AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association November 27, 2000 In This Edition: - CALENDAR OF EVENTS - GO NEWS: 6 To Vie For 10k Online; Intelligent Go Foundation Starts Up; Pair Go Update - YOUR TURN: READERS WRITE: Online Go A Good Start; Virtually Lost - ONLINE GO: Banned Online - GO CLUBS: Brooklyn, NY - AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST CALENDAR OF EVENTS (U.S.) December 9-10: Washington, DC Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship Ken Koester; (410) 267-0487; kkoester@riva.net December 9: Davis, CA Davis/Sacramento Quarterly Tournament Fred Hopkins, (916) 636-8758w; (916) 965-0478h fred.hopkins@mckhboc.com January 6-7: Santa Clara, CA 9th Zhu Jiu Jiang Goe Tournament Ernest Brown, (415) 641-1452; Falcon@sfo.com January 13: Salem, OR Third Annual Salem Winter Go Tournament Jim Levenick, levenick@willamette.edu January 13-14: Lancaster, PA Pennsylvania Open; Held in conjunction with the Fujitsu Qualifer Chuck Robbins, (717) 203-9100; crobbins@wareunl.com January 13-16, 2001; Evanston, IL Yang Yilun 7P Workshop Mark Rubenstein, (847) 869-6020; workshop@easyaspi.com January 14; Boston, MA MGA Winter Handicap Tournament Don Wiener, (617) 734-6316; donwiener@earthlink.net January 20; Arlington, VA Winter Warmer; Allan Abramson, (703) 684-7676; mediate@tryi.com January 27; Chicago, IL Kid's Go Camp Reunion & Winter Tournament Bob Barber; (773) 467-0423; igo@uic.edu UPCOMING/ABROAD (see WWW.USGO.ORG for details) - December 3: West Surrey (UK) Handicap; pab27@compuserve.com - December 29-January 1: London Open geoff@kaniuk.demon.co.uk - January 20: Furze Platt (Maidenhead, UK) best@vfree.com NOTE: this listing is not all-inclusive, featuring only upcoming tournaments in the next month or events which require early registration. For a complete U.S. listings, go to http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.html For the European Go Calendar see http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/go/tourn.html GO NEWS 6 TO VIE FOR 10K ONLINE AGA President Roy Laird reports that a Korean media company has arranged to sponsor an international tournament on its go server, with a top prize of $10K. Six countries will send top level amateur players -- Japan China, Russia, the US, and North and South Korea. Hawaiian Ted Ning, who won the US Open this year for the second time, will represent the US. Watch this space for more details are they become available. INTELLIGENT GO FOUNDATION STARTS UP Bob Myers reports that "The Intelligent Go Foundation is a new group devoted to the promotion of computers playing go. Its mission is to be a catalyst in the emergence of strong, dan-level programs. It plans a variety of activities, including sponsored computer go tournaments. Visit http://www.intelligentgo.org/ to learn more about IntelligentGo." Bob Myers; rtm@pacifitech.com PAIR GO UPDATE "USA's Gina Shi and Joey Hung placed 20th in the 11th Pair Go competition (which wrapped up early last week) with 2 wins," reports Tony Atkins. "Canada placed 28th." YOUR TURN: READERS WRITE Online Go A Good Start "Your initial guide to the various go servers has been very useful. It would be great if you could now keep us up to date on events taking places on various websites. Also, maybe you could ask people to send you suggestions about cool web sites for the rest of us to check out. Recently, for example, I discovered goproblems.com which perhaps everyone knows about but it kept me out of mischief for a couple of hours." - Barney Virtually Lost "I'm a 6 kyu player and was not able to locate the KGS Go Server. I enjoyed your article in the Go Journal and thought I'd check out your Virtual Go Club." - Dave Terri says: "Go to http://kgs.kiseido.com/ You have two options for accessing KGS: you can download a client called "cgoban" or you can use your browser. If you choose to use your browser you should click the "Play Go Now" link. This may take some time to load; be patient. A quicker and more stable method is to use the client "cgoban". If you want to download the client click on the link on the right of the screen "Download the Client and SGF Editor". Be sure to select the correct version for your operating system. Download the client to a folder and double click it to install it. Once you have downloaded and installed the client you can access the client from the "start" menu by going to "programs" and scrolling to "CGoban", if you use Windows. If you are not a Windows user, access the client the same way you would any other program in your operating system. The first time you use the client you should type in a user name, leave the password blank, and click the "guest" button. ONLINE GO: Banned Online By Terri Schurter Today's subject is controversial: banning. Banning is when an individual is prevented from playing on a go server. Although it may also have occurred on other go servers, the only actual instances I've heard of have occurred on IGS. As one would expect, banning can occur when a player has violated established server rules or codes of conduct -- offensive language or behavior, for example -- but there have been many complaints of unexplained and seemingly capricious bannings which continue to generate concern among online go players. IGS rules prohibit promotion of other go servers, a prohibition that apparently even extends to casual "personal" communication between players (i.e. not shouted server-wide). Bannings have also been reported for acts committed away from the IGS proper, i.e. for publishing "unauthorized" material on a separate web site. Whether justified or not, a common complaint is that those banned are unlikely to be told that they've been banned, or why: their accounts simply fail to work. An "interruption in service" simply occurs. I myself played on IGS for four years without incident, although based on what I had heard and read, I was careful to refrain from openly discussing my involvement with other servers. One day in 1999, however, my IGS account inexplicably stopped working. After more than a month -- during which my requests for an explanation went unanswered -- I received an email stating that my account had been restored. Although it was never stated that I had been banned, my reinstatement occurred immediately before the 1999 Congress, at which I planned to wear a button saying, "Banned from IGS: probably with cause, but without explanation." Some things for online players to consider: - Should there be a guarantee of freedom of speech on go servers? - Are there other ways to deal with obnoxious players? - What action justifies banning? - Must one commit a bannable action in public through a "shout" to qualify for banning, or are "tells" between players subject to scrutiny as well? What do you think? It's a free country and all views are welcome. Send them to me at goddess@terriblue.com Terri Schurter has been playing Go online since 1995. Her Go club, Wings Across Calm Waters [http://www.wingsgoclub.org], is a "virtual" chapter of the AGA. Wings meets week-nights on the Zone from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm Eastern Time, and on Wednesday nights at 8P on KGS. Terri plays under the name goddess_of_go. GO CLUBS: Brooklyn, NY The Brooklyn Go Club's Jean-Claude Chetrit reports that "While we played Go yesterday, Mrs. Guo Juan was publicly commenting 3 games. The 3 commented games can be found at http://kgs.kiseido.com/games/2000/11/25/ and are meki-2.sgf, meki.3.sgf and Vegetarian.sgf" Jean-Claude Chetrit; jc@BrooklynGoClub.org GET LISTED & BOOST TURN-OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach over 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