World Go News from the American Go Association
July 9, 2007; Volume 8, #50

TOP STORIES: Youth Updates; U.S. Go Congress Nears Record 500 Mark; New From Hinoki And Slate & Shell; There Go The Americans; Here Come The Europeans (Part 2)
UPCOMING EVENTS: Tacoma, WA; Arlington, VA; Somerville, MA; IGS
WORLD GO NEWS: Cho Off To Good Start In Gosei Title Defense; Lee Changho Makes It 1-1 In Electron-Land Cup; White Stones At Black Sea; Report From The IGF
THE TRAVELING GO BOARD: Chinese Go Paradise (Part 1)
MEMBER'S EDITION BONUS CONTENT: Kobayashi Attacks!
GO PHOTO: Go In A Chess World
GO QUIZ: Not So Easy, After All
CAN'T STOP THE MONKEY JUMP: A Beginner Studies Life and Death
GO CLASSIFIED

TOP STORIES

YOUTH UPDATES: "Calvin Sun and Hugh Zhang are this years finalists for the Junior League Redmond Cup," reports None Redmond. The Ing-Redmond 2007 qualification round has also been completed, Allan Abramson, "with Eric Lui coming out on top with a perfect 5-0 record. Second was Curtis Tang at 4-1." The deciding 5th-round game is attached. Six players participated in the internet single round-robin. Lui and Tang will play a best-of-3 final at the U.S. Go Congress to determine this year's Ing-Redmond winner. The Ing-Redmond is open to players under 30 years old, ranked 5-dan or higher. Meanwhile, ten-year-old Hugh Zhang 5d, 12-year-old Lionel Zhang 5d, 14-year-olds Jimmy Guo 6d and Tony Zhang 5d, and 17-year-old Calvin Lee 5d have been selected to participate in the 2nd World Chinese Youth Go Championship in Hong Kong this coming August. "You are very impressive group of young players and I am proud to have you all representing the USA," said AGA President Mike Lash.

US GO CONGRESS NEARS RECORD 500 MARK: With less than three weeks to go to the U.S. Go Congress in Lancaster, PA, attendance continues to grow for the July 28-August 4 event. "We're very close to the 500 mark," says Congress Co-Director Peter Nassar, "and we're hoping to set a new Congress attendance record this year!" The current record is 468, set in Tacoma, WA at the 2005 Congress. Click here for info and to register. In other Congress news, organizers are looking for an additional translator. "With both Nagahara and Noriyuki coming, along with Maeda, two pros from the Nihon and Kansai Ki-ins, as well as Mr. Shimizu from Life Sports and his associate Ms Ashida 6P, Yoshi is going to be swamped!" reports Nassar. The Japanese-English English-Japanese translator will receive free room and board, attend the Pro Dinner, and, of course, meet a number of professional players. Other tasks include translating both at lectures and/or game reviews/analyses, as well as when meeting with the AGA administration. Knowledge of go terminology in both English and Japanese would be preferred, as well as a familiarity with Japanese customs and etiquette. Those interested should email Nassar at pnassar@vet.upenn.edu Photo: Congress Co-Director Chuck Robbins (r) shows EJ Editor Chris Garlock the main playing area at the 2007 US Go Congress site. Photo by John Pinkerton.

NEW FROM HINOKI AND SLATE & SHELL: Go publishers Hinoki Press and Slate & Shell have just released two new books. Just out from Hinoki Press is Kobayashi Satoru's Perceiving the Direction of Play. Using his own games to illustrate, Kobayashi explains how to determine the proper direction of play in joseki, in the opening and in fighting. The first volume in the Nihon Kiin series "The Heart of Go", Perceiving the Direction of Play will be followed by six more volumes in English translation from Hinoki. Slate & Shell has just brought out the fourth book in Richard Hunter's series on tactics. This one is Key Concepts in Life and Death: Inside Moves and Under the Stones Techniques, in which Hunter explains the conditions that allow you to create a dead shape inside an opponent's group with an inside placement and those that allow killing or living by means of "playing under the stones". He argues that opportunities for using these tactics occur much more often in games than most players realize.

