AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association August 21, 2000 In This Edition: - CALENDAR OF EVENTS - GO NEWS: Congress Wrap-Up; By The Numbers; Check Your Results!; BGC Goes Gardening Again; MSO 2000 UPDATE: Live From London; Go, Souls & Math; Masterpieces Of Handicap Go Now Available - THE TRAVELING GO BOARD: World Youth Goe Championship - CORRECTIONS: Va Not We; Am Not Um - AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST CALENDAR OF EVENTS August 27: Foster City, CA 3rd ING CUP YOUTH GOE TOURNAMENT 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 September 2-4: Toronto, Ontario, CANADA 2000 CANADIAN GO OPEN Mario Moran-Venega (416)259-5408 moran5@interlog.com OR (CHINESE): Wei Liang You (416)752-5593 Weiliang@netvigator.ca September 7-10: Cass Lake, MN James Kerwin's Cass Lake Go Workshop James Kerwin Home: (612) 822-9513; Work: (612) 823-0699 jimk@maroon.tc.umn.edu September 9-10: Raleigh, NC Games Galore Go Club Tournament Fall 2000 Joe Berry (919) 787-4358 jberry02@bellsouth.net September 24: Lancaster, PA JACK FROST SPECIAL Sam Zimmerman (717) 892-1249 szimmerman@wareunl.com UPCOMING/ABROAD (see WWW.USGO.ORG for details) - August 19-28: Mind Sports Olympiad #4, London, UK - September 9/10: Penzance Go Tournament (West Cornwall, UK) http://www.johnculmer.f9.co.uk/go/tournament.html 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 CONGRESS WRAP-UP BY THE NUMBERS - 693: Games played in the US Open - 521: Games played in the Self Paired Tournament - 119: Games played in the Die Hard (Day Off) Tournamant - 48: Games played in the Kids Tournament - 32: Games played in the Ing Tournament CHECK YOUR RESULTS! Complete listings of every rated game played at the just-concluded U.S. Go Congress are now available on the AGA website. Make sure your games got reported accurately, see how your opponents did, and check out your provisional rating at the same time! The names on all four reports are clickable to see player detail, and from the detail list the players are again clickable. - Summary of congress winners with links to detail files: http://www.usgo.org/congress/index.html - Tie break report for the US Open: http://www.usgo.org/congress2000/Rating/TieBreak.HTML - Summary player list in alphabetical order: http://www.usgo.org/congress2000/Rating/PlayerIndexAlpha.HTML - Summary player list in starting rating order: http://www.usgo.org/congress2000/Rating/PlayerIndexAGA.HTML - Summary player list in provisional rating order: http://www.usgo.org/congress2000/Rating/PlayerIndexProv.HTML Thanks to webmasters Chuck Robbins and Gordon Fraser, and to Database-meister Sam Zimmerman for long hours to get this mass of info online! BGC GOES GARDENING AGAIN "We're doing it again," reports Marc Palmer "Inspired by the Staten Island Botanical Garden's world famous Chinese Scholar's Garden - which they worked on for years at a cost of millions of dollars -- we have decided to participate in their annual celebrations during their Fall festivities on September 9th." "The Garden has agreed to give us a choice place to play and demonstrate - similar to our activities at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Sakura Matsuri event. It's a real special venue and a great place to play." Stay tuned for more details! MSO 2000 UPDATE: LIVE FROM LONDON Highlights from Go events at the Mind Sports Olympiad #4 now underway in London, England: - In the main title match, Matthew Macfadyen won the second game by resignation; He now leads by two games. - 24 players took part in the Lightning Tournament, which was won by Lee Hyuk 7/7; Seong June Kim was second with 6/7. Xingwen Liao and Tim Hunt both finished on 4/7 with Xingwen taking the bronze medal on tie break. Other prizes went to Simon Bexfield with 6/7 in the McMahon section, Shaun Hearn 5/7, Alistair Brooks (youth and 4.5/7), Chuck Smith 6/7 and Mark Stretch 4/7 (beginners prize). - The Youth Tournament was won by Liao Xingwen, second Jimmy