ranks recently. What is it like to leave your parent's home and spend your days training at the home of your master? We visited the Obuchi household in Sagamihara in Kanagawa Prefecture to find out.
    The Obuchi household is a big family, 14 altogether, with five of their own children plus apprentices. Obuchi 9P started taking in apprentices in the summer of 2000, recruiting them at places like the All Japan Children's Go Tournament. Now, including his eldest son, he has eight apprentices, as well as two children who commute from their own homes. Four have already become professional players and a fifth has been unofficially confirmed.
    For the students of the master, the day begins around 5 in the morning, before the sun has risen. After housekeeping chores, the training begins immediately. When the elementary and middle school students have left for school, the remaining apprentices resume their studies. On the day we visited, four of the students continually played for three and a half hours until the afternoon.
    "In the past, in every field there was a professional system with a master and apprentice relationship and I think that sustained Japan,” says Obuchi 9P. “Today, almost no parents let their children go off on their own. This is a difficult age for the apprentice system. But for the go world today, it is necessary." Obuchi was himself an apprentice of Oeda Yusuke 9P and US-born Michael Redmond 9P was also apprenticed to Oeda. When Obuchi first became an apprentice, he had to promise not to return to his parent's home until he became a professional. “Even telephoning was against the rules." There was no television, computer or cell phone. When he was in the final stage of testing to become a professional, he stopped going to school; every week on Saturday and Sunday he would go to the Nihon Ki-in for training.
    First-year middle school student Takeuchi Yasuhiro says, "I became an apprentice to become a professional. It's hard being separated from my parents, but these surroundings are the best for studying go."
    The study room is a 12 tatami mat room furnished with ten go boards. On the bookshelves are works containing the games of the old masters from the Edo Age (1600-1868) such as Dosaku and Shusaku, through Kitani Minoru, Go Seigen and modern Korean professionals like Lee Changho.
    Itakura Kenta, a third-year middle school student -- who had just become a professional a week before our visit -- was often so lonely in the first few days after arriving that he says tears often came to his eyes. Now, he silently plays through the games of the great players of the past every day. "I became an apprentice thinking that I would stick to it and see what would happen,” says Itakura. “I thought that somehow I could make it."
    There is great emphasis placed on living together. After lunch, master and students often go together to a nearby hill to climb and go walking. "It's natural how everyone creates the lifestyle together. That's what a family is, isn't it?" asks the master’s wife, “Mother” Kazuyo. If the students have lapses in manners or their attitudes about their lives are bad, "Master" and "Mother" scold them severely. The behavior of the elders is a good model for the juniors, but it’s a two-way street. "When I see these youngsters playing so seriously,” says a smiling Horimoto Mitsunari, who became professional shodan last year, I remember how I was myself a few years ago and it makes me want to dedicate myself even more."
    Obuchi 9P is determined to "raise professional players who can win against the Koreans and the Chinese." That is also expressed with perfect manners, indicative of the rich spirit of the professional player. "We don't only want to raise people who are just strong at go," adds Kazuyo.
    This article originally appeared in the Asahi Shimbun and was translated by Bob Terry for Sushi & Sake magazine and edited for the EJ by Chris Garlock