THERE GO THE AMERICANS: Among the more than 700 attendees at this year's European Go Congress are a small group of Americans, including Ned, Joanne and Nikola Phipps of Rohnert Park, CA, Russ Williams of Austin, TX and Paul Bensen of Hollywood, FL, as well as EJ Managing Editor Chris Garlock, who will be covering the 51st annual event beginning this Saturday in Villach, Austria. Watch for live game broadcasts beginning Sunday (check the AGA website for times), daily updates on the website and special editions of the E-Journal.

HERE COME THE EUROPEANS (Part 2): Over 700 go players have now registered for the European Go Congress (EGC) in Villach, Austria. The 2-week extravaganza of go with players from across Europe and around the world is being held July 14-28. For the first time, the E-Journal will cover the EGC (see above). This week, in Part 2 of a special EGC Preview, we introduce you to some of the top players who will be competing in the European Go Championship in Villach. ANDREY KULKOV 6D, 25, has been playing go for 15 years. The post-graduate economics student from Kazan, Russia, was the 2001 European champion, and won the European Oza in 2004, was twice the Russian champion of Russia, and placed third in the 2006 European championships. IGOR NEMLY 5d is a 19-year-old student of theoretical physics at Kazan State University, in Kazan, Russian Federation. He's been playing for 12 years and has won a number of championships, beginning in Autumn 1999 when he won the Federation Championship for juniors under 12 and continuing through 2006, when he took second in the Russian Federation Cup, first in the Russian Federation Championship for youngsters under 25, first in the Japan Ambassador Cup in Moscow and fifth in the under-25 European Student Go Championship in Brno Czechia. KAI NAOYUKI 6d is a 51-year-old seimiconductor chip designer from Yokohama, Japan who's been playing go for 40 years. BENJAMIN PAPAZOGLOU 6D (r) is a 20-year-old student in an international business school in France. He's been playing go for over 10 years. GERT SCHNIDER (l) is from Graz, Austria and has been playing go 11 years. ILIA SHIKSHIN 6D is a 17-year-old student from Kazan, Russia who's been playing for 12 years. He was the 2006 European Youth Champion, and co-winner (with Alexandr Dinerchtein and Guo Juan) of the 2006 European Oza. TADANORI SODEOKA, 62, lives with his wife in Aisai-city, Japan, and has been playing for 46 years. YOSHIDA TAKAO 6D, 62, is retired and lives in Shimonoseki City in Japan. He started playing go when he was 15. He took fifth place in the 2006 Rome EGC main tournament. LI TING 6D is a 27-year-old student from China who's been playing go for 20 years. RUDI VERHAGEN 5D, 42, is an urban designer from Enschede, The Netherlands. He's been playing go for 31 years. JONG WOOK hails from Suwon, South Korea, where he's a student of the Department of Baduk Studies at Myung-ji University. The 22-year-old has been playing for 11 years.

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 14-21: Tacoma, WA: West Coast Go Camp with Mingjiu Jiang 7P
Brian Allen agagocampwest@usgo.org 206.632.1122

July 14: Arlington, VA: Congress Tune-Up plus the Hot Pair Go
Allan Abramson allango@igc.org 703.684.7676

July 15: Somerville, MA: MGA Summer Handicap Tournament
Zack Grossbart zack@massgo.org 617.497.1232

July 16: Arlington, VA: Daniel Chou begins a series of monthly lectures
Allan Abramson, allango@igc.org

July 20-August 31: IGS: 7th Cho Chikun Judan Cup
42 days and 19.5 hour marathon to try to play more games than any other competitor.

WORLD GO NEWS

CHO OFF TO GOOD START IN GOSEI TITLE DEFENSE: Cho U 9P (l) won the first game Monday , July 2nd in the defense of his Gosei title against Yokota Shigeaki 9P to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five-gave match. The second game is not until July 19th. Cho won what was the first official game between himself and Yokota by 1.5 points. Yokota, who is nearly forty, is a member of the Kansai Kiin and the only pro title he has ever won is the Kansai Kiin Championship in 2005. Cho has won several national and international titles. He took the Gosei from Yoda Norimoto 9P last year. He defeated Takao Shinji 9P to take the NEC Cup back in March and currently also holds both the Agon and Ryusei titles.

