World
Go News from the American Go Association
July 31, 2007; Volume 8, #57
JING YANG
9D TOPS 3-GAME WINNERS
U.S. GO CONGRESS ROLLS ON
HONG SEOK-UI & ILYA SHIKSIN TOP
EURO TOURNEY
BROWNELL & SUN TAKE LEAD IN
REDMOND CUP
STONES FLY IN LIGHTNING TOURNEY
PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING:
Nakayama on How To Improve
BY THE NUMBERS
PLAYER PROFILES
THE REDMOND REPORT: Live from
the Senior League
CONGRESS SCRAPBOOK
TODAY’S GAME COMMENTARIES:
Feng Yun comments on her Round 1 Ing Masters game against
Eric Lui and Yunsheng Ruan 7P takes a look at the Round 2 Ing Masters
game between Zhaonian Chen and Jin Chen. NOTE: game commentaries are a
regular feature of the Member’s Edition of the E-Journal: sign
up now and get commentaries, reviews and more every week!
JING
YANG 9D TOPS 3-GAME WINNERS: Jing Yang 9d (l) tops the
list of 3-game winners in the ongoing U.S. Open at the U.S. Go
Congress. The 6-round tournament takes a day off Wednesday and resumes
Thursday. Other 3-game winners include: Yongfei Ge 8d, Landon Brownell
6d, Jason Gu 6d, Gary Shen 4d, Scott Waldron 4d, Wan Chen 4d, Bradley
Jones 3d, Frank Salantrie 3d, Jonathan Hop 1d, Saul Lapidus 1d,
Fernando Rivera 1k, Mark Penner 1k, Bill Phillips 1k, Kei Kawabata 2k,
Wiseley Zhang 3k, Mark Rubenstein 4k, Paul Benson 4k, Karoline Burrall
5k, Chris Cameron 6k, Sheehan Hsu 6k, Michael Lash 6k, John Greiner 7k,
Keiju Takahara 8k, C. Louise Ingram 9k, Seth Wax 10k, Geoff Boyer 10k,
Mark Irgang 10k, John Eckelcamp 12k, Garrett Smith 13k, Tiffany Wu 15k,
Stanley Sun 15k, Vi Cao 21k, Shaun Malcone 25k.
- reported by Chris Sira; photo by Steve Colburn
U.S.
GO CONGRESS ROLLS ON: Approaching the mid-point of the
U.S. Go Congress, 
participants
show no signs of slowing down.
The days start with a morning round of the 6-round U.S. Open and
professionals are on hand to analyze games as they finish up. After
lunch, those who haven’t finished their Open games return to
their boards while others attend pro lectures and simuls or play
Self-Paired or casual games throughout the Student Center at
Millersville University, where the Congress is being held. The Youth
Room in the basement is always abuzz with activities for young go
players and there are even classes in Japanese tea ceremony and ikebana
(flower arranging) for those who want to take a break from the
wall-to-wall go. The evening brings more lectures and as bedtime
approaches the hard-core go players gather in the main playing area for
the Midnight Madness tournament. And a few hours later, the cycle
begins all over again. photos: top right, in the Strong
Player's Room during US Open Round 3 (John Pinkerton); left, Micah
Feldman 5d in the ikebana class (Chris Garlock).
HONG
SEOK-UI & ILYA SHIKSIN TOP EURO TOURNEY: Hong
Seok-ui 7d (KR) won the 2007 European Go Congress (EGC) main
tournament, while Ilya Shiksin (RU) 6d is the 2007
European Champion. The EGC wrapped up last Saturday in Villach,
Austria. Hong narrowly edged out Park Jong-wook 7d (KR) – who
finished second despite missing two rounds due to illness -- and Cho
Seok-bin 7d (KR) to top the tourney. Shiksin and Alexander Dinerchtein
7d (RU) had the same SOS, but Shiksin’s SoDos was 2 points
better, giving him the championship. The top-10 winners received cash
prizes. The complete top results: 1st: Hong Seok-ui 7d (KR); 2nd: Park
Jong-wook 7d (KR); 3rd: Cho Seok-bin 7d (KR); 4th: (European Champion):
Ilya Shiksin 6d (RU); 5th: Alexander Dinershtein 7d (RU); 6th: Hong
Seul-ki 7d (KR); 7th: Li Ting 6d (CN); 8th: Christian Pop 7d (RO); 9th:
Pal Balogh (HU); 10th: Vesa Laatikainen 5d (FI); 11th: Ondrej Silt 6d
(CZ); 12th: Cornel Burzo 6d (RO); 13th: Haitao Yan 5d (CN). Click here
http://egc2007.goverband.at/index.php?page=egc_live.php for complete
round-by-round results of the EGC Main, Rapid, Weekend, and 13x13
tournaments.
- reported by Peter Dijkema; photo by Martin Chrz. click
here for a PDF of EGC Bulletin #6
BROWNELL
& SUN TAKE LEAD IN REDMOND CUP:
Seventeen-year-old Landon Brownell and 10-year-old Calvin Sun won their
first-round Redmond Cup games Monday to take the lead in the
best-of-three youth tournament. Brownell defeated 14-year-old Cherry
Shen in the Senior Division game, while Sun beat Hugh Zhang in the
Junior Division game. Though the new US Youth Go Championship system
was implemented this year to decide the US representative at the World
Youth Go Championship, the Redmond Cup is still a prestigious arena for
top youth players, with preliminary rounds played online on IGS.
Finalists -- the two players with the top records – win
all-expenses-paid trips to the U.S. Congress to play in a best-of-three
match.
