World
Go News from the American Go Association
April 30, 2007
Volume 8, #36
BECK TOPS EMPTY SKY TOURNEY
LIU, SHEN, ZHANG TAKE LEAD IN REDMOND
CUP
CHOE WINS SEATTLE YOUTH LIGHTNING
REGISTRATION OPENS FOR ONLINE TOURNEY
CHO SEOKBIN VISITS TACOMA
CONGRESS OFFERS FREE AGA MEMBERSHIPS
GO BUMPED FROM 2010 ASIAN GAMES
KOREANS DOMINATE LG CUP LINEUP
CHO THREEPEATS IN JUDAN
GU LI WINS 5TH TIANYUAN, TYING RECORD
YODA AND CHO U LEADING MEIJIN LEAGUE
WON AND PAEK TIE UP BC CARD CUP
"THE GO MASTER" SCREENS IN DC
CHALLENGER UPDATE
NEW CLUB OPENS IN FT MYERS
KERWIN'S ROAD MAP ONLINE
GO CALENDAR:
Orlando, FL, Amherst, MA & New York, NY
KERWIN'S ROAD MAP
FOR BEGINNERS: Getting Attached
GO CLASSIFIED
BECK
TOPS EMPTY SKY TOURNEY: Jared Beck 2d topped the April
29 Empty Sky Spring Tournament in Rochester, NY. Top board games were
broadcast live on KGS. Click
here for full Winner's Report, plus game records. Game diagram above right from Round 3, Waldron-Beck.
LIU,
SHEN, ZHANG TAKE LEAD IN REDMOND CUP: Two runners-up
from the World Youth Go Championship (WYGC) Qualifier Tournaments have
upset two WYGC Qualifier Champions in the second round of the Redmond
Cup Senior Division. Click
here for complete story.
CHOE
WINS SEATTLE YOUTH LIGHTNING: Solomon Choe 3d won the
April 22 Seattle Cherry Blossom Children's Lightning Tournament,
winning all his games. Click here http://www.usgo.org/news/ for
complete story.
REGISTRATION
OPENS FOR ONLINE TOURNEY: The fourth annual online
Iwamoto Tournament will run from May 15 to July 10 on KGS. Last year's
tournament attracted more than 500 players from around the world and
organizers hope to sign up even more this year. Registration is free
and just opened yesterday; click
here for more details.
CHO
SEOKBIN VISITS TACOMA: Cho SeokBin 7d, one of the top
players in Europe and a former Korean insei, visited the Tacoma, WA go
club last week, reports club President Gordon Castanza. Click
here for complete story. Photo
at left: SeokBin (r) plays Castanza.
CONGRESS
OFFERS FREE AGA MEMBERSHIPS: The first ten people to
register for the US Go Congress after 12:01A Tuesday, May 1 will
receive a free one-year American Go Association (AGA) membership,
reports Congress Co-Director Peter Nassar. The offer only applies to
those who have never been an AGA member before. The clock begins
ticking at 12:01A on May 1and is good for ten days only, May 1 - May
10. Click
here to register.
GO
BUMPED FROM 2010 ASIAN GAMES: Chess has already beaten
go in the 2010 Asian Games. The Asian Olympic Committee last week
decided against including go in the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. Click
here for complete story.
KOREANS
DOMINATE LG CUP LINEUP: Although nearly half of the 32
players for the 12th international LG Cup are Koreans, Koreans have won
only six of the 11 previous events, and none of the last three. Click
here for complete story.
CHO
THREEPEATS IN JUDAN: Cho Chikun 9P defeated Yamashita
Keigo 9P 3-2 to threepeat in the Japanese Judan, winning the final game
by 3.5 points and bringing his record number of titles to a total of
71. Click
here for
complete story.
GU
LI WINS 5TH TIANYUAN, TYING RECORD: Gu Li 9P defeated
Liu Shizhen 6P 2-1 to win the Chinese Tianyuan title for a fifth
consecutive time, tying Chang Hao 9P's record. Click
here for complete story. 
YODA
AND CHO U LEADING MEIJIN LEAGUE: Cho U 9P and Yoda
Norimoto 9P are the only four-game winners near the end of the League
to determine the challenger for the Meijin title, currently held by
Takao Shinji 9P. Click
here for complete story.
WON
AND PAEK TIE UP BC CARD CUP: Won Sungjin 7P (right) and
Paek Hongsuk 5P are 1-1 in the finals of the Korean new pro BC Card Cup
finals. Click
here for complete story.
"THE
GO MASTER" SCREENS IN DC: The American 
Film
Institute
will screen The Go Master this weekend in the
metro Washington DC area. The film, directed by Zhuangzhuang Tian, is
based on the life of go prodigy Wu Qingyuan (Go Seigen). Click
here for complete story.