LEE CHANGHO MAKES IT 1-1 IN ELECTRON-LAND CUP: Lee Changho 9P defeated Kang Dongyun 5P on Tuesday, July 3rd, to even the score in the best-of-three-game finals of the Electron-Land Cup at 1-1. Kang won the first game on Monday, July 2nd, by 1.5 points. The decisive third game is scheduled for July 16th. Kang, another Korean teenage pro, in 2005 won both the Osram Cup, a tournament for new pros, and the SK Gas Cup, a tournament for players under the age of 25 and ranked less than 5P. Lee Changho is hoping to threepeat in Electron-Land, which is also known as the King of Kings tournament, and is a fast-play event. It starts with three groups, divided by age: under 25, 26-50, and above 51. Eight players from each group then join together in a single elimination tournament.

WHITE STONES AT BLACK SEA: Players ranging from 5 to 50 years old participated in two competitions at the Romanian go community's annual summer go camp at the Eforie Nord resort on the Black Sea, reports EJ European Correspondent Marilena Bara. Alexandru Caraivan 2d won the blitz tournament, while Sanatatea Bucuresti won the National Team Championship. "Between rounds, sensei Catalin Taranu 5P and Cristian Pop 7d provided go lessons, demonstrations and commentaries on the games," reports Bara. "Each year the number of children who participate at the camp increases and a lot of ‘family dynasties' seem to be dominating the Romanian go community, as the ‘80s generation became heads of families and passed to the passion for go to their kids." Some of the Romanian GO families include Toma, Ghioc, Constantinescu, Virtic, Berbecariu, Berende, Cobeli, Oprisan, Onofrei, Sebastian Ilie, followed by Florescu, Arsinoaia, Craciun and Dragomir.
Winner's Report: GO Blitz Tournament: 1st: Alexandru Caraivan 2d; 2nd: Mihai Serban 2d; 3rd: Iulian Toma, 3d. National Team Championship: 1st: Sanatatea Bucuresti; 2nd: Atari Braila I; 3rd: Atari Braila II (juniors).

REPORT FROM THE IGF: The 2008 Mind Sports Games, stepped up support from Toyota/Denso, and building go in Brunei were among the hot items on the agenda at the recent meeting of the International Go Federation, reports U.S. IGF rep Thomas Hsiang. The 2008 Mind Sports Games are scheduled to be held in Beijing, China after the Olympics, and Hsiang says that "while many of the roadblocks have been cleared, much work still lies ahead." A major issue involves funding and sponsorship of the Games, "to the tune of $10-15 million," with the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) taking on the challenge of raising the necessary funds, "and will decide by September 30 if there will be a Mind Sports event in 2008 and if so, at what scale." Thanks to Hiromu Okabe, new Nihon Kiin head and CEO of Toyota, Toyota/Denso has "significantly increased" its financial support of go, most recently evidenced at the World Amateur Go Championships in Tokyo, in which Toyota and other sponsors stepped in to fill a financial gap left by diminished support from Japan Air Lines, the longtime go supporter now facing serious financial problems. In other IGS highlights, the Philippines were welcomed back as members and the IGS voted to send an instructor to Brunei to teach go. "There's been a bunch of activity there," Hsiang reports, "and they asked for our help. It's the first time we¹ve been asked and I hope it's the start of a new direction for IGF." Upcoming events include the Prime Minister's Cup, October 9-16 in Suwon City, Korea, and the 18th Pair Go tournament in November.