- reported by Calvin Lee
STONES
FLY IN LIGHTNING TOURNEY: Fingers and stones flying, 126
players turned out for Monday night’s Lightning Tournament at
the U.S. Go Congress. The
format is tables of six players each playing round-robin with just 10
minutes per round and no byo yomi: “When your time expires,
so do you.” Table winners play off later in the week in a
knockout format to determine overall dan and kyu champions. Table
Winners: Albert Guo 1d; Eric Jankowski 1d; Andrew Briscoe 1d; Peter
Zhang 3d; Kevin Shang 3d; Scott Waldron 4d; Michael Liang 6d; Jack Yang
6d; Michael Anuzis 2k; Glenn Peters 3k; Stephen Tung 4k; Gus Heck 4k;
Allen Hamers 5k; Jack Pinkerton 5k; David Rohde 6k; Matthew Harding 7k;
Andrew Cupino 8k; Andrew Shang 9k; Tiffany Wu 15k; Stanley Sun 17k;
Angela Pham 21k. Andrew Jackson won the Sportsmanship Award,
“for resigning when his opponent had 5 seconds left on the
clock and there were still moves to play,” reports TD Keith
Arnold. Allen Hamers won the Unique Result prize in a 4 way tie at 3-2
in which Hamers beat the 
other
three. photo by Steve Colburn.
PROFESSIONALLY
SPEAKING: Nakayama on How To Improve
“There are three steps to get
better,” Noriyuki Nakayama 6P said at his Tuesday night
lecture. “Step 1: buy a book. Step 2: read it! Step 3:
practice!” As entertaining as always, Nakyama kept the
attentive crowd laughing appreciatively as he mixed game analysis of
Takemiya’s games with fascinating and amusing anecdotes from
the go world. “Replay professional games,” Nakyama
advised. “Eventually you will start playing better moves
because your fingers will know where to play. Not your mind, your
fingers.” photo by Steve Colburn
BY
THE NUMBERS: The Round 2 father-son Ing Masters match
Monday night between I-Han and Eric Lui took less than 10
minutes…at the next table, the Round 1 Redmond Cup game
between youngsters Landon Brownell and Cherry Shen took more than 3
hours and outlasted all the nearby Ing Masters games in the Strong
Players Room…36 top-board games have been broadcast live on
KGS by the E-Journal game-recording staff as of Tuesday night.
PLAYER
PROFILES
One
in an ongoing
series of mini-profiles of America’s top amateur go players.
YUAN ZHOU 8d (l) lives in Germantown, MD
where he’s a Client Relations Manager. He’s won a
number of titles, including the Maryland Open in 1994 and 2002, the Mid
Atlantic Open in 1990 and 2000, the New Jersey Open in 1995, 1996, 1997
and 2001, and the Virginia Open and Ing Redmond Cup in 2004. His
hobbies include movies and tennis, and his favorite thing about go is
“Endless learning.” ZHAONIAN
(MICHAEL) CHEN 8d is from Highland Park, New Jersey,
where he’s a student. He won the 2006 North
American Ing Cup and 2006 Redmond Cup Youth Go Championship, the 2005
New Jersey Open Go tournament, the 2004 and 2005 Maryland Open Go
Tournaments. Hobbies include soccer, ping pong, badminton,
tennis, and computer games. 
His
favorite things about go are that “It is interesting and fun
to play and to have fun with
friends.” I-HAN LUI 7d (r) of
Ellicott City, MD, is a software engineer. His hobbies include travel,
reading, and “finding the source of inspiration.” YOUNG
KWON 7d (l) of Pearl River, NY, is a retired data
processing executive. He’s won the US Open and various state
championship, primarily in New York and New Jersey. Hobbies include
tennis and travel. His favorite things about go are that it
“forces you to apply strategic thinking and problem
resolution at the same time. The game is simply an application of the
economic principle, ‘the most gains with the smallest
resources.’” JON BOLEY
6d of Shoreline, WA, is the Program Director at the Seattle Go Center.
He won the 2007 Verna Castanza Memorial. Hobbies include dancing, yoga,
classical, fusion and jazz guitar. His favorite thing about go is
“The dichotomy inherent in the game which is first introduced
when one realizes how complex the game is while being so
simple.”
WALL CHARTS & GAMES POSTED ONLINE:
Keep up with how your friends and clubmates are doing at the Congress!
For round-by-round results: U.S.
OPEN, or ING
MASTERS. PLUS: Top-board game records
are posted
online and updated daily.
THE
REDMOND REPORT: Live from the Senior League
by Calvin Lee 6d
The Redmond Cup Senior League Round 1 game between Landon
Brownell 6d and Cherry Shen 5d -- played Monday night in the strong
players room, which the youth players affectionately call "the jail" --
started peacefully, with both sides staking out territory. True to his
style, Brownell developed a large moyo, but only after making
an error in the opening that left Shen with the territorial lead. Shen
was forced to invade, and Brownell launched an aggressive attack on her
group, highly characteristic of the play that youth players who know
Brownell are accustomed to. Both players made their moves quickly in
the opening, but as the battle for life and death began, they slowed
down, taking their time to read out the complex position. Shen was able
to escape to the center after a very complicated sequence, but Brownell
continued the attack on the dragon, reducing Shen’s territory
as he went. In the complex and exciting game, Shen played solidly,
responding calmly to Brownell’s threats against her remaining
groups and managing to secure life
for all
of her groups. Entering the endgame, the game was in Shen’s
favor, but her lead dwindled as she
missed opportunities until finally, under severe time pressure she
slipped-up and missed a group-killing ko and resigned. Brownell is now
just one win away from the 2007 Redmond Cup Senior Cup title. photo
by John Pinkerton.
CONGRESS
SCRAPBOOK: Pros Noriyuki Nakayama 6P and
Yoshiaki Nagahara 6P watch a game (r). Photo by Roy Laird
Published by the American Go Association
Managing Editor: Chris Garlock
Assistant Editor: Bill Cobb
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