World Go News from the American Go Association
June 4, 2007; Volume 8, #45

HUANG & CHEN WIN BOSTON YOUTH TOURNEY
CONGRESS WATCH: U.S. Congress Sponsor Discounts; Euro Congress Passes 600 Mark
ING MASTERS IN NYC SUNDAY
U.S. YOUTH SOUGHT FOR HONG KONG TOURNEY
WORKSHOPS: SEEKING TRUTH IN RALEIGH; JUDGEMENT IN SEATTLE
UPCOMING EVENTS
CHINESE OUT OF THE FUJITSU CUP
JAPANESE DOING WELL IN LG CUP
GO QUIZ: The Big Fourth
YOUR MOVE: Shan, not Shen; More Game Comment Info; Where In The World Is North Korea?; More On Ms. Niu; Formatting Problems; RSS Feed?; Being There; Almost Live; Being There Again
MEMBER'S EDITION BONUS CONTENT: Lee Sedol's Dramatic Comeback
PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Hot Go Summer!
GO CLASSIFIED

HUANG & CHEN WIN BOSTON YOUTH TOURNEY: Sam Huang and Joseph Chen topped their divisions in the May 27 Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association Youth Go Tournament, reports Ke Lu. Huang won the Senior (under-17) Division, while Chen won the Junior (under 11) Division. Anthony Burzillo took 2nd place in the Senior Division while Hui Chen took 3rd. Andrew Sun took 2nd in the Junior Division and Sophie Lu won 3rd. Click here for more results. "The tournament was reported by World Journal, the biggest Chinese newspaper in US," Lu adds. Click here for their report and here for photos by Ke Lu.

CONGRESS WATCH

U.S. CONGRESS SPONSOR DISCOUNTS: Register for the US Go Congress by June 10, 2007 and save 10% off your next order from Congress sponsor Yellow Mountain Imports "We'll be offering a Children's Room filled with professional instruction," reports Congress Co-Director Peter Nassar, "a new Women's Tournament, the return of the East-West Tournament as well as the Chapter Team Tournament, demonstrations in Japanese flower arranging and the Japanese Tea Ceremony, trips to Hershey Theme Park and Gettysburg National Park, and a 'Chuck Robbins' challenge even mightier than last year!"

EURO CONGRESS PASSES 600 MARK: More than 600 go players from nearly 40 nations are now registered for the 51st annual European Go Congress in Villach, Austria from July 14-28. The 2-week even features a main tournament, weekend and other tournaments plus numerous lectures and other go teaching events. Click here for the schedule and EGC homepage.

ING MASTERS IN NYC SUNDAY: Eight top players have already registered for The North American Ing Cup Qualifying Tournament being held this Sunday, June 10th at the New York Go Center in New York City. A rated self-paired handicap tournament will run concurrently. The winner of the qualifier takes $250 and is guaranteed a spot in the new North American Ing Masters, playing for $10,000 in prizes at the US Go Congress this August. "We'll be serving the usual 'real NY pizza' for lunch," promises organizer Roy Laird. "So make the scene, see your friends and enjoy some go on the 10th!" For more info - or to register - email nygc@usgo.org Photo: the courtyard at the New York Go Center; photo by Roy Laird

U.S. YOUTH SOUGHT FOR HONG KONG TOURNEY: The U.S. has been invited to send four youth players to the 2nd World Chinese Youth Go Championship in Hong Kong this August, reports AGA President Mike Lash. Organizers provide free room and board for 4 youth players and one coach but must pay their own travel to Hong Kong for the August 19-23 tournament, sponsored by the Hong Kong Children's Go Academy. Anyone interested should contact Lash immediately at president@usgo.org

WORKSHOPS
SEEKING TRUTH IN RALEIGH: "Go is about seeking the truth," Yuan Zhou (r) told a packed meeting room at the Raleigh (NC) Hampton Inn last weekend. Zhou was in North Carolina for a three-day series of lectures and game commentary attended by 15 players from central North Carolina, Baltimore, and Richmond. Based in Washington D.C., Zhou used his characteristic mix of humor and go philosophy to convey his much appreciated tactical and strategic insights. "The more you understand," Zhou said, "the more you will enjoy." Participants seemed to agree. "Yuan Zhou's style of teaching is perfect for us" says organizer Paul Celmer, "no question was ever too stupid." Look for the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle area of North Carolina to continue to be one of the strongest and fastest growing concentrations of go players in the South. The workshop was sponsored by the Triangle Go Group, a club that has been in existence for over 40 years. photo: Paul Celmer