THE TRAVELING GO BOARD: Chinese Go Paradise (Part 1)
By Peter Nassar
    "In heaven, there is paradise," goes a Chinese saying, "On earth, there is Hangzhou." Last month, I traveled to the world's newest - and largest -- Go Center, located in Hangzhou, China. Feng Yun 9P led a group of us, including twenty of her students from her New Jersey Go School, to this just-opened facility, formally known as the Hangzhou Qi-Yuan, three hours southwest of Shanghai. Hangzhou is a popular vacation destination in China, renowned for sculpted ancestral mountains, its Longjing ("dragon well") tea, and the city's centerpiece, the beautiful West Lake.
    Standing thirty-four stories high beside the Qiangtang River, the Hangzhou Qi-Yuan is the first of what will be many new buildings in a posh up-and-coming residential region of the city. China's economy is currently booming, and Hangzhou has not been left out of the party. Just behind the Go Center are condominiums that boast some of the highest real estate prices in the city. Next door is a sparkling new 3-story gymnasium with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, ping pong center, pool hall, squash courts, and a full weight room and fitness center. On the way is a second gym with basketball and tennis courts. All around the Center, throngs of new housing developments are rising out of green tarps and bamboo scaffolding.
    The Hangzhou Qi-Yuan is not only a Go Center; the 5-star Tianyuan Hotel takes up much of the building, neatly combining a place to play go, stay and eat. "Tianyuan" turns out to be a clever pun: it's the Chinese word for "tengen," the center star point of a go board. My 9th floor room is thoroughly western, with a carpeted floor, dark wood furniture, an enormous television and DVR, and a polished marble-tiled bathroom, complete with shower. The go students live on the 6th floor, housed a cozier four to a room, but with the same basic hotel-like amenities.
    The mostly-complete building is still under construction. While the downstairs lobby swims in opulence, the 2nd floor is still a construction site and neither the revolving restaurant atop the building - shaped like a go stone, of course, and promising spectacular views of the city and a full wine bar - or the intriguingly titled "Special Combat Room" on the 28th floor are open to the public yet.
    We spent our first afternoon playing informal games, where I met some of the Go Camp students who have come from elsewhere in the US, including the 10-year-old twins Matthew and Nathan Harwick, from Boulder, CO, shining examples of the great work Paul Barchilon and company are doing out there. Louis Abronson, an amateur 6d from San Jose, CA, is accompanied by his wife Amanda, who is not a go player but who is using her time in China to learn Mandarin at a local language school. After dinner back in the Center cafeteria, we retire to our respective rooms to sleep off jet-lag, eager to start our training in the days ahead.
Peter Nassar 4k, Associate Director of Labs at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is the Co-Director of the 2007 U.S. Go Congress. Photo: Wang Ru Nan 8P (right), president of Chinese Wei qi Association plays teaching games with campers. Photo courtesy Feng Yun.

MEMBER'S EDITION BONUS CONTENT: Kobayashi Attacks!
An exciting attack is the highlight of today's game commentary, Round 1 of the 45th Japanese Judan, played on May 24, 2007 by Shuto Shun 5P and Kobayashi Koichi 9P, with commentary by Alexander Dinerchtein 1P. In our second bonus file, it's Black to play in Yilun Yang 7P's " Hard Endgame Problem."

GO PHOTO
GO IN A CHESS WORLD: Waiting for the ferry to take them to Cortes Island, BC for this week's Jim Kerwin go workshop, Phil Straus and Chris Kirschner found a place to play go. Photo by Margaret Harris.

GO QUIZ: Not So Easy, After All
"That was easy!" wrote one of the contestants in last week's Quiz, in which we asked which family name -- Bresler, Burrall, Chen or Kim -- was currently NOT among the top 6 most common last names registered for the Congress. "All you had to do was go to the Congress site and make it go in alphabetical order, and count them up" True, but you also had to read the question to say which was NOT in the top 6 - answering Chen was incorrect: Chen and Zhang are the most popular family names with 8 registrants each. 2 folks chose Burrall, and 1 chose Bresler; these two family affairs have 6 and 5 registrants respectively. Filling out the top 6 names are Huang and Yang with 5 registrants each. The correct answer was Kim, with only two registrants, chosen by five of you; congrats to Dan Moise, this week's winner, chosen at random from those responding correctly.
THIS WEEK'S QUIZ: NAGAHARA'S BASICS: Last week the EJ reported the exciting news that Yoshiaki Nagahara will be attending the Congress this year. As co-author of the first comprehensive, quality instruction book in English - Basic Techniques of Go (pictured), he has a special place in Western go history. Did he stop there? How many English-language go books has he authored or coauthored - 1, 2, 3 or 4? Click here to submit your answer (with list) or guess (without).
- Go Quiz Editor: Keith L. Arnold, hka

