AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association February 19, 2001 In This Edition: - CALENDAR OF EVENTS: Latest listings! - SCOREBOARD: Charlotte, NC; Princeton, NJ - GO NEWS: 2001 U.S. Go Congress Re-Scheduled; Feng Yun On Sente And Double Threats at the NYGC ; Ascheim Public Go Lesson #12: Pierre Audouard - GO CLUBS: Chapter Championships - GO REVIEW: "The 1971 Honinbo Tournament" - ONLINE GO: Turn-based Go on KGS - AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST CALENDAR OF EVENTS (U.S.) February 24: Silver Spring, MD Go/Chess Tournament Anand Modak 301-869-0327 amodak@mcps.k12.md.us February 25: Flushing, NY 2nd AM1480 Radio Seoul/KTV Go Tournament Manhattan Go Club (212) 268-2996 March 3: Philadelphia, PA Go Tournament/Thai Banquet (AKA the Amtrak Special) Phil Straus pstraus@post.harvard.edu 215-568-0595 March 10/11: Boca Raton, FL Miami Go Club Annual Tournament Chris Goldthorpe ChessGuy@bellsouth.net March 15-18: Gaithersburg, MD Sixth Washington Winter Go Yang Workshop Gordon Fraser (301) 540-2640 gordon@clark.net March 24-25: Raleigh, NC Spring 2001 Go Tournament Joe Berry (919) 787-4358 gggc@nc.rr.com ABROAD: - March 3: Cambridge Trigantius (England); alex@archduke.demon.co.uk - March 4: European Youth (Poland) - March 10/11: Amsterdam, Holland: Ing Memorial Weekend Tournament egcc@xs4all.nl before March 5 to register http://www.xs4all.nl/~egcc for more info - March 17/18: Candidates (England, qualifiers only); timhunt@timhunt.freeserve.co.uk Polish Go Association Internet Cup (B); 50 players (from 6D to 16K from 23 different countries) participated in tournament A; each tournament consists of five rounds. Each game has to be played within 7 to 14 days. Played on WING, PLGS and Kiseido servers. www.pgaic.gospecials.com Slawek Piela pga_ic@poczta.arena.pl 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 SCOREBOARD: Charlotte, NC; Princeton, NJ February 10/11: Carolinas Open Charlotte, N.C. TD: Tim Myers; 23 players. - Section A: 1st : KIM Suk-Jun 6d 4-1; 2nd: Paul CELMER 2k 3-2 - Section B: 1st : Adam BRIDGES 8k 3-2; 2nd : Peter ARMENIA 6k 3-2 - Section C: 1st : Thomas MCARTHY 20k 4-1; 2nd : Erik LINDQUIST 16k 4-1 February 17-18: New Jersey Open Princeton, NJ TD: Paul Matthews/Rick Mott; 61 players New Jersey State Co-Champions ($150 each): Ke HUANG 8D; Yuan ZHOU 7D; Eric LUI 6D (3-way tie, with 4 wins in 5 games: Eric beat Ke, Ke beat Yuan, Yuan beat Eric; names in tiebreak order) - 5 Game Winner ($100): Tong HUANG, 1K - 4 Game Winners ($50 each) : Mickey LEE 3D; Ulrich GOERTZ 2D; Yonghe ZHANG 2K; Conny IRL 4K; Ruth YESELSON 7K; Michael SPANER 11K (note: ranks as players were provisionally rated after the tournament) GO NEWS 2001 U.S. GO CONGRESS RE-SCHEDULED! This year's U.S. Go Congress has been re-scheduled for July 21-29, due to circumstances beyond the organizer's control. The location - York, Pennsylvania - remained unchanged. - Keith Arnold, hlime@clark.net; 410-788-3520 FENG YUN ON SENTE AND DOUBLE THREATS AT THE NYGC Feng Yun, 9-Dan professional and 1996 Ladies World Champion gave a go lecture for the first time at the New York Go Center last Saturday, February 17. The lecture offered an analysis of a game that Feng Yun played with Chang Hao in a Chinese professional rating tournament. The game was highly competitive and started with black choosing to play a Mimic Chinese Opening. There were several moves where the timing gave the opposing player the option to ignore the move and make a forcing move elsewhere, placing the outcome of the game in doubt. The first of these, in the middle game, favored Chang Hao. But in the endgame, when Chang Hao made a move threatening a significant reduction of Feng Yun's territory, the problem was that one of his groups had only one eye and Feng Yun came up with a move that threatened both to kill his group and to reduce his territory. The game was still close but Chang Hao later resigned, giving Feng Yun victory in this highly important game. The audience found the game both instructive and entertaining, and turnout for the lecture was excellent, in part due to coverage in the American Go E-Journal and a special E-mail sent to players by Sam Zimmerman. Mr. Takayama, who arranged for the lecture, says that it is hoped that Feng Yun will be able to give another lecture at the NY Go Center. - Paul Kazuko ASCHEIM PUBLIC GO LESSON #12: PIERRE AUDOUARD Ms. Feng Yun, 9D pro, China, plays a handicap game against Mr. Pierre Audouard (IGS "ptiPierre" 3d, French 4d) on the IGS this Saturday, 2/24 at USA EST 11A. Mr. Audouard will play using the IGS student account, "publicgo". Mr. Audouard lives in Marseilles, France, and is active at the French Go Federation, especially for teaching Go to children. He is the author of the book La Decouverte du Go ("Discovering Go"), a collection of 200 Go problems in French, and is a regular contributor to the Revue Francaise de Go ("French Go Review"). Normally, the lesson begins with a 1 hour game (each player has 30 minutes). For this lesson, however, Mr. Audouard will receive an extra 15-20 minutes of playing time, because he suffers from an eye condition "retinitis pigmentosa" which affects his playing, especially as the board fills up. (It becomes harder to find the "last move".) Pierre