AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association June 4, 2001 In This Edition: - CALENDAR OF EVENTS: Latest listings! - GO NEWS: Improve Your Game at the 2001 Go Congress; Teacher of the Year; Catskills Go - YOUR MOVE: "Crosscuts" Cartoon is Offensive - GO REVIEW: The Great Joseki Debates - JOURNAL SNAPBACK: A New Era of Go Playing (August, 1985) - LIFE IN B-LEAGUE: Half man, half ant --- NAMT! - ONLINE GO: Palm Recording Programs - AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST CALENDAR OF EVENTS (U.S.) June 9 & 10: Denver, CO Yang Yilun Workshop Susan Howell showel3@attglobal.net June 16: Chicago, IL Bloomsday Basho Bob Barber (773)467-0423 igo@uic.edu June 23: Ann Arbor Summer Go Tournament Ann Arbor, MI Don Broersma (734)487-9871 dbroersma@provide.net June 30: Virginia Open Richmond, VA William Cobb (804) 740-2191 wmscobb@rcn.com July 14: Congress Tune-Up Arlington, VA Allan Abramson (703) 684-7676 mediate@mnsinc.com July 15: MGA Summer Handicap Tournament Boston, MA Don Wiener (617) 734-6316 donwiener@earthlink.net July 21-29: U.S. Go Congress York College, York PA Keith Arnold, Director; (410) 788-3520 hlime@clark.net ABROAD July 7-8: Scottish Open (Edinburgh) Donald Macleod; donald@sandwood.demon.co.uk http://www.faldara.co.uk/Go/Scottish.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 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 Improve Your Game at the 2001 Go Congress Don't miss the biggest go event of the year: the U.S. Go Congress is scheduled for July 21-29 at York College in York, Pennsylvania. Register at www.usgo.org The week-long event features major tournaments, lectures, top professionals, and tons of casual play. Players have been known to improve several levels in eight short days. There's plenty in the area for non-players, so bring the whole family! Teacher of the Year The American Go Foundation invites your nominations for 2001 Teacher of the Year. Nominees for Teacher of the Year must be an example to other teachers both in teaching go and drawing young people into a love of the game. For details on requirements: None Redmond at 5931 Wymore Way, Sacramento, California, 95822; chinski@inreach.com Catskills Go Play Go this 4th of July in the Catskills: Jean-Claude Chetrit; jc@BrooklynGoClub.org http://brooklyngoclub.org/generic_club/cgi-bin/disp_topic.iphtml?topic_id=39 YOUR MOVE: "Crosscuts" Cartoon is Offensive "Crosscuts" Cartoon is Offensive In an era in which it is no longer acceptable to publish cartoons, no matter how funny or well-intended, with Africans with rings through their noses or Spanish-speaking people wearing sombreros, why is it still acceptable to show cartoons with Asians wearing coolie hats (AGJ, Winter 2001) or engaged in martial arts combat, while shouting the inevitable: "Aieeeahhh! Sooo...." (AGJ, Spring 2001)? As an Asian-American, I have endured years of humor that depended, at least in part, on stereotyped portrayals of Asians. However funny these portrayals may (or may not) have been, they have repeatedly come back to haunt me on the playground, the classroom, and the business world. The issue is one of context. We live in an America where Asians are still commonly regarded as "other." Where someone who was born here and who speaks English flawlessly can still be asked "Where are you from? How did you learn to speak English so well?" Where an Asian-American can spend months in solitary confinement because of an underlying assumption that he is not to be trusted. Any cartoon that feeds stereotypes has no place in the American Go Journal. I urge you to stop publishing "Crosscuts" immediately. - Daniel Kim GO REVIEW: The Great Joseki Debates The Great Joseki Debates by Honda Kunihisa, 9-Dan Translated by Jim Davies and David Thayer; Ishi Press, 1992 Reviewed by David Dinhofer It is hard to find joseki books that aren't dry and mechanical. The sheer number of variations on the subject make it difficult to make it interesting. Honda Kunihisa has managed to make the joseki interesting and lighthearted with his style and approach. In this reprint of several articles from Go World, Honda Kunihisa, approaches each joseki problem as if there are three scholars presenting a different strategy and makes us think about which we would chose. He does this in a comical way as if the each of the scholars feels he has the only answer. Then he goes on to explain why one of the three is the best choice based on the whole board outlook. Kunihisa reiterates the same warning in each discussion: "Since josekis work effectively in a certain direction, it is necessary to examine the positions along the adjacent sides and in the adjacent corners when choosing a joseki for a particular opening." I'm sure he repeated this warning to emphasize its importance. This is one of the things that I found so helpful in the two joseki books by Yi-lun Yang and Phil Straus. Honda Kunihisa gives only as much follow up as is necessary for even mid level players. I found this book easy to read and