CAN'T STOP THE MONKEY JUMP: A Beginner Studies Life and Death
by Motoko Arai
    Speaking of tsumego (life and death problems), I have a wonderful little story that, when I think about it now, makes me feel all warm inside. It's from the time when I had just started playing go. I was one of eight beginner go players at a New Year's house party, and when I saw some of these people's New Year's greeting cards I just had to smile. These beginning players were at about the same level as me, and the greeting cards they had made were really cute.
    One person, using the theme of the Chinese zodiac, had lined up 12 cute little animals in black and white and it kind of looked like -- was it a life and death problem? In a flash, my husband and I set up the problem on the go board. If black plays here... then white goes here -- after a lot of time we were pretty sure we had solved it.
    Still during the New Year's holidays but separate from this house party, we invited the person who had made this greeting card over to our house for a visit. With unbridled enthusiasm we laid out the New Year's card problem on the go board in preparation for his visit. After he arrived and we had exchanged the obligatory season's greetings...
    "Hey, that New Year's card was a life and death problem, wasn't it? Oh, you got it then?"
    "Yeah, we did. So... is this the answer?" Voila! We played out the solution that we had come up with on our board. But his reaction was a bit strange.
    "Er... umm..."
    "What? Are we wrong? I mean, if Black goes here, White has to go here, right?"
    "Well yeah, it certainly lives then, doesn't it?"
    "So is it right then?"
    "No. I'm sorry. I don't know why though. I just thought I'd make a go-related card for the holidays, so I looked in a book I had and found a problem that had the right number of stones and I just kind of drew it out and, well, the answer to the problem is here. Black plays here."
    The answer we had showed him was wrong.
    "So we're wrong then, huh? Right from the start, our first move was wrong, so our whole solution must be wrong, right?"
    "Yeah, I guess."
    "Which means, our answer must still die then, right?"
    "Yeah, I guess so."
    So, the three of us sat there and tried to figure out how to kill it. During the New Year's holidays, it would be nice to say that we had a friend over for a day and shared great food and drinks and some good times, so much so that we didn't even notice the passage of time, but that's not how this story goes.
    Instead, the food sat untouched. The drinks -- I can't remember if we ever even poured them. That's how focused the three of us were on that go board. We sat there and sat there, but we still couldn't figure it out. After spending most of the day with us thinking about the tsumego problem, our guest had to head home.
    It was sometime around midnight and I was puttering around cleaning up when the phone rang. It was him. (To be continued.)
Motoko Arai is an award-winning science fiction author in Japan. Translated by Chris Donner from the Nihon Kiin's Go Weekly (January 1-8, 2007 issue)

GO CLASSIFIED

PLAYERS WANTED: Northern Illinois, Lake County. Player from Antioch, IL would like to find players in the Lake County area interested in starting a go club, or anyone who would just like to play! If interested, contact Dave at epiman89@sbcglobal.net (7/9)

PLAYERS WANTED: Mid-Ohio Valley: I'm based out of the Parkersburg, WV area and would like to find some local players. Contact Ryan at xmiyux@gmail.com (7/2)

PLAYERS WANTED: Independence, MO: A new go club is opening in Independence, Missouri. Located on Highway 24, the club will open at 6P on Tuesday, July 3 and will be open every Tuesday thereafter. Details/more info: theresanevilmonkeyinmycloset333@yahoo.com (6/25)

GA CLUB FORMING: Go club starting in the Fall '07 semester at Gordon College (Barnesville, Georgia). If interested, please contact the club main advisor at go_gordonga@yahoo.com. If wanting to come and visit to teach a class, please tell me which would be a good time for you, so I can plan the schedule in advance. The club will teach new players, and will have tournaments with other clubs. (6/11)

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

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