AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association June 17, 2002 In This Edition: - CALENDAR OF EVENTS: Latest listings - SCOREBOARD: Chicago, IL - GAME COMMENTARY: Black's Perfect Game - GO NEWS: Plan Now for Day Off at Go Congress; Go Game Show; Many Faces of Go New & Improved; Absolute Beginners Needed; Board Nominations Close - GoReview: Life and Death: Intermediate Level Problems - AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST CALENDAR OF EVENTS (U.S.) June 22: Richmond, VA Virginia Open William Cobb 804-740-2191 wmscobb@rcn.com June 27-30: Mawah, NJ 2002 N.J. Yang 7p Go Workshop John C. Stephenson 201-612-0852 jcs@wingsgoclub.org July 7: Seattle, WA Monthly Ratings Tournament Jon Boley 206-545-1424 go@seattlego.org July 13-20: Winona, MN AGA Summer Go Camp Peter Rzepecki 763-420-7618 agagocamp@usgo.org July 13: Arlington, VA Congress Tune-Up Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@worldnet.att.net July 13: Akron, OH Handicap Tournament Joe Carl 330-493-1663 jcarl@neo.rr.com July 14: Boston, MA MGA Summer Handicap Tournament (Skip Ascheim Memorial) Don Wiener 617-734-6316 donwiener@earthlink.net August 3-11: Chicago, IL 2002 American Go Congress Robert Barber 773-467-0423 igo@uic.edu 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: Chicago, IL June 15: Chicago, IL Bloomsday Basho 42 players Six won all their games: Yan, Zhiwu 5d (maybe 6d?); Carter, Lannie 4k (celebrating his 30th birthday); Zhang, Richard 16k; Zhan, Shawn 21k; Zhou, William 26k; Pontarelli, Brett 26k. "It should be noted that three of the winners are students of our local Pro, Huang Liping," reports Bob Barber, "And in August, Chicago challenges the world!" adds Bob. "Send your best Go players to the 18th US Go Congress, August 3-11 in River Forest, Illinois." GAME COMMENTARY: Black's Perfect Game Today's game was regarded as a "perfect" game by Black. Originally published in Go Review 7, XII (July 1972), Ishida Yoshio takes Black against Iwata Tatsuaki in the Final Round of the Pro Best Ten Title. Plenty of comments and variations show how Black develops a commanding position by Move 95, with both thickness and territory well distributed around the board. An especially interesting comment concerns "the sportsmanship of Ishida who could have played more severely at the end, but didn't because he knew the victory was his and perhaps out of respect for Iwata, a senior member of the Kitani School." To receive the weekly commented game files, please join the AGA today at http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp At just $30/year it's the Go bargain of the year! GO NEWS Plan Now for Day Off at Go Congress If there is enough advance interest, one or more of the following Congress-organized excursions will be available on Wednesday, August 7 at the U.S. Go Congress in Chicago, IL. Each would include charter bus service from the Congress and back: (1) Central Chicago on Your Own (2) Architecture River Cruise (3) Chicago Botanic Garden Tour. "There are also endless possibilities for organizing your own excursions, reports Dolores Barber, "including a visit to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, less than a mile away from the Concordia campus." For more information: - City of Chicago Tourism (includes route maps of free trolleys): http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Tourism/ - Chicago Botanic Garden: http://www.chicago-botanic.org/ - Oak Park and River Forest: http://www.visitoakpark.com/ - Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio: http://www.wrightplus.org/ To register your interest in one of the three proposed Congress-organized excursions or to obtain additional information, contact Dolores at djbarber@uic.edu. Go Game Show Go got a bit more national exposure June 5th on Jeopardy, reports the ever-vigilant Fred and Ginnie at the Fun Coast Go Club in Daytona Beach, FL. "Under the category 'Two Letter Words,' they showed a short video clip of a pair on the staff 'playing' Go, described as a Japanese game, which was easily answered by one of the contestants. The brief view of the game was enough to determine that it wasn't a real game played, merely a few formations of stones." Many Faces of Go New & Improved After five years of MFOG v. 10, author David Fotland has made improvements in every aspect of the program, along with many new features. Major new features of version 11 include a stronger Go engine, new and improved Go problems, over 2000 Go problems for all levels of play, built in Internet Go Server client, better game navigation and editing as well as improved graphics. Other new features include an