JUDGEMENT IN SEATTLE: Guo Juan (l) passing judgement during a game of "Survivor Go" during her lively workshop at the Seattle Go Center, June 1-3. Guo Juan is a professional who is now based in Amsterdam. photo: Brian Allen

UPCOMING EVENTS
- FRIDAY, JUNE 8: Ongoing TEAM MATCH between the Greater Washington Go Club and the Rockville (MD) club continues at 8P in the basement (room 15) of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Church, 9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda. More info: haskellsmall@starpower.net
- SATURDAY, JUNE 9: DAVIS/SACRAMENTO QUARTERLY, Sacramento, CA, 9A-5P at the Arcade Library in Sacramento, Willard Haynes willard@saclink.csus.edu 916.929.6112
- SATURDAY, JUNE 9: First Monthly SWFL GO TOURNAMENT, Cape Coral, FL, Kent Secor kent1956_go@yahoo.com 239.222.3625
- SUNDAY JUNE 10: ING MASTERS QUALIFYING EVENT/JUNE RATING TOURNAMENT, New York Go Center, New York, NY, Open section to earn seed or points toward the Ing Masters Tournament http://www.nygocenter.org/Tournaments/070610.html Roy Laird nygc@usgo.org 212.223.0342

CHINESE OUT OF THE FUJITSU CUP: The three Chinese players all lost in the quarterfinals of the 20th international Fujitsu Cup. As a result, the semifinals will pit two Japanese against two Koreans: Cho U 9P of Japan against Lee Changho 9P of Korea, and Yoda Norimoto 9P of Japan against Park Yeonghun 9P of Korea. It has become a bit unusual for there be only 9P players in the semifinals of virtually any professional tournament these days, but it is even more unusual in recent times for the Chinese to be out of contention at this stage in an international event. It was close: Lee beat Hu Yaoyu 8P of China by 1.5 points and Park defeated Zhou Heyang 9P by only a half point. Yoda eliminated the other Chinese players, Wang Xi 9P, while Cho knocked out one of the Koreans, Choi Cheolhan 9P; both games ended with resignations. The semifinals are scheduled for July 7th in Tokyo.

JAPANESE DOING WELL IN LG CUP: The results of the first round of the 12th international LG Cup were a bit surprising. The two Taiwanese players both lost (including Zhou Junxun 9P, last year's winner of the LG Cup), but the Koreans, who started with the advantage of 15 players in the field of 32, had only six survive to the round of sixteen. Such Korean stalwarts as Lee Changho 9P (defeated by Hu Yaoyu 8P of China), Choi Cheolhan 9P (defeated by Wang Lei 8P of China), and Park Yeonghun 9P (defeated by Cho Chikun 9P of Japan), were eliminated. The six who survived are Cho Hunhyun 9P, Park Jungsang 9P, On Sojin 3P, Lee Sedol 9P, Mok Jinseok 9P, and Han Sanghoon 1P. The Japanese, meanwhile, who started with only five players, had four make it to the second round: Cho Chikun 9P, Yamashita Keigo 9P, Kono Rin 9P, and Cho U 9P, giving them a very strong group and the best result in terms of percentage of victories. The Chinese, who started with ten, are down to six: Hu Yaoyu 8P, Liu Jing 8P, Xie He 6P, Wang Lei 8P, Wang Lei 5P, and Gu Li 9P. It is also noteworthy that there is only one teenager in the second round: Han Sanghoon 1P of Korea. There were four in the first round, Han Sanghoon 1P, Yun Jungsang 6P, Lee Younggu 6P, and Kang Dongyun 5P, all Koreans. The second round is scheduled for Wednesday, June 6th, in Seoul.

GO QUIZ: The Big Fourth
A slim majority (14/27) correctly named Hong Kong as the best finisher in the World Amateur Go Championships other than the big three of China, Japan and Korea. Our slim leader (in more ways than one) Phil Waldron read too much into the "virtual monopoly" mentioned in the question and argued that I (!) had made a mistake - as both DPR Korea (5) and Chinese Taipei (5) have placed second - but he forgot to check for other firsts! Grant Kerr explains "Chan Ka Yui (9 dan) won in 1986 as the Hong Kong representative." Now a professional at the Kansai Kiin -- pictured here going over one of Andy Liu's games last week, along with James Davies -- he also attended the North Carolina Congress last year. The Netherlands (3) does boast the best finish by a Westerner, Ronald Schlemper, who finished 3rd twice in the 10th and 13th Championships. In the 13th, he beat both China and Japan and finished in a three-way tie at the top, only falling to third on tiebreak. The 2007 Go Quiz standings, after 20 questions: Waldron 18/20, Salamony 16/17, Kerr 10/10, Denis 10/11, Fung 7/7, Mercado 6/6 and Hayes 6/8. Congrats to Tony Atkins, this week's winner, chosen at random form those answering correctly.
THIS WEEK'S QUIZ: If you check the WAGC contestant's page on the IGF website you will see Zoran Mutabzija made his 9th appearance (Yugoslavia - now Croatia). Leszek Soldan has represented Poland 9 times as well. Not sure if these are records (anybody? Heiser?) but has any individual won more than once? Choose between Nie Weiping, Imamura Fumiaki, Kikuchi Yasuro, or "no one has." Click here to vote.
- Go Quiz Editor: Keith L. Arnold, hka; photo by John Pinkerton

