AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association September 10, 2001 In This Edition: - CALENDAR OF EVENTS: Latest listings! - SCOREBOARD: Raleigh, NC - SPECIAL REPORT: Beijing Diary - YOUR MOVE: Readers Write: Go Dog Go - Go Review: Go Elementary Training & Dan Level Testing - ONLINE GO: Dash Baduk - Go Reviewers Wanted! - AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST CALENDAR OF EVENTS (U.S.) September 15: Lancaster, PA Jack Frost Special Sam Zimmerman (717) 892-1249 szimmerman@wareunl.com September 21-23: Gaithersburg, MD: Kerwin Weekend Workshop Gordon Fraser; (301) 540-2640; gordon@clark.net September 29: Durham, NC Joe Shoenfeld Memorial Marathon Go Tournament Paul Celmer; (919)779-7925 transwrite2@lycos.com http://www.home.earthlink.net/~transwri/shoenfeld/ October 6: Chicago, IL WE WILL, WE WILL WRECK YOU Bob Barber (773) 467-0423 igo@uic.edu October 6-7: Portland, OR Portland Open Go Tournament Robert O'Malley (541) 738-1690 omalley@oce.orst.edu October 7: Boston, MA MGA Fall Handicap Tournament Don Wiener (617) 734-6316 donwiener@earthlink.net October 14: Hoboken, NJ Hoboken Fall Tournament Larry Russ (201) 216-5379 lruss@stevens-tech.edu November 4: Broomfield, CO Workshop with Yuki- Activities: Teaching the teachers, game analysis, latest go news from Europe and Japan, and other appropriate topics for the attendees. U. Tamm (303) 466-2865; utamm@worldnet.att.net 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: Raleigh, NC August 25-26: Raleigh, NC Games Galore Go Club "Fall" Tournament Director: Joe Berry Section A (3d-2k) 1st: Tom Bitonti 1k (5-0); 2nd: Ray Hunley 2k (3-2); 3rd: Olarn Nateharn 2k (3-2) Section B (5k-9k) 1st: Adam Bridges 7k (4-1); 2nd: Peter Armenia 5k (3-2); 3rd: David Allen 9k (2-2) Section C (14k-23k) 1st: Steve Manning 23k (4-1); 2nd: Will Daland 12k (3-2); 3rd: Tom McCarthy 16k (3-2) GO NEWS SPECIAL REPORT: Beijing Diary By Bonnie Liao 8/24: My 6-year-old son Lionel goes to his go lessons four times a week in Beijing, China. Two are held in the teacher's home with 5-6 other boys. The other two are held at the "Nie Wei Ping Go School" also taught by his teacher with 15 other kids. The teacher is a well-known lady specializing in kids of Lionel's age and older. China's ranking system is quite different from ours. There are many ranking competitions where amateur players play for two days for the purpose of being ranked or move into the next rank. Lionel went to his first competition last month trying to become an amateur 1-dan but missed it by one game. The first 22 players (out of 120+) were given the 1-dan rank, but he was placed at the 25th. He is going to give it another shot this coming weekend. Almost every day some adult neighbors come to visit Lionel, play a couple of games and review them with him. Recently, a 75-year-old former professional player, who's also a neighbor of my parents, gave Lionel many books and asked him to follow the games on his own. 8/26: Good news: Lionel has just been awarded the Beijing Amateur 1-Dan title today! After two days of intense competition, 30 of 150 players became Amateur 1-Dan today. Lionel placed 10th, winning 7 of 9 games. Everyone in the family is thrilled! On Saturday, Lionel won 4 and lost 1. On the second day he was grouped with the previous day's winners, so it was much tougher to win. After winning the morning two games, the first game in the afternoon took him 45 minutes and he lost it. His opponent turned out to be one of the few adult players. And I think adults are still better at strategic thinking than Lionel. Before going into the last game, my dad asked Lionel if he'd "give it all you have to win." He explained to Lionel that he'd heard winning seven games would guarantee him to be a 1-Dan. Otherwise, winning 6 games would put him on the borderline and he may or may not be able to get it. Lionel said he'd "fight to the end." So when he emerged from the competition room and saw his grandpa in the crowd, instead of yelling "I've won," he yelled "I'm a 1-Dan now!" The other 15 kids Lionel has been studying with are all from Beijing or the nearby provinces. To these kids, Lionel is the "American boy." While he's in the US, he's called the "Chinese boy." I'll let him worry about his "identity problem" (as many immigrants' children do) when he'd older. So far he's proud he is both. YOUR MOVE: Readers Write Go Dog Go "I was walking my dog the other day and thinking about go," reports H. Vernon Leighton. "The dog passed the house of another dog who barks at him. Then two houses down, he moved his bowels. I thought, Hmm, a keima move away from the dog's back yard. Then I noticed that every time my dog passed another dog's house, he had the same pattern. In fact, houses a keima move away from a vocal dog tended to have signs warning about dog droppings." "It occurs to me that canines in the wild do play a game of surrounding territory, using wastes as property markers. So they do play their own simple version of go, albeit all the stones are dark." "So next time you tell Fluffy about your big loss, and he seems to understand, maybe he really does." Go Review: Go Elementary Training & Dan Level Testing A CD-ROM edited by Yu Bin and produced by Jiang Jujo People's Posts & Telecommunications Publishing House Reviewed by Lon Atkins, 14K Interactive learning produces superior results when compared with static (i.e. "book") learning. If you don't have a teacher, or even if you do, this CD may hasten your acquisition of go skill. The problems range from the 17 kyu level to amateur 5 dan level. The user interface of this program is annoyingly amateurish, but the organization of material is excellent. The program offers two formats. "Promotion" consists of 150 steps of 20 problems each. You get ten tactical problems, five corner pattern (joseki) problems, and five whole board problems. 