DISCOUNTS OFFERED FOR NEW AGA MEMBERS! Join the American Go Association now and you can select from the following list of great go items available from Slate & Shell and get 10% off for one, 15% off for two, 20% off for three, or 25% off for four or more. See descriptions on the web site at www.slateandshell.com Choose from: MasterGo; 400 Years of Go in Japan by Andrew Grant; ABC's of Attack and Defense by Michael Redmond 9 dan; How to Play Handicap Go by Yuan Zhou; Understanding How to Play Go by Yuan Zhou; Monkey Jump Workshop by Richard Hunter; Life and Death: Intermediate Level Problems by Maeda Nobuaki; Come Up to Shodan by Rin Kaiho 9 dan; Learning from the Masters, volume 2. Discounts will be applied to orders after membership status has been verified. Orders can be made on the web site (www.slateandshell.com) via email (bcobb@slateandshell.com) or phone 1-800-653-7640.
March 17, 2003
In This Edition:
March 22: Arlington, VA
Cherry Blossom
Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@worldnet.att.net
NOTE: PLEASE REGISTER BY Thursday 3/20!
March 29: Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Tournament and Banquet
Phil Straus 215-568-0595 pstraus@post.harvard.edu
March 29: Tacoma, WA
Inaugural Tournament
Mike Malveaux, 253-297-6268, tacomagoclub@hilltopgo.com
http://www.hilltopgo.com/tacoma/mar29.html
April 5-6: College Park, MD
University of Maryland Spring Tournament
Steve Mount 301-405-6934 smount@umd.edu
April 5-6: San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Go Club Spring Tournament
Steve Burrall 916-685-1504 sburrall@attbi.com
April 13: Boston, MA
MGA Spring Handicap Tournament
Don Wiener 617-734-6316 donwiener@earthlink.net
April 19: Middlebury, VT
George Sporzynski Memorial Go Tournament
Peter Schumer 388-3934 schumer@middlebury.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
"Is a go club in Bangkok or nearby?" someone wondered last week on the British Go Association's useful Gotalk mailing list. Within hours Gotalk had posted a response: "Thailand is an up-and-coming go nation, and there certainly is a club in Bangkok. There is a nice site http://thaigoclub.hypermart.net/ . Better if you can read Thai, of course. The 'Go in Bangkok' link there leads to http://thaigoclub.hypermart.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=12&topic=27 which may help. Check out gotalk at http://three.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/gotalk
YILUN YANG HACKENSACK WORKSHOP SET:
7-dan professional, go book author,
and extraordinary teacher Yilun Yang will teach at the 2003 NJ Yang 7p
Go Workshop, scheduled for Thursday June 26 through Sunday June 29th in
Hackensack, NJ. "Yang has an uncanny knack for pulling profound lessons
out of amateur games of any level," reports organizer Terri Schurter.
"His style is both gentle and insightful, with advice expressed through
clear and immediately applicable concepts, sprinkled with a sense of
humor. Attending this workshop will deepen your game and dramatically
add to your enjoyment of go."
Details at http://wingsgoclub.org/YangWorkshop2003.asp
GO CAMP VIDEO ONLINE:
Kids, check out the video of last year's go
summer camp online at http://www.usgo.org/gocamp/index.asp
RUI NAIWEI TAKES JEOGGANJANG CUP:
Rui Naiwei, 9P won the Jeogganjang
Cup 2-1 when she defeated Zhang Xuan (China, 8P), winning the marathon
352-move game by 9.5 points in the third and final round of the 1st
Jeogganjang (World Ladies) Cup on March 11. A commented SGF file of this
game will be attached to a future issue of the Games Edition of the
E-Journal. Although Rui is Chinese, she plays for the Korean Baduk
Association, so the Koreans continue to dominate international
tournaments, having won twenty-one consecutive world titles in a row.
- reported by Yuan Zhou and Bill Cobb.
LEE CHANGHO ONE WIN FROM WORLD SWEEP:
Lee Changho, 9P leads 1-0 in the
best of three 4th Chunlan Cup, beating Hane Naoki, 9P by resignation
March 16. The second game will be held on March 18; Lee is one win away
from completing his complete collection of world champion titles. The
winner of Chunlan Cup will get about $250,000 in prize money. Luo Xihe,
9P beat Chang Hao, 9P in the 3rd place decision match on March 10, so
Lee Changhao, Hane Naoki and Luo Xihe will be the seeded players for the
5th Chunlan Cup World Professional Championship.
- reported by Yuan
Zhou.
LI NEW CHINA TIANYUAN:
Gu Li, 7P became the new China Tianyuan on March
16 by beating Huang Yizhong in the third round of the Tianyuan Title.
-
reported by Yuan Zhou
KONG JIE WINS RICOH CUP:
Kong Jie, 7p, beat Liu Xing, 6p to win the
Ricoh Cup in the third and final round on March 9. The Ricoh Cup is a 5
round invitational single elimination tournament. Kong Jie beat Chang
Hao 9P in the semifinal.