CHALLENGER
UPDATE: "With just three months to go, almost all the
2007 Challengers have improved," report Shodan Challenge Coordinators
Lee Huynh and Laura Kolb. Click
here for complete story.
NEW
CLUB OPENS IN FT MYERS: The Ft. Myers (FL) Go Club - a
new AGA chapter - meets Sundays at the S. Ft. Myers Barnes and Nobles,
starting at 1P. Click
here for complete story.
KERWIN'S
ROAD MAP ONLINE: James Kerwin's Road Map For Beginners
columns (see this week's installment below) are being published online
at Gus
Heck's Tips for Learning Go . "This series is 100% directly
on target with the goal of my site," Heck tells the EJ. "It's really
nice to have a pro's view to balance against my own."
CORRECTION: 4th US World Youth
This year's World Youth Goe Championships in Boston in August will be
the fourth time the World Youth Goe Championship has been played in the
USA not the first as reported in the EJ (World Youth Comes To U.S 4/23
EJ). The 9th World Youth Goe Championship was in San Jose, CA in 1992,
the 11th WYGC was in Palo Alto, CA in 1994 and the 18th WYGC was on
Maui, Hawaii in 2001. The events were organized by Ernest Brown and
Michael Bull, who was TD for all the tournaments. Thanks to Bull for
the correction.
GO
CALENDAR: Orlando, FL, Amherst, MA & New York, NY
Click
here for complete listing
- May 5-6, 2007: Orlando, FL: 2007 Orlando
Go Tournament
Joshua Lee Masterman535@yahoo.com 305.308.6624
- May 6, 2007: Amherst, MA: Western Mass Go
charles sutton casutton@cs.umass.edu 413.658.7522
- May 6, 2007: New York, NY: Swing
Into Spring Rating Tournament
Enjoy our back yard! (weather permitting)
Christopher Vu nygc@usgo.org 212.223.0342
KERWIN'S
ROAD MAP FOR BEGINNERS: Getting Attached
By James Kerwin 1P
I hope you're seeing groups more quickly and reliably now. If you're
still missing atari's (when a stone or group can be captured on the
next move) don't worry, just keep playing.
On this leg of the journey I want you to pay special attention to
attachments. An attachment -- or contact play -- is a stone not
connected to friendly stones, played on a liberty (an adjacent empty
intersection) of an enemy stone which may be a single stone or part of
a group. The large majority of attachments are played against single
stones.
Attachments are extremely important in go because the player who plays
next can get much better local development. This is easy to see in
these diagrams (also in the attached file). When black moves next
(right) the sequence gives black a dominant position over two thirds of
the board. But when wh
ite plays
next (left), white gets the dominant position. The factor that drives
this result is shortage of liberties. After Black 5, for example, white
must make a protective move to prevent black from forcing a capture
with his next move.
Although you should not expect a real game to develop the same way as
these diagrams, the logic driving the sequences is exactly the same as
in real game play. The superior position the first to play after an
attachment gets illustrates the same advantage possible in a real game.
By the way, if the responding player does not like the result of a
sequence like that shown in the example diagrams, the correct answer is
not to hane like 3, but instead to extend to 7 or 10.
I hope the importance of play after contact moves is now clearer to
you. Pay special attention to contact plays. Don't go out of your way
to play them, but don't be afraid of them. Press the opponent if it
seems right, and play calmly if it seems right. But be very careful to
watch your liberties because it's easy to lose stones when black and
white get entangled.
Working with attachments help continue to learn to see fundamental
patterns in go. In addition, on this leg of the journey, you will start
developing the skills that will become what we call reading, which is
the ability to see multi-move sequences. You should probably still play
on small boards for now, although there is nothing wrong with playing
on the full board at this time.
Kerwin, a longtime go teacher, is a regular contributor to
the E-Journal and American Go Yearbook. If you have questions on the
material in this column, or on how to get stronger, email him at
journal@usgo.org
GO
CLASSIFIED
Locate
go clubs worldwide
- PLAYERS WANTED: South Jersey: Looking for strong players in the South
Jersey area. Contact bart_simpson9181994@hotmail.com (4/23)
- BOOKS FOR SALE: Best offer before May 1 (click here for list
http://www.usgo.org/news/). Please include shipping in your offer.
Email bids to: stewart.kane@gmail.com (4/23)
- PLAYERS WANTED: Springfield, OR: I would like to try and start up
another go club here; Kurschun Finch kurschun.finch@mindspring.com
(4/23)
- WANTED: Floor go board new or used, no preference. Email
Dragonfx14@yahoo.com 4/23
- PLAYERS WANTED: Anyone in the southern Salt Lake, Utah area that wants
to set up a club, middle-schoolers wanted most. E-mail me at
thewriteheart@gmail.com (4/16)
Published by the American Go Association
Managing Editor: Chris Garlock
Assistant Editor: Bill Cobb
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American Go Association.
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