90 points (18 correct answers) are required to advance from one step to the next. It's possible to cheat yourself with brute force iterations until the solution is found. Not good. But if you play straight through and fail to reach 90points, you start over from scratch. This kind of iteration is good. It drums the patterns into your brain. "Test Your Level" lets you declare your strength (Beginner, Middle or High) and then choose from the three problem categories provided in "promotion." Go Elementary Training & Dan Level Testing is a terrific tool that can be played a bit every day. Working an interactive element into your study regimen will pay off in many ways. ONLINE GO: Dash Baduk by Terri Schurter Dash Baduk, a new Korean Go Server, is working hard to promote itself. A CD-Rom with the Dash Server software was freely distributed this summer at the American Go Association Congress in York, Pennsylvania. Although I carried one of these CD-Roms home with me from the Congress, it was not until a few weeks ago when I received an email suggesting that I visit the server that I decided to give Dash a try. I went directly to the web site at http://dashn.com/engl-home/index3.html to download the latest version of software rather than install from the CD. Installation was simple and an icon was created on my desktop. Upon logging on to Dash you have the choice of joining a "fun lounge" or a "ratings lounge". I was always the only one in the fun lounge. The ratings lounge would vary from about six to ten people. Dash is still young and quite small, but likely to grow. Expect to see higher numbers in a month or two as new members sign on and explore the server. The graphics are quite nice with the added feature of personal avatars. You get to choose from among a number of avatars to represent you at the go board. During play you can animate your avatar by pressing buttons. There is live online help in the form of the "master". Press the button and type your question into the window. When I tried this I was informed that the master was busy consulting and to try again later. This appears to be a way to contact a resident server administrator. Dash 911 is a feature that allows you to capture messages to report verbal abuse to the "master". You can also report incidences of escaping. A series of tips appear at the bottom of the screen which you can turn off if you like. I played a game on Dash against a 12 year old boy from Chicago who happens to be an AGA member. There are usually one or two logged on from the United States as well as from Europe. I recently received a Dash newsletter via email which contained a board position from a game played on the server. Dash is obviously making an attempt to provide something extra through this service, and they seem to have a server worth looking at. Give Dash a try. 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. Go Reviewers Wanted! Read a go book that rocked your world? Or one that was a complete waste of 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. Include the book's title, publisher, cost, your name and email address. Choose any book you like, from brand-new publications to old stand-bys that you keep going back to. Also, be sure to indicate what level player is best served by the material. Already reviewed so far: Attack and Defense (Elementary Go Series, Vol. 5); EZ Go; Fighting Ko; Get Strong at Invading; Get Strong at Tesuji; Go Elementary Training & Dan Level Testing; Go for Beginners; Go World (the magazine); Gogod Database; Golden Opportunities; Graded Go Problems for Beginners (Vols 1-4); In the Beginning; Intermediate Level Power Builder, Vol. 1; Jungsuk In Our Time; Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go; Learn To Play Go; Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go; Magnetic Go Set (Kiseido MG25); Palm OS Edition of the Many Faces of Go Joseki Dictionary; Pro-Pro Handicap Go; Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go; Tesuji Made Easy CD; The 1971 Honinbo Tournament; The Go Player's Almanac; The Great Joseki Debates; The Master of Go; The Middle Game of Go; Understanding How to Play Go GET LISTED & BOOST TURN-OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach over 2,500 readers coast-to-coast every week! 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To make name or address corrections - notify us at the email address below. Story suggestions, event announcements, Letters to the Editor and other material are welcome - subject to editing for clarity and space -- and should be directed to: Editor: Chris Garlock email: journal@usgo.org Voice: 202-857-3410 Fax: 202-857-3420