improved Joseki library, more professional games, improved printing and much more. The full price of The Many Faces of Go is $89.95; full price upgrades are $45. Version 10 is available for $59.95 while supplies last. Until July 3rd, current owners of The Many Faces of Go version 10 can upgrade to version 11 for only $29.95. This special offer is only available directly from Smart Games. (Proof of purchase required). Buy on-line at http://www.smart-games.com/retail.html, or from your favorite Go vendor. Absolute Beginners Needed Peter Shotwell is looking for reviewers of a beginning Go book that he (with Sangit Chatterjee and Huiren Yang) are working on for a commercial press, which is due out next spring. Preferred are absolute beginners who can use the book to learn how to play and learn something about the history of the game. Email Peter at Shotwell@nyc.rr.com Board Nominations Close Nominations for the new AGA Board are now closed. Ballots will be sent to the chapters on June 29 and will be counted on August 5. Profiles of the candidates are at www.usgo.org GoReview: Life and Death: Intermediate Level Problems by Maeda Nobuaki, 9 Dan. Slate & Shell; $14.00 http://www.slateandshell.com/ As the back of this little book says, Maeda was known as "the god of life and death Go problems". These problems, like many of Slate & Shell's offerings, were originally published in Go Review, the first serious Go magazine in English. It's good to have them widely available again. The book follows the format of the magazine articles, which is both a strength and a weakness. Each of the magazine articles presented ten life and death problems of increasing difficulty. In a magazine, this allowed most players to cruise through the problems until they reached their level. And indeed, a wide range of readers would find challenging problems in the book. There is a problem in simply reproducing these cycles of ten, though. A reader might quickly run through the start of each cycle, but then become stuck on a hard problem. Repeating this cycle eleven times, for the 110 problems here, could become frustrating. The problems in each cycle cover a reasonable range of difficulty. I'm an AGA 1 kyu who enjoys life and death problems. The first five or so in each set seemed very easy to me, often being obvious; but, by the last one or two, I had to think longer than would have been reasonable in a game. The book claims a range from about 7 kyu to 2 dan, which doesn't seem far off except for the very easiest problems. Physically, the soft-cover book is small and perfect-bound. It is well edited. I only found two noticeable mistakes: Problem 19 should say White , not Black, to play and kill, but few would be confused; Problem 41 more seriously omits the edge of the board on the right hand side, which may confuse some. The book is small enough to be carried in my briefcase or a large pocket, providing a source of short problems to read in my odd free minutes. While certainly not my favorite life and death book, I will reread it several times. Go Classifieds? We've gotten a few queries recently from readers who are interested in swapping or selling Go stuff (books, equipment, etc). If there's enough interest, we're happy to set up a Go classified section of the Ejournal. Send a brief description of the item you'd like to sell or swap to journal@usgo.org. Please be sure to include your name and email address. Everyone's A Critic Send us a 150-word review of a Go book, software or equipment and - upon acceptance -- we'll give you a $25 Go gift certificate. Tell us what you liked - or didn't like - and how it helped (or didn't help) your game. Please be sure to include the book's or software's title, publisher, cost, your name and email address. Choose any book or software you like, from brand-new publications to old stand-bys that you keep going back to. We're also very interested in Go equipment reviews: boards, stones, clocks. GET LISTED & BOOST TURN-OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach nearly 4,000 readers 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; Mike Peng: 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 Recording Secretary: Susan Weir: susan@weirdolls.com Chapters Coordinator; Bill Cobb: chapters@usgo.org Tournament Coordinator; Mike Bull: tournaments@usgo.org Youth Coordinator; None Redmond: education@usgo.org Congress Liaison Officer; Chris Kirschner: cngrsliaison@usgo.org AGA website; Chuck Robbins: webmaster@usgo.org American Go Foundation; Terry Benson: terrybenson@nyc.rr.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, 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