October 15, 2007; Volume 8, #70
U.S. GO NEWS: Awesome Tudity Wins NYC Team Tourney; DC Downs Rockville In Team Match; Ing To Sponsor Major New Youth Tourney
TOURNEY UPDATES: Pair Go Looking For Kyu Players; Rochester Tourney Online
WORLD GO NEWS: Chinese And Koreans Maintain Parity For Samsung Semifinals; Japanese Pros Visit Chile; Avram/Corlan Win Romanian Pair Go; Fan Hui’s Problems
GO QUIZ: Wiener At The Woodlands
CAN'T STOP THE MONKEY JUMP: Go for Couples
GO CLASSIFIED
MEMBER’S EDITION BONUS CONTENT: Yuan Zhou -- one of the strongest players in the US -- takes a look at a mid-kyu game in today's game commentary. Zhou has won many titles and is also a popular teacher, lecturer, and author. His next publication project is a series of books on the styles of famous players. He lives in Germantown, MD. Our bonus file today is Yilun Yang's hard endgame problem; Yang -- a frequent cntributor to the EJ -- is doing a series of endgame problems for the E-Journal. Non-members: all this great content is just a click away
AWESOME TUDITY WINS NYC TEAM TOURNEY: Awesome Tudity won the New York Go Center’s first live team tournament, played (date) in New York City. Captained by Greg Rosenblatt 5d, the team included Leonard Baum 4k and Michael Connell 15k. Awesome Tudity nudged out silver medalists Team Totally Bats, headed up by Mr. Sakamoto 4d and including Carrie Lapidus 6k and Michael Rodriguez 10k and bronze medalists Team Laser Explosion, captained by Saul Lapidus 2d, and including Avi Mowshowitz 7k and John Mangual 11k). Awesome Tudity Team’s Michael Connell won his individual tie-breaker matches to get the nod as individual champion, just edging out his teammate Leonard Baum. “Tournament director Boris Bernandsky did an excellent job orchestrating the event,” reports organizer Christopher Vu, who also announced his retirement from running live events.
DC DOWNS ROCKVILLE IN TEAM MATCH: The Greater Washington Go Club defeated the Rockville Go & Chess Group by a score of 6-4 in the monthly Go Team match held on October 12 at the East Rockville Maryland Pump House Community Facility, reports John Goon. “Rockville was the host team and fell behind early,” says Goon. “A late-evening rally by Rockville fell short when GWGC's Marion Edey overcame a 9-stone handicap disadvantage against RGCG's Joseph Huang to win by 8 points.” The next team match will be held at the GWGC site in Bethesda, MD on Friday, November 9. Contact Haskell Small at haskellsmall@starpower.net for details.
Winner’s Report: Betsy Small(GWGC) def. Craig Anderson (RGCG); Haskell Small(GWGC) def. Juan Pablo Quizon (RGCG); Marion Edy (GWGC) def. Mike Pak (RGCG); Marion Edy (GWGC) def. Joseph Huang (RGCG); Peter Sun (GWGC) def. Steve Gershowitz (RGCG); Peter Sun (GWGC) def. Frank Chen (RGCG); Wesley Mao (RGCG) def. Alfred Song (GWGC); Todd Heidenreich (RGCG) def. Gene Fellner (GWGC); Todd Heidenreich (RGCG) def. Betsy Small(GWGC); Kaname Yunokawa (RGCG) def. Haskell Small (GWGC).
ING TO SPONSOR MAJOR NEW YOUTH TOURNEY: In a major development for youth go in the United States, the Ing Foundation has pledged $10,000 for a new nationwide team tournament for schools. The American Go Association (AGA) is joining with the American Go Honor Society (AGHS) to run the tournament, which will begin in February 2008 on KGS. The partnership with the AGHS – which was started by a group of high school students in 2000 and has been running team events online for several years --“presents a huge potential for the AGA to reach a much wider youth audience than ever before,” says AGA President Mike Lash. The tournament format will be much like the team competitions in Hikaru no Go, with teams from each school competing against each other. Teams can be formed by any school with at least four go players, and also by home-schooled kids who want to play together. The American Go Foundation (AGF) provides free equipment to any school that wants to start a club. Kindergarten through high school students are eligible to compete; AGA membership is required. The AGA is offering a free six-month membership – which includes the Members Edition of the E-Journal, with commented SGF records every week -- for any new member who joins at registration. Substantial prizes will be awarded in every bracket, and most of the teams who compete will receive between $50 and $100 in prizes from sponsors like Samarkand, Slate and Shell and Yellow Mountain. The first 100 teams to register will also receive a free go set upon completion of the tournament. Click here for more information and to register.