YOUR MOVE: Readers Write

SHAN, NOT SHEN: "In today's E-Journal (5/31), you mention 'China's SHEN wins world Amateurs'", writes Zhiping You. "The fact is, his last name is SHAN. Since SHEN is also a popular last name in China, some day there may be another good go player named Shen and people could get confused. BTW, Shan is a very very rare Chinese last name. Thanks for the good work on the E-Journal. I really enjoy it."

MORE GAME COMMENT INFO: "Thank you for providing such excellent WAGC content!," writes Calvin Clark. "Only one minor suggestion: it would helpful if the commented games contained a description on the first move of who the players are and who is providing the comments, as is usual as is usual in the e-Journal. This is helpful for players who save them to review later. Keep up the good work."

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS NORTH KOREA? Many readers wondered why there was no player from North Korea (which took 3rd last year and 2nd the previous year) this year. According to EJ sources, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), which is one of the supporters of the WAGC, directed the International Go Federation to inform the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of China on Taiwan that they could participate only under the names of North Korea and Chinese Taipei respectively and couldn't display their national flags. Previously the former had participated as DPR Korea in the WAGC, as it does in IOC events. The Taiwanese accepted these conditions (they've always played as Chinese Taipei), but DPR objected and declined to come. Although this was not what the IGF wanted, they saw no choice, since the MFA would not have issued a visa to the DPR representative if they didn't accept the conditions. The political background is that the Abe administration has been taking a tougher line towards the DPR recently.

MORE ON MS NIU: "Regarding Ms. Niu (Chinese 5P), whom Keith Arnold identified in a photo in the 5/27 E-Journal," writes Bob McGuigan. "I think she also attended one of the US Congresses we sponsored at Mt. Holyoke College (1987?). E-Journal readers might be interested to know that she has been living in Japan for quite a while now and is Go Seigen's secretary and personal assistant, editing many of his recent books. The reports from the WAGC have been great."

FORMATTING PROBLEMS: "I enjoy reading the E-journal," writes Bill Thompson, "but after reading the praise about the new format I have to throw in my 2 bits. For security reasons, my e-mail reader is configured for text e-mail only. This means that in order to read an HTML formatted message, I need to open the HTML document in a separate web browser program. Unfortunately, due to the CID: protocol you are using to embed the images, the browser program does not display the images properly. Therefore I can not read the e-journal formatted as you intend. Perhaps in the future you could publish the e-journal on the AGA website as an alternative for people who do not want to receive HTML formatted e-mail."

RSS FEED? "I'd prefer to read the E-Journal articles through an rss feed reader," writes David Carlton, "instead of through my mail client. Looking through your web site, I saw the archive at , but I didn't see an rss feed anywhere there. Does such a beast exist?" Yes! Now you can also subscribe to the EJ by clicking here and adding a bookmark to your browser; we'll let you know every time new material a new issue comes out. Please be aware that there are some photo formatting issues in the RSS feed that we're currently working on resolving.

BEING THERE: "Thanks for all your articles and photos from the WAGC," writes Marilena Bara from Romania (whose representative took 4th place at the WAGC). "You make me feel like I was there!"

ALMOST LIVE: "The entire E-Journal staff did a wonderful job covering this year's WAGC! Thank you all so much!" writes Dennis Wheeler. "Fans around the country, and the world, were glued to their computers scaning every blog, discussion forum and go server chat room hoping for a glimpse of news about their favorite player(s). All the photos and news stories on the AGA web site were wonderful, and some so well timed, it was almost as if we were watching the game live through a webcam. Keep up the great work!"

BEING THERE AGAIN: "I just wanted you to know how much I've enjoyed your coverage of the WAGC," writes Brad Melki in Australia. "I haven't attended one for some years but you almost made me feel like I was there. You really captured the atmosphere and the photos were great. Well done."