was invited for a lesson solely for his achievements in Go. Sadly, Pierre is slowly becoming blind. He suggests that anyone interested in learning more about "retinitis pigmentosa" use the following link for more information: http://www.brps.demon.co.uk/ GO CLUBS: Chapter Championships "We now have winners in all four matches for the first round" of the pilot AGA Chapter Championships, reports Steve Fawthrop. "Congratulations to Portland, 'Thickness Triumphs' (Evanston, IL), 'The Three Sandbaggers' (Tucson, AZ) and 'The Armadillos' (Austin, TX) and better luck in March to the remaining four teams." "The two remaining games may still be critical for final places so there is still serious competition left in the first round," adds Steve. "Now that we have this pilot tournament underway it is time to start thinking about the main tournament which starts in May. Let's all make a big effort to enroll more players. Sign up at http://www.wingsgoclub.org and let's see how many team we can get for the official AGA Chapter Championships for 2001. If we get enough interest we will start both a handicap and even section and you can play in both if you wish. And don't forget, clubs can enter as many teams as they wish." - S. G. Fawthrop; S.G.Fawthrop@Eklectika.net GO REVIEW: "The 1971 Honinbo Tournament" The 1971 Honinbo Tournament By Kaoru Iwamoto, 9-dan (The Ishi Press 1972) Reviewed by Lon Atkins, 15K "Presence" is a word we often attribute to a powerful personality. Presence may also imply our attendance at an event. Great events are usually sparked by strife between powerful people. A tournament battle for a prestigious title can capture both meanings of the word. The 1971 Honinbo Tournament was rich with presence in every sense of the word. Rin Kai Ho, Honinbo, seemed invincible. Whatever challenger might rise from the Honinbo League must be truly a remarkable player to have a chance. "The 1971 Honinbo Tournament" tracks the ascent of Yoshio Ishida to his destiny. The author, Kaoru Iwamoto, feels this exceptional presence in his bones. His words transport us straight into the tournament. They give us pictures of the contestants, the conditions, the stakes and the high-voltage tensions of the games. In my first reading of the book I drank the atmosphere, and I meticulously worked my way through a game or two. In my second reading (having improved a bit) I was able to appreciate more of the wonderful annotations Iwamoto provides. Enjoying the games makes the narrative all the more vivid. This is a book of two great virtues: "Presence" is one, the historical chronicle. Incredibly fine go with superb annotations is the other. In my third reading, which will surely happen, because this book is one of the cornerstones of any enduring go library, I expect to feel more acutely the presence of mythic 1971 and the battle of these great warriors. ONLINE GO: Turn-based Go on KGS by Terri Schurter It turns out that "turn-based go" is a little known feature of the Kiseido server as well as the IYT server, as recently reported here. One shortcoming of the KGS turn based system is that both players must be logged on at the same time to initiate the game. Once the game is started, however, it can be closed and players can play one move at a time as their schedules allow. Players must log onto the server and load the game to make their next move, after which the server will email the other player informing them that their opponent has made a move. Steve Rich (Buck on KGS) alerted me to this capability and we played a 9x9 game to test the KGS facilities. We each made one move and closed the game. After I logged on the next day to move, Steve received email informing him that it was his turn, and the game progressed move by move. If you are logged onto the server when your opponent opens the game, you will receive a popup message telling you which room the game has been opened in, and inviting you to rejoin the game. If both players rejoin the game at the same time they can play as many moves as they like in the same manner that they would play any other game on the server. If they want to finish via turn-based moves they can close the game and go their separate ways again. This is the best of both worlds. The second shortcoming of turn-based go on KGS is that both players must be present at the same time to score the game. The good news is that the game will be scored correctly, which is a refreshing change from IYT where errors in scoring apparently abound. If users start to take advantage of the turn based features of KGS perhaps William Shubert, the author of the KGS server software, can be persuaded to add the code necessary to allow players to initiate games, and to score them, without the need to have the opponent present online. Terri Schurter has been playing go online since 1995. Her 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. The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the American Go Association. Easy Money Send us a 150-word review of a go book or go software and - upon acceptance -- we'll give you a $25 gift certificate to the go vendor of your choice. Tell us what you liked - or didn't like - and how it helped (or didn 't help) your game. 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