- reported by Paul Barchilon, E-Journal Youth Editor
TOURNEY UPDATES: PAIR GO LOOKING FOR KYU PLAYERS: The dan section of the new Internet Pair Go Tournament is about to begin play, with $200 at stake for the winning team, reports organizer Alan Abramson. “The kyu section, unfortunately, still needs three more pairs to activate the cash prize,” adds Abramson. “Anyone out there interested? It’s not too late to register, even for the dan section.” Click the Pair Go page on the NoVa site for details. ROCHESTER TOURNEY ONLINE: Look for live broadcast on KGS of Board 1 games at this weekend’s Greg Lefler Memorial Tournament in Rochester, NY, thanks to EJ Congress team member Steve Colburn; look for the USGO1 account for the games.
CHINESE AND KOREANS MAINTAIN PARITY FOR SAMSUNG SEMIFINALS: After the first round of the 12th international Samsung Cup, all the players for Japan had been eliminated, and there were four each left for China and Korea. The second round on October 9th and 10th left a similar balance for the semifinals, which are a best-of-three-game match in this event. The two players for Korea are Lee Sedol 9P and Park Yeonghun 9P, while representing China will be Huang Yizhong 6P and Gu Li 9P. Huang is the dark horse in this group; he has won only one national title, the Tianyuan in 2002. The most successful pair are Lee Sedol and Gu Li, both of whom hold two current international titles and who would make a fine match for the finals, which could happen since they are not paired in the semifinals, which will occ
ur in late
November. Lee plays Huang and Park plays Gu in the semis, so the
Chinese-Korean parity could continue.JAPANESE PROS VISIT CHILE: The Chilean Go Association is hosting Japanese professional Hideki Enda and a dozen other Japanese players at a major event that runs November 30 through December 6 in Santiago, Chile. Click here for details.
AVRAM/CORLAN WIN ROMANIAN PAIR GO: Laura Avram 1d and Lucian Corlan 5d have
won the 2007 Romanian
Pair Go Championships in Snagov. Eleven pairs participated in the
finals. This was the second time Avram, 15, and Corlan, 28, have played
together. “The first time was last summer at the Villach
European Go Congress, though not very successfully,” says
Avram, who won the Romanian Women’s Championship earlier this
year. In second place were Caraivan Alexandru and Ardelean Diana; in
3rd place were Ghioc Constantin and Sora Adelina; in 4th place were
Nicolaie Lucian and Parvu Andreea; in 5th, Danila Marius and Coman
Gabriela tied with Pop Cristian and Costea Valeria. - Report & photo by Marilena Bara, special European correspondent for the EJ.
Photo: Diana Ardelean, 13, and Alexandru Caraivan, 17, vs Laura Avram and Lucian Corlan.
FAN HUI’S PROBLEMS: Ask any professional go player how to get stronger and the first thing they’ll tell you to do is study life and death problems – or tsume-go – to improve your reading skill. EJ game commentator Fan Hui 2P is now maintaining a tsumego mailing list whose members receive 3 or 4 life-and-death problems each week from Fan Hui, the best-rated player in Europe. The problems are of various levels, ranging from 20 kyu to 10 kyu, 1 dan, and, from time to time, a 5 dan problem. To subscribe or for more info, click here http://tsumego.jeudego.org/index_eng.php
CORRECTION: Feng Yun is 9P, not 5P (FENG YUN 5P U.S. REP IN WORLD WOMEN’S TOURNEY, 10/8 EJ); we regret the error. Thanks to the many readers who caught and reported this error.