- reported by Yuan Zhou
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Do you ever wish you could correct or update the printed books in your library? Even with the most conscientious proofreading, errors sneak through. When a book goes to press it's frozen at a moment in time, but go knowledge marches onward. What's your reaction when you find a mistake? (Say, a stone is missing from the diagram and "Black to kill" becomes "Can black live?") Of course, you appreciate the extra mental challenge, but do you correct the mistake? I have a friend who marks such errors with a red crayon because it catches the eye. (Then he wonders why pages stick together.) I hope your method is less messy. These days I use a computer to note the errors. A new feature in the latest version of the SmartGo games editor [http://www.SmartGo.com] lets you create neat errata sheets and addenda complete with diagrams. Diagrams can be exported as EPS or PDF files. You can then pop them into a word processor, or you can add text to the PDF. Build files with corrected text and diagrams. Let each file name is the name of the target book. Each printed page can be sized to fit nicely inside the book. Print the book name and page number on each sheet, in case they accidentally flutter out. If you lose an errata sheet, or give one away to a fellow go player who likes the idea, it can be reprinted quickly. (a longer version of this column will appear in the forthcoming Spring issue of the American Go Journal)
I will never forget my astonishment when I first discovered Chinese
counting. I had learned by Japanese rules, and when my opponent filled
my territory and removed all the white stones from the board to begin
counting, my jaw dropped. You mean there's another, completely
different scoring method that comes out to within one point in nearly
all cases? How remarkable that such a simple game can contain such
profound conundrums that even a "perfect" set of rules has yet to be
found. I was reminded of this intriguing truth when collecting sites for
my column on ko some weeks back. Looking a little further, I discovered
that there are at least four distinct workable rule sets in existence,
and no real consensus exists as to the "best" set. It turns out that the
quest of a "perfect" rule set of go is a subject of deep study by a
group of ardent enthusiasts out there. If such things interest you, a
world of interesting discourse awaits you on the Internet. Japanese
professionals taught most early Western player, so most Westerners are
familiar with Japanese rules, in which players score the game by
counting up vacant intersections they have surrounded. Codified shortly
after the Japan Go Association (Nihon Kiin) was established in 1927, the
Japanese rules were augmented and modified many times over the years,
eventually becoming an unwieldy mass of arcane, sometimes arbitrary
conventions to cover special situations, last amended in 1949 and
available at http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/wagc.html . In the 1980's the
Nihon Kiin set out to revise and simplify their rules, finally settling
on a revision in 1989. Go to
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/Japanese.html to see a translation
and commentary by James Davies. Chinese players, on the other hand,
score their games by counting the territory occupied by stones as well
as vacant intersections. Rather than carefully preserving the essential
outline of the game as in Japanese counting, one player (usually Black)
simply fills all his/her territory with stones of the same color. The
white stones are removed from the board, and the black stones are
grouped in units of ten. More than 181 stones means victory for Black,
otherwise White has won. In China, this counting method has been in use
for thousands of years. James Davies has also written a thorough
description of Chinese rule, available at
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/Chinese.html. The author of
several volumes in the classic "Elementary Go Series", Davies has also
translated and commented extensively on rules issues. This article is
reprinted from The Go Player's Almanac 2001." In ancient China, the
rules stipulated placement of stones in certain patterns in corners and
along the side before the game began. To see a similar system that was
used in ancient Tibet, go to
http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/go/variants.html#tibetan. An especially
tantalizing commentary on the ancient Chinese rules can be found at
http://extend.hk.hi.cn/~playgo/rule/chinarule.htm. It seems to include
analysis of an ancient game, but unfortunately it appears to be in
Chinese. Any translators out there?
(next week: Ing & AGA counting)
What a find for us weak/middle kyu players! If you are weaker than 9 kyu and you play in a club dominated by strong kyu players and dan-level players, you probably spend most of your time playing handicap games. If this is so, this book will be very useful for you. Although it is called a "Dictionary" it does not provide simply brief catalogue of handicap joseki and tesuji like many of the other dictionaries - it actually explains fundamental principles of handicap play in terms that weaker players can understand. The book is written from Black's perspective. Each handicap level - from nine stones down to two is covered. Most diagrams have only seven or eight moves. Each diagram has comments on the key concepts illustrated. The nice thing is that one can actually develop an instinct for the shape of the stones and how they move. The book is designed for you see what moves are possible and the reasons for their choice - with a consistent strategy in mind. It not only shows the 'good' variations, it also shows some 'weaker' variations and explains the difference. I suspect that the book is written for players in the 15-10k AGA range. I am sure that study and application of the principles within the book, (with the view of understanding rather than memorization) will result in you becoming a stronger player.
FOR SALE: Goban from the Meiji period with beautiful lacquered sides. The bowls are decorated in similar style and include the original slate and shell stones. Price to be determined by interest. Email Geoffrey Gray at gray@hardnet.com.au (posted 3/10)
FOR SALE: Goban, 250 years old made of Yew wood. original black lacquer lines (lines are in perfect shape); Has large water stain on top and crack on side. Lance@KemperPainting.com (posted 3/10)
WANTED: info on organizations dedicated to promoting go among business people. I need the info for a book I'm writing using go as a metaphor and practice for paradigm shifting in business; I'd appreciate any assistance. Gay Hendricks; gay_h@hendricks.com (posted 3/10)
WANTED: Jade bowls and stones in very good condition. Contact mattman30yrs@hotmail.com (posted 3/3)
Got Go stuff to sell, swap or want to buy? Do it here and reach more than 5,000 Go players worldwide every week at Go Classified! Send to us at journal@usgo.org
Ratings are on the web! Check the website; http://www.usgo.org for the full list.
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