October 22, 2007; Volume 8, #71
U.S. GO NEWS: Lee & Penny Top Houston Tourney; Eric Lui Wins Pittsburgh Tourney; Zhaonian Chen Tops Hoboken Open; US-Canada Team Tourney Set; Nashua Club Gets Ink; Taking The Challenge
WORLD GO NEWS: Cho U Wins Agon Cup And Sets Record; Teen Xie Sweeps To Win Youngest Japanese Women's Honinbo; Takao Hanging On In Meijin; Japan Falling Behind In Nongshim; World Go Briefs
YOUR MOVE: Blackberry (& iPhone) Go Update; The Business Of Go; School Go?; More Mid-Kyu Games!; Top Euro
GO QUIZ: Sixth Of Seven
GO CLASSIFIED
MEMBER’S EDITION BONUS CONTENT: Kazunari Furuyama takes a look at "Common Amateur Mistake 167" in the latest installment of his "Important, Fundamental Matters” series. Non-members: all this great content is just a click away!
LEE & PENNY TOP HOUSTON TOURNEY: Florian Lee 9k (r) took first place in the October 20-21 Houston Fall Go Tournament, while Leo Penny won the Youth Section. Nine-year-old Noah Penny took the youngest player award. Winners split a prize purse of about $450. Click here for full report and photos. photo courtesy Robert Cordingley
ERIC LUI WINS PITTSBURGH TOURNEY: Eric Lui took first place in the Pittsburgh Fall Tournament on October 20, which drew 36 players from six states, ranging in strength from 30k to 8d. Tournament Directors Dave Warzinski and Justin Blank “did an excellent job of running things,” reports Tournament Coordinator Kim Salamony, who says this gave her a chance to relax a bit and enjoy her games.
Winners Report: Section A: 1st Eric Lui 8d, 2nd Nicole Casanta 1d; Section B: 1st Ethan Jackson 2k, 2nd Lisa Scott 2k; Section C: 1st Brian Kirby 4k, 2nd Justin Blank 5k; Section D: 1st Ellen Willard 16k, 2nd Kevin Stefanik 14k.
ZHAONIAN CHEN TOPS HOBOKEN OPEN: Zhaonian Chen swept all four rounds to top the Hoboken Fall Open, held October 14 on the campus of Stevens Institute in a spacious room overlooking the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline. A total of 46 players competed in the Open, which was organized by Larry Russ and directed by Steve Bretherick, with technical assistance from AccelRat author Paul Matthews. In addition to cash and trophies, prizes include books provided by Slate and Shell.
Winners Report: OPEN: Zhaonian Chen, 4-0; Jason Gu 3-1; Xiliang Liu 2-2; sharing 3rd place prize money with 2-2: Ricky Zhao and Minshan Shou. Class A: Eric Lin 4-0; Maverick Lin 3-1; William Lockhart 3-1. Honorable mention (book): Tim Pollio 3-1. Class B: Andrew Shang 4-0; Andrew Huang 3-1; Jimmy Gu 3-1. Honorable mention (book): Rick Mott, John Merrit, Howard Fang, Aleck Zhao all with 3-1. Class C: Pei Huang 4-0; Tiffany Wu 4-0; Joyce Hong 4-0. Honorable mention (book): Jonathan Hong, Eric Wu.
US-CANADA
TEAM TOURNEY SET: Teams from the United States and
Canada will face off online at 8P EDT on October 27. The 1-round
tournament will be held in the “USA vs Canada Team
Tournament" KGS room. The pairings (US player listed first) are: Huiren
Yang vs Yongfei Ge, Andy Liu vs Jing Yang, Zhaonian Chen vs Zhiqi Yu,
Jie Liang vs Jun Fan, Minshan Shou vs Xiandong Zhang, Thomas Hsiang vs
Sarah Yu, I-han Lui vs Dewu Zhang, Xiliang Liu vs Hank Xie, Young Kwon
vs Jefferey and Changlong Wu vs William Shi. Time
limits will be one hour basic time plus ten periods of one minute
byo-yomi for each player. Although there are currently no plans to play
teams from other countries, “If this tournament is
successful, we will think about playing with European teams,”
says organizer Ke Lu. 