wound up wanting even more problems. I expect that even low Dan level players will find this an interesting review as well as kyu level players. JOURNAL SNAPBACK: A New Era of Go Playing (August, 1985) "A new era of go playing in America arrived (at) the first U.S. Go Congress on the campus of Western Maryland College in Westminster, MD" reported Roy Laird. "While this was not exactly go's Continental Congress - we were there to play and have fun - perhaps the most impressive thing about this gathering was the intense feeling of community, of family, that existed among the participants." "Mr. Noriyuki Nakayama.a 'clown prince' among go teachers, cavorts and grimaces like a wise elf, the more clearly to open go's mysteries." ".out stepped Rin Kaiho, one of the legends of modern go.riding with Rin was Dr. C.S. Shen, the Director of the Ing Chang-Ki Wei-Ch'I Educational Foundation, an old friend of American go.after Rin and Shen, a quiet young fellow stepped out of the car.O Rissei, 7-dan, Rin's chief protégé (and) one game away from challenging Kato for the Oza crown." From The American Go Journal, August, 1985 LIFE IN B-LEAGUE: Half man, half ant --- NAMT! By Janice Kim (excerpted from the just-published Spring issue of the American Go Journal; subscribe by joining the AGA at www.usgo.org) It's that time of year again, time for the North American Masters Tournament, or NAMT - somehow, the name constantly brings to my mind a fifties-style sci-fi movie trailer with a deep, urgent voice-over: "Half man, half ant --- NAMT!!!" Coupled with the fact that my games are invariably on Sundays, I in my pajamas, Pa in his cap (I'm just kidding about the Pa in his cap part) the whole thing feels surreally nostalgic, like remembering a past that I, or no one else for that matter, actually experienced. I know it's become an issue that several players aren't competing this year, and I guess it's made even more bizarre by the rumors that the current North American Masters title holder will go on loan from the Korean Baduk Association to play for a Chinese team called the Sunny Boys - I'm not making this up - making a possible title match with his wife, the Guksoo title holder, in Baltimore this summer a veritable scheduling nightmare --- but really, who needs reality television, when we have reality Go? ONLINE GO: Palm Recording Programs by Terri Schurter "Do you know of any software that would allow me to record games on my Palm Pilot?", writes Sandy. Actually, some of us bought our Palms specifically to record go games. I picked mine up after I saw Bob Felice recording games with his at the 1997 Congress in Lancaster, and it was only as an afterthought that I started using it for other purposes. I now see Palms and Visors in the hands of perhaps a third to a fourth of all players at tournaments. A number of go recording programs for the Palm platform are available at http://www.palmgear.com This is one of the best sites for obtaining Palm programs of all types, and a search for "Go Recorder" brought three hits. My favorite go recording program for the Palm platform is Go Recorder. This shareware cost $15. The program's disadvantage is that in order to get the games off the Palm you need to run a DOS program to extract them. The latest version of Go Recorder allows you to move a stone from one position of the board to another long after the stone has been misplaced. This makes correcting errors easy. Although it is the most expensive game recorder it also seems to be the most popular; most of the Palm users I know use Go Recorder. PilotGOne is a totally free program that uses the memo application of the Palm to store individual game records. The advantage is that you can beam a game record to a friend after recording it without the trouble of running a special program to extract it from the Palm. After hotsyncing the Palm to your desktop you simply copy and paste the record into a notepad document, save it as an sgf file, and open it in your favorite sgf editor. The 4k limit of the memo program is not a factor if all you want to do is record the main line of play without comments. It is limiting, however, if you want to add many comments and variations, which is possible with PilotGOne. Another program is GoBoard, which is also shareware ($8). I've never used it, so I can't comment on its functionality or features (anyone who has, please write me). Terri Schurter -- onlinego@usgo.org -- 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. Past columns are archived at http://www.britgo.org/gopcres/agaart/index.html The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the American Go Association. GET LISTED & BOOST TURN-OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach over 2,500 readers coast-to-coast every week! List your Go event/news In the E-Journal: email details to us at MAILTO:journal@usgo.org Ratings are on the web! Check the website (www.usgo.org) for the full list. GET YOUR TOURNAMENT RATED! 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