MEMBER'S EDITION BONUS CONTENT: Lee Sedol's Dramatic Comeback
"If I had lost this game, the diagonal connection of 28 would have been the losing move. That's how awful it is," says Lee Sedol 9P in the commentary for today's game in which he takes on Cho U 9P of Japan in the dramatic Game 3 of the 3rd Toyota Denso World Oza, played January 9 in Tokyo. Lee Sedol has won more international titles in the 21st century than any other player. The game is taken from the brand-new Go World #111 (Summer 2007) with kind permission of the publishers. Look for even more Go World preview material in the months ahead!

PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Hot Go Summer!
by Mike Lash, President, American Go Association
    In April I wrote about spring - but now summer is upon us and things are getting hotter for the AGA. Our annual US Go Congress is just 54 days away and registration and is already nearly 400! This is going to be a blockbuster Congress by any measure - total people, total players, variety of pros attending, available tournaments and entertainment. If you haven't registered yet, please consider doing so now!
    The US Youth Go Championship finals went off without a hitch, with impressive wins by our champions - 10-year-old Calvin Sun 6d in the junior division, and 14-year-old William Zhou 6d in the senior division. We obviously will see these young giants competing for the title again for many more years. Special thanks to the Seattle Go Center for hosting the inaugural event and to TD Jon Boley and Tournament Coordinator Gordon Castanza for their efforts, patience, experience and generous contribution of time. The live broadcasting of four tournaments games at once was truly ground-breaking and a very impressive accomplishment.
    Adam Bridges has officially begun his tenure as AGA Treasurer on June 1 and can be reached at Treasurer@usgo.org. While I am pleased to have Adam on board, it means that we had to see our former Treasurer Ulo Tamm retire. After more than 6 years as AGA Treasurer under two Presidents, Ulo reaffirmed his place in the special group of AGA members whose life-long contributions will far outlast their active participation as officers. His tireless pursuit of perfection in the accounts set the standard for what it takes to always be accurate and completely faithful to the books at all times! Thank you Ulo - very well done!
    I am working on some exciting issues for the coming months, including website upgrades, relations with foreign go associations, answering invitations for players to international events, and working on expanding the number of AGA members and chapters. The opportunities to send AGA representatives to events worldwide continues to help promote our values, our rules and our personnel across the globe, and that serves us well. Our EJ Editor, Chris Garlock, last week showed us once again how these events can provide a window on the whole word of go for all of our members, and there is plenty more to come.
    The summer go camps are both gaining strength with the West already about 30 campers and the East following with about 20 and climbing. The entire summer camp program is getting stronger each year and with AGF support, better preparation and marketing and the continued support from AGA volunteers, this program gets bigger each year. We intend to keep pace with this interest.
    If you are interested in volunteering for the AGA in any capacity at all, contact us at Volunteers@usgo.org. We will find something for you in your area, or a special project to move along, or a new program to support, or even a national event!

GO CLASSIFIED

PLAYERS WANTED: Branford, CT. Looking for players in the area of all skill and age levels. Contact gregory.santone@gmail.com (6/4)

FOR SALE: 30-year collection of go material, including Go World #1 to #180 except for missing numbers Ishi #38 #48 #52 #53 #54 #55, also Kiseido #76. Issues #1 -#32 ,plus #39-#42 are in cardboard binders. Issues #16 and #51 are missing covers, all others are good or better condition; best offer for all issues. Also available are 35 various books from Ishi press, Yutopian publications, and other miscellaneous material. For further information, call 845-246-9621 or wjones1@hvc.rr.com (5/21)

PLAYERS WANTED: PA: Looking for any players in Clifton heights,Aldan, Drexel Hill, Or Upper Darby Pennsylvania Contact Jehuty43@yahoo.com (5/21)

PLAYERS WANTED: GA: Seeking go players or those interested in learning how to play in the Savannah, Georgia area. Contact dan_carata@yahoo.com (5/21)

VIRTUAL PLAYERS WANTED: Play go in The Second Life virtual world's go club, The Go Center Of Second Life. Features a playing pavilion with several gobans, twice-weekly meetings, and a 27-meter table board. Click here http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoCenterOfSecondLife for more info and photos, or email gozogoodnight@gmail.com (5/14)

PLAYERS WANTED: Kansas City metro area; email theresanevilmonkeyinmycloset333@yahoo.com if you live in the Kansas City area; I am trying to get a go club started. (5/14)

PLAYERS WANTED: Philadelphia, PA. Looking for players in the Center City area for a newborn club. If interested, please contact kakashi.no.sai@gmail.com (5/7)

Published by the American Go Association
Managing Editor: Chris Garlock
Assistant Editor: Bill Cobb

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