January 12, 2004
In This Edition:
EVERYONE'S A WINNER AT OZA:
This week's Second Toyota/Denso North American Oza Championship
in New York and Seattle will attract more than
200 of the strongest American players, competing for up to $20,000 in
prizes. North America has been invited to send two representatives this
year, so instead of facing off for the North American rep, the winners
of the Seattle and New York tournaments will both play for $300,000 and
a new Lexus later this year in Japan! Click on
http://www.usgo.org/usa/ozaprizes to see the generous prize structure of
this event. It's even better than it looks -- in the handicap sections,
each prize is matched by a transferable Congress credit of equal value.
"We hope this will encourage more people to come to the Congress," said
principal organizer Roy Laird. "Winners will also be free to sell or
give their credit to someone else." In addition, over 100 "Fighting
Spirit" prizes -- Japanese prints, go books, Hikaru no Go promotional
items and more -- will be awarded in each location. Everyone who
finishes all six rounds without winning a trophy will receive a prize.
In New York, a grand reception and concert at the Nippon Club, featuring renowned shakuhachi master Ronnie Nyogetsu Seldin, will open the festivities on Friday evening. Click on http://www.usgo.org/usa/ozaconcertschedule.doc to view the program. As of Sunday over 180 players had registered or expressed their intent to do so. More than 200 are expected. Nearly half the field is in the double-digit kyu range, including a contingent of over twenty students from Feng Yun's Go School in New Jersey, who will be wearing their club uniform. Ms. Feng herself, one of only two female 9-Dans in the world, will be the woman to beat at the New York event. The 2001 US representative, Huiren Yang of Boston, will be there too, along with top amateurs like Thomas Hsiang, Ron Snyder and Yuan Zhou.
Pre-registration for the New York tournament closes AT 6 PM SHARP ON THURSDAY. NO EXCEPTIONS! Walk-ins before 9A on Saturday will pay a penalty of $10 in addition to other fees. In Seattle, the Oza comes on the heels of the first game of the 2004 Kisei tournament, which will be played at the Seattle Go Center on January 15-16. Between 80 and 120 players are expected. A smaller field does not mean easier pickings, however, especially at the top, where Jie Li, the wunderkind who defeated four professionals players in the 2001 event, has registered, and a number of prominent pros are also expected. "We are all extremely grateful to both Toyota and Denso for sponsoring this fantastic event," says Laird.
KISEI COMES TO SEATTLE:
With a top prize of $225,000, the Kisei is the
most sought-after prize on the Japanese go scene. This year the rising
young star Yamashita Keigo will face challenger Hane Naoki in an
exciting playoff. Game 1 will be played this week in