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February 4, 2003
In This Edition:
February 22: Chicago, IL
"Axe Me No Questions"
Bob Barber 773-467-0423 komoku@earthlink.net
February 22: Toronto, Canada
Toronto Go Tournament
Monks@pmonks@look.ca 416-591-6414
March 1-2: Princeton, NJ
New Jersey Open
Rick Mott 609-466-1602 rickmott@alumni.princeton.edu
March 2: Sunnyvale, CA
7th Jujo Jiang Cup Youth Goe Tournament
Mingjiu Jiang 650-969-2857
March 13-16: Germantown, MD
Greater Washington Go Club's Yang Workshop
Anand Modak 301-513-8233 amodak@mcps.k12.md.us
March 22: Arlington, VA
Cherry Blossom
Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@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
No Vacuum: "Your recent issues of the E-Journal have been just great!," writes Michael Quintero. "I appreciate the links and reviews. I shall not tell you to keep up the good work, because you're already doing that, but I thought you might like to know you are not working in a vacuum and that your hard effort is appreciated. Not only do I look forward to the arrival of the E-Journal each week, of late I have been hoping that you would have more tips like you have been publishing."
The E-Journal staff appreciates these words of encouragement: it's always good to hear from happy readers and to know that our work is effective, useful and appreciated! We'll keep it up and continue to look for ways to do even better. Readers can help by passing along the E-Journal to all your go-playing friends with email: with over 5,000 readers worldwide we hope to hit 10,000 by the end of the year. Also, a lot of our news items or new features come from our readers, so don't hesitate to let us know if you have an idea or suggestion.
In today's game, Chang Hao 9p takes on Lee Changho 9p in a game played on December 28, 2002. The game features plenty of fascinating commentary, including a seldom-seen counter pincer by Black that Hua Yigang 8P jokingly calls "Zude Style", because this move was often adopted in fast games between Chen Zude 9P and Hua Yigang. Most interesting of all, though, is the game-losing play at B15 and White's "ordinary" move at 30 that is actually "full of murderous intentions."
BONUS: Also included this week are the solutions to last week's set of life and death problems from master tsume-go creator Yilun Yang, 7P.
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AGA membership took another leap in January, reaching a new record high of 1,680 and including 67 new members, the biggest single-month increase in nearly five years. January's increase extends to eight the AGA's string of consecutive monthly increases, which began last June. Membership is up a spectacular 15% over a year ago, putting the AGA on track to pass the 1,700-member mark this month. Youth membership was also up significantly, thanks to Feng Yun's special Youth Tournament in January, which brought in more than 40 new youth members.
A complete set of back issues of the American Go E-Journal are now
available online at
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Samples of the attached game commentaries can be found at
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AGA organizational news reports are archived at
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Our thanks and appreciation to Mike Malveaux for his terrific work
building and maintaining this archive!
SPECIAL OFFER FOR AGA MEMBERS! All the great go stuff at Yutopian is
now 5% off for AGA members! Improve your game today and save money on go
books, software and equipment at http://www.yutopian.com/
Just mention the E-Journal promotion and your AGA membership number
when you order and the friendly folks at Yutopian will be happy to take
care of you.
The Pittsburgh Go Association meets Tuesday nights, 7P at Carnegie Mellon's University Center. For directions see http://www.pittsburghgo.com/meetings.php
I've been reading a delightful mystery story set in Tibet, in which one of their famous demons plays a big role (The Skull Mantra, by Eliot Patison). Tibetan Buddhism is quite different from the Zen tradition in many ways, not the least of which is their panoply of demons. The Tibetan demons are always extremely scary and usually given to very violent interactions with humans.
The key point to remember is that they always go after the bad guys. The demons are actually on the side of those who are struggling to live in accordance with the Buddha's teachings and are there to help you overcome negative influences. This suggests a useful, if rather different, way to think about your opponent in go.
Naturally, you usually feel a little nervous when you start a game, especially if it's in a tournament, where outcome may affect your rating. So your opponent is a little scary. Why not let him become very scary? Think of him as a terrifying demon, giving off enormous negative energy, threatening tremendous damage.
Then remember that all that negative energy is directed at those bad habits and careless slips that keep marring your games and look forward to your demon blowing them away. Maybe being a little worried about the ferocious reactions of our demonic opponents could help us maintain the focus necessary to play our best. So, before you play your first stone, look at your opponent and visualize him ripping off your arm if you make a slack play. Can't hurt.
The aim of Galactic Go isn't clear. The title certainly gives no indication -- what exactly is "Galactic Go"?
From my reading, it appears that Galactic Go is an effort to explain middle game fighting in 3-stone handicap games. The chapters, however, are organized according to the opening joseki moves, and not according to middle game principles. Since it also contains long sections on obscure joseki which would be more at home in a joseki dictionary, perhaps the intent is to explain the choice of joseki in a 3-stone game. I couldn't tell.
But that's not the biggest problem. Galactic Go is rife with errors. Diagrams are missing stones and labels, text sometimes does not correspond to the diagram, and, at times, the explanatory text is simply confusing.
For example, one diagram declares failure for black because a ladder does not work when, if fact, black gets a good position by a simple geta capture. In one chapter, the diagrams switch back and forth between a joseki and its mirror image, making the sequence hard to follow. In another, the text alternates between two different threads without explanation or transition.
Diagram explanations are sometimes far too spartan. There are long series of diagrams in which the text essentially adds no more than "Black did this. White did .that. What should Black do next?" It makes for dry reading. Moreover, several interesting moves are passed over completely.
When moves are examined in the text, the level of detail varies so widely that it is hard to know what level the book is aiming for -- I would guess about 7 kyu to 2 dan.
I was left with the impression that Galactic Go was put together quickly without much planning and analysis. The mistakes I found make it hard to trust the remainder and so call into question the validity of the book as a whole.
The authors say there will be three more volumes in the series. I hope that more effort is put into the remaining three.
WANTED: Go players in the West Lafayette, Indiana/Purdue area; e-mail Chris Kubica at ckubica@insightbb.com
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