NASHUA CLUB GETS INK: "There is such complexity; it's always a tradeoff," said Ben Liu, professor of computer science at UMass Lowell, as he pondered a recent gathering of the Nashua area Go club at the Barnes & Noble cafe. "It's not just a game. It's more like philosophy." Click here to read David Brooks complete report in the October 21 Nashua (NH) Telegraph. photo: Stanton M. Paddock, Nashua Telegraph.
TAKING THE CHALLENGE: Want to get stronger? The Shodan Challenge has helped players of all strengths improve their game! Challengers get assistance reaching goals – 2008 Challenge organizers are now lining up more volunteers help with game reviews and simuls -- and are signing up ’08 participants. Click here now to sign up.
CHO U WINS AGON CUP AND SETS RECORD: Cho U 9P (l) defeated Cho Chikun 9P by 6.5 points on Saturday, October 20th, to win the Japanese Agon Cup for the second year in a
row. This is Cho U's twentieth title win and
GoGameWorld.com reports that at the age of twenty-seven years and nine
months he sets a new record for the youngest Japanese pro to achieve
twenty titles. The previous record holder was Cho Chikun, who won his
twentieth title at the age of twenty-eight years and four months. With
a total of seventy-one titles, Cho Chikun still holds the record for
the most titles won. The Agon Cup is a fast play event. To get into the
finals, Cho U defeated Takao
Shinji 9P whom he is currently playing in the Meijin
title match, in which Cho holds a 3-2 lead. As winner of the Agon Cup,
Cho will get to play an international
match with the winner of the Chinese
Agon Cup. Last year he lost this event to Liu
Xing 7P. This tournament is sponsored by a Buddhist sect, Agon
Shu. In its fourteen editions, the Agon Cup has never been
won by the same player more than twice in a row, although Kato
Masao 9P did win it a third time in 2003, after winning in
1995 and 1996.TEEN XIE SWEEPS TO WIN YOUNGEST JAPANESE WOMEN'S HONINBO: Xie Yimin 3P
(at right, aka Shei Imin) has swept Yashiro
Kumiko 5P 3-0, taking the final game by a half point on
Wednesday, October 17th, to become the youngest Women's
Honinbo ever in Japan at just 17 years and 11 months. Yashiro
had held the title for two years. Xie also holds the Strongest
Woman title, which she won last year, and she set a record
for becoming the youngest woman to make pro status in Japan in 2004 at
the age of 14 years and 4 months. In the current Women's
Meijin tournament she lost to Kobayashi
Izumi 6P in the semifinals but is still alive in the loser's
division where she has won her first game.
(10/18/2007) TAKAO HANGING ON IN MEIJIN: Takao Shinji 9P (l) staved off defeat in the Japanese Meijin
last week, winning the
fifth game in the title match on October 17-18 to prevent Cho
U 9P from taking the title with four straight wins. The score
is now 3-2 in Cho's favor, so with two games to go in the
best-of-seven-game match, Takao must win both to retain the title for a
second year. Takao took this title from Cho last year after Cho had
held it for two terms. Cho, aiming to regain his former prominence
among Japanese pros, has racked up an impressive winning streak this
year, and currently holds four national titles: Gosei,
Agon
Cup, Ryusei,
and NEC
Cup. Besides playing in the Meijin title match, he has a
playoff game against Cho
Chikun 9P to be the challenger for the Kisei
title, he is playing in the Honinbo
League that is just starting up, he is in the finals to be
the challenger for the Judan,
and he has made it to the third round of the NHK
Cup -- an altogether remarkable performance.JAPAN FALLING BEHIND IN NONGSHIM: Despite a good start, the Japanese team has fallen behind in the Nongshim tournament, which just completed its first stage. Members of the five-player teams play one game at a time, rotating among the three participating countries, China, Japan, and Korea. Losers are eliminated and the winner is the last player left. Japan got off to a good start when Hane Naoki 9P defeated Peng Quan 7P of China in the first game by a half point. Hane then lost to Hong Minpyo 6P of Korea, who was in turn defeated by Wang Xi 9P of China. Wang also won the final game of the first stage by defeating Kono Rin 9P of Japan by 2.5 points, eliminating a second member of the Japanese team. Wang will play a Korean in the first game of the second stage in late November. All but one of the previous eight Nongshim tournaments have been won by the Korean team. Lee Changho 9P has been the unbeatable final member of the Korean team in every case except in 2006, when Yoda Norimoto 9P of Japan managed to beat him to give the Japanese a rare victory in international competition.
WORLD GO BRIEFS: PARK TO CHALLENGE LEE IN CALTEX: Park YoungHoon swept all his games in the 12th GS Caltex Cup league to become the challenger of current champion Lee SeDol. A best-of-five match will decide the new title holder (Korea, October 11); IT’S DING VS. GU IN MINGREN: Ding Wei will challenge Gu Li for the 20th Mingren title. Ding beat Kong Jie in the final of the challenger tournament (China, October 11); FINAL 4 IN SAMSUNG: It's two from China against two from Korea for two places in the 12th Samsung Cup final. Next up: Gu Li vs. Park YoungHoon and Huang Yizhong vs. Lee SeDol. (International, October 10)
YOUR MOVE: Readers Write
BLACKBERRY (& iPHONE) GO UPDATE: “Although I am unable to solve the requested issue directly (Blackberry Go Revisited date, EJ),” writes David Whitlock, “I may be able to offer assistance. I have become the maintainer of an open source project called iShudan which aims to get a playable version of go for a similar device, the iPhone. There is talk of getting a similar interface for the various types of Blackberry and other smartphones. Using browser detection, eventually iShudan should be able to offer a custom interface to a game console such as the Wii, a phone, a computer, or any other device that can run a web browser, thus making go available wherever you are. At present, however, none of us has a Blackberry to test with. If you are interested and would like to contribute or know someone who has some experience in optimizing for mobile browsers, let them know of our project and perhaps some day soon you will be able to play or record a game of go on your Blackberry after all.” Contact Whitlock on his blog.
THE BUSINESS OF GO: “Has anyone else noticed the advertisements that have been running in the Wall Street Journal, featuring a large photograph of a go game?” wonders Steve Jones in Olympia, WA. “A large law firm is using the photo to show the ‘right balance between risk and reward.’ I noticed the ad last week (Oct. 12) and again this week (Oct. 17), at least in the west coast editions of the WSJ.”
SCHOOL GO? “I was curious if they had scholastic go tournaments like they do in chess,”wonders Susan Bartotto. “I live in the Midwest and go tournaments are hard to find. Any info would be greatly appreciated .”
Check out the First Ing North American School Team Championship, sponsored by The Ing Chang-ki Wei-chi Education Foundation and presented by the American Go Association and the American Go Honor Society.
MORE MID-KYU GAMES! “Thanks so much for having Yuan Zhou provide his mid-kyu game commentary (10/15 EJ),” writes Richard Moseson. “It is excellent and a real benefit for players like myself. It would be wonderful if we could have 4-6 of these per year in the E-journal. I've been enjoying the Motoko Arai columns too.”
TOP EURO: “Fan Hui is not the best-rated player in Europe,” (Fan Hui’s Problems, 10/15 EJ) writes EJ European correspondent Marilena Bara. “He is 2P, but Catalin Taranu of Romania is 5P and a member of Nihon Kiin.
GO QUIZ: Sixth Of Seven
Thirteen out of 19 correctly ranked the Oza title among the Japanese "big seven" open titles. One of the 13 -- Gareth Williams -- notched his sixth correct quiz answer, which was of course, 6th: "Kisei, Meijin, Honinbo, Judan, Tengen, Oza and Gosei" Full marks to Gareth and congrats to Andrew Huang, this week’s quiz winner, drawn at random from those responding correctly. Despite the growing prestige, and big top prize money of the newer international titles (Like the Toyota - OZA - make your plans to come to Baltimore or Los Angeles in January and be a part of it!), these open titles provide match fees to all of the pros in Japan, and so are vital to the Japanese pro world.
THIS WEEK’S QUIZ: To make this week’s Quiz a little more challenging, it’s a two-parter: who’s the top player at right and what is his unique relationship with the seven Japanese titles listed above? Click here to take your best shot. (photo courtesy of GoGod's New in Go)
- Keith Arnold,HKA