AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association July 31, 2000 In This Edition: - CALENDAR OF EVENTS - GO NEWS: Daily E-Journal Debuts; Taking Refuge In The Dharma; Random Go Proverb Generator - YOUR MOVE: READERS WRITE: 100 Games to Shodan? - AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST CALENDAR OF EVENTS August 5-13: U.S. GO CONGRESS Denver, CO Stu Horowitz, Director; gocongress2000@uswest.net 303-258-3624 http://www.usgo.org/congress/index.html August 27: 3rd ING CUP YOUTH GOE TOURNAMENT Foster City, CA Joe Lee: 408-255-7239; fax: 408-255-5117 Mail: 1072 S. De Anza Blvd., PMB 420, San Jose, CA 95129 Mike Bull: bull@lanminds.com CANADA: September 2-4 Toronto, Ontario, CANADA 2000 Canadian Go Open Mario Moran-Venega (416)259-5408 moran5@interlog.com OR (CHINESE): You, Wei Liang (416)752-5593 Weiliang@netvigator.ca UPCOMING/ABROAD (see WWW.USGO.ORG for details) - August 11 & 12: 2ND Latin-Ibero-American Go Tournament, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Hugo Scolnik scolnik@fd.com.ar) August 19-28: Mind Sports Olympiad #4, London, UK - NEW! August 12/13: NSW Open Championships, Sydney, Australia Devon Bailey devonbailey@optushome.com.au or call(61) 9534 1321 (H) NOTE: this listing is not all-inclusive, featuring only upcoming tournaments in the next month or events which require early registration. For a complete listing, go to http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.html GO NEWS DAILY E-JOURNAL DEBUTS The E-Journal will appear daily next week, reporting "live" from the U.S. Go Congress in Denver, Colorado. The biggest event of the annual Go calendar features several major (and numerous minor) tournaments, as well as simultaneous play with professionals, lectures and much much more. For anyone not able to attend, the E-Journal will be the next best thing! TAKING REFUGE IN THE DHARMA "The Buddhist view of the way things are is so contrary to what most people think they believe that it is sometimes difficult for them to take it seriously. Only those who are struggling with great obstacles in the world as they perceive it are likely to be open to a radical revision of their understanding. Thus, Buddhists say that the first step is to realize that life is suffering. If you don't realize that the way you are proceeding is a disaster, you aren't likely to be interested in revising your approach. "In Go our ignorance is obvious because we are unable to win against stronger players in even games. This shows us clearly that there is something about the game that we don't understand. So when the stronger player makes a suggestion, even if it's to play in a way quite contrary to our usual practice, we try it, rather than dismissing it because we "know" it can't be right." (Excerpted from Bill Cobb's column "The Empty Board" in the Summer issue of the American Go Journal, in the mail now: watch your mailbox!) RANDOM GO PROVERB GENERATOR "These randomly generated proverbs might be amusing, and at times deep, and sometimes they might even be useful, they are not guaranteed to improve your play," reads the warning on the Tucson web page. "On the contrary following them might be detrimental. They are generated for the amusement only, and any usefulness is purely coincidental. So consider yourself warned." "This is just a think on the light side of Go," explains Tucson Go Club organizer Martin Lebl. "One of the members of the Tucson Go Club implemented a Random Go Proverb Generator. The results range from nonsensical, to hilarious, sometime they even make sense in regards to actual game play, although this is purely coincidental. The generation of fun sayings was the main objective, even if they didn't exactly make sense." Check it out at www.5z.com/tucsongo/randomproverbs/ or check the club's main page at www.5z.com/tucsongo/ (ED NOTE: this is what I got: "Only the gote tries to come up with a dango." Well, they did warn me.) YOUR MOVE: READERS WRITE 100 Games to Shodan? "I recently heard a "maxim" to the effect that memorizing 100 pro games would make one shodan in strength," writes Bob McGuigan. "That seems highly improbable to me. It reminded me, however, of something I read somewhere to the effect that players begin to be able to replay their own games from memory when they near shodan strength. That makes more sense since it relates to coherent strategic thinking and "clumping" of move sequences. It might be the case that any truth there may be in the "memorize 100 games" proverb comes from needing a certain level of understanding just to succeed in memorizing that many games. In other words one might have to be shodan strength to be able to do the memorization reasonably." GET LISTED & BOOST TURN-OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach 1,300 readers coast-to-coast every week! List your Go event/news In the E-Journal: email details to us at journal@usgo.org Ratings are on the web! Check the website (www.usgo.org) for the full list. GET YOUR TOURNAMENT RATED! Send your tournament data to ratings@usgo.org AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST: President; Roy Laird: president@usgo.org Eastern VP; ChenDao Lin: vp-eastern@usgo.org Central VP; Jeff Shaevel: vp-central@usgo.org Western VP; Larry Gross: vp-western@usgo.org Treasurer; Ulo Tamm: treasurer@usgo.org Membership Secretary; John Goon: membership@usgo.org Chapters Coordinator; Bill Cobb: chapters@usgo.org Tournament Coordinator; Mike Bull: tournaments@usgo.org Education Coordinator; None Redmond: education@usgo.org Congress Liaison Officer; Chris Kirschner: cngrsliaison@usgo.org AGA website; Gordon Fraser and Chuck Robbins: webmaster@usgo.org American Go Foundation; Terry Benson: terrybenson@delphi.com AGA Librarian; Craig Hutchinson: archives@usgo.org Published by the American Go Association Material published in " AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL" may be reproduced by any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source. To make name or address corrections – notify us at the email address below. Story suggestions, event announcements and other material are welcome and should be directed to: Editor: Chris Garlock email: journal@usgo.org Voice: 202-289-7174 Fax: 202-371-0168