Mao and third Tom Blockley. - Xingwen Liao played the computer Go programme Go4++ at the MSO, winning first on even by resignation and then later by 16 points giving the computer a 9 stone handicap. As reported in the London Times and the Guardian newspaper, Xingwen Liao is only 6 years old and has been playing for only one year. Reported from London by Alison Bexfield (For a recent Times article about the MSO and Go: http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/08/18/timnwsnws01024.html) GO, SOULS & MATH "Why are Go-playing computers humiliated by their human counterparts?" asks a report last week in the Dallas Morning News. "How does one define the soul?" AGA President Roy Laird told the News. "There's a kind of intuition, experience, of pattern recognition – characteristics of human intelligence – that makes a move just look right." "This kind of cagey explanation infuriated University of California, Berkeley math professor Elwyn Berlekamp when he first talked to Go professionals in the 1970s," continues Matt Carr's excellent article. "You'd get these relative words, these euphemisms," says Dr. Berlekamp, the man who wants to create a computer Go champion. "The professionals were not quantitatively driven at all." For the whole story, check out http://dallasnews.com/science/134811_go_07dis.ART.html and for a longer version, go to www.nationalpost.com and search under Berlekamp. MASTERPIECES OF HANDICAP GO NOW AVAILABLE The first volume of the Masterpieces of Handicap Go articles from the American Go Journal is now available. Containing 20 games with thorough professional commentary discussing how to play as both Black and White in handicap games, most of the games are between an established pro and a young player who later becomes a famous professional. The cost is $14 plus $3 shipping in the US. Send checks to William Cobb, 1425 Westshire Lane, Richmond, VA 23233--email: wmscobb@rcn.com. AS A SPECIAL INCENTIVE, ORDERS PLACED BEFORE SEPTEMBER 1ST WILL RECEIVE TWO OF THE NEW AGA STICKY NOTE PADS FREE. The latter are inscribed with the AGA's web site address and the poem: Just one game, they said,/And started to play.../ That was yesterday. THE TRAVELING GO BOARD: WORLD YOUTH GOE CHAMPIONSHIP By Matthew J. Curran (NOTE: the WYGC was held in Prague, Czech Republic in late July) Characters: Timothy Law of Canada, Benjamin Teuber of Germany, Rene Frehe of Netherlands. Junior Charachters: Eric Lui of USA, Mykola Gluchenki of Ukraine. Surprises: the game of 4-add-1, in which 4 stones in a row are rewarded by an extra move. There was a lot of "shogi" playing. Here are 2 stories, very descriptive of the week While waiting for the tour-bus Eric and I start a game... Voices in crowd-"play there" "push" don't you know any joseki?" "hane" "NO,NO, not there!" "wow" "what eez thees?" "this guy is an idiot" Mykola repeatedly asks "what are you doing? what are you doing?", and finally can no longer stand to watch the game. He picked up the stones and played for me! That was an annoying habit seemingly shared by all the juniors. Some of the older players seemed to have an insulting comment for every situation, so I came up with a test. As I play over a Cho Chi-Kun game... Benjamin-"what eez thees?" Timothy-"Black's losing" Rene-"wow" general concensus-"Black and White are both really weak" (Matthew Curran 3D, producer of mGo newsletter, lessons@goplay.com, www.goplay.com/tcgc) CORRECTIONS VA NOT WE "In the following item you misspelled my name: 26-30 Kyu Section (U.S. Open): 1st: Crystal YUAN; 2nd: Robert SOLOWEY; 3rd: Chris LIANG." "It should be Robert SOLOVAY." - Bob Solovay AM NOT UM "For future reference, maybe you mean "in memoriam" as opposed to "in memorium" (8/10/2000: "IN MEMORIUM: SKIP ASCHEIM") . Actually, a spell-checker would find such things." - Bob Myers (Yes of course; my Palm doesn't have a spellchecker, but that's no excuse. Thanks for catching it!) 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