GO QUIZ: Wiener At The Woodlands
Don Wiener was the correct answer this week. Seven of you got it, including JC Chetrit who owns the Woodlands, a retreat in New York where many go events are held, and where the photo was taken. Phil Waldron also got it right, he plays weekly games with Don online. Don was one of the first truly strong Caucasian players, along with Ryder, Gonshor, Wilcox and Snyder. Don ran the Massachusetts tournaments for many years and is famous for his ability to give handicaps. He always modestly claimed that his rank was inflated as a result, and he insisted that the U.S. Open have a separate 6 dan section because he claimed he was not strong enough to compete in the Open section. He only played in the 6D section once, however; after he won it, his rating climbed to over 7.0 and he competed successively in the Open section for several years. Don edited "Keshi and Uchikomi" for publication in the American Go Journal. Three of you made the reasonable choice of Bill Cobb, who prepared the materials (translation by T Ogashi and Roger Newlander) for publication along with Gordon Fraser, but he was not in the photo. Nor was the book’s author, the late Iwamoto. And yes, one of you chose Joe Keshi but we’ll spare you the public humiliation. Congrats to this week's winner, Jean-Claude Chetrit, chosen at random from those answering correctly.
THIS WEEK’S QUIZ: Where does the Oza rank in prestige? The North American Oza qualifiers will be held January 19th and 20th simultaneously in Baltimore and Los Angeles; watch the ejournal and the website for more details soon! The new International Oza is different from the traditional Oza, which is one of the "big seven" Japanese titles - alphabetically - Gosei, Honinbo, Judan, Kisei, Meijin, Oza and Tengen. Where does the traditional Oza rank in prestige - is it 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th? Click here to vote.
CAN'T STOP THE MONKEY JUMP: Go for Couples
by Motoko Arai
Here once again I want to slow the story down a bit. Just about half a year after I started playing go, my husband and I made our way to a go club. We thought that at the club we'd be able to make all kinds of friends and things, but before we go further I want to say a thing or two about that phrase "all kinds."
There were all kinds of people at the go club. Until we actually went to a club I envisioned a go club as a place frequented mostly by older men, but it turned out that that wasn't the case. There were young ladies, children, young men, and older women as well. (Sure, older men were definitely in the majority in the club, but...)
And, as for the older women, there were quite a few who had husbands who played go too. But the husband was always the stronger of the two. Often about 2 or 3 dan level, and sometimes even higher.
The moment I heard this I felt jealous. I mean, for kyu-level players, the idea of reaching dan levels is like a dream, right? (Even more for me, having reached 15 kyu or so at this point.) To have a dan-level player living in the same house with you--imagine.
That must be great to be able to play games with your husband everyday at home."
"Yeah, I suppose. But we don't do that."
"Huh? Really? Why? I mean, your husband is a dan, right? If you play with a dan everyday, that would be great study, right?"
“It probably would be, but we don't. I mean, my husband—when my friends and I are playing or studying at the club and he passes by our boards, he always gives this little snort of laughter. Of course, he never laughs at us directly or says anything mean at all, but when he passes by, to snort at us like this..."
That would be terrible. I mean really terrible. I'd rather be laughed at or told to my face that I'm silly or stupid than have someone snort at me like that.
“I'm sure he doesn't mean to be rude, but that little snort he always gives when he passes by..."
"That's pretty cruel, isn't it?"
And yet, you can kind of understand how her husband feels, huh? You pass a group of amateurs playing out some ridiculous position, and even though you just glance at it and say nothing, you can't help but react every so slightly with a little snort of laughter or something. It just slips out.
And so that's the way it is.
To have a couple like us who are fairly well matched and who play together is a pretty rare thing I think, even if it sounds like I'm boasting.
And as for us—the fact is that nowadays we don't really play go together all that often either. Mostly we do tsumego or study tesuji, maybe run over some masters' games together. If we want to play a bit, we'll decide ahead of time to play only 50 stones each or something and then stop, or set up a certain position and try to play it out. You know, just to get an impression of how the game would go and not worry about winning or losing.
For a married couple to study go together can be very enjoyable, but if they play a game together. There's a very strong possibility of it erupting into a domestic quarrel or something. At least, that's been my experience.
Motoko Arai is an award-winning science fiction author in Japan. Translated by Chris Donner from the Nihon Kiin's Go Weekly (January 29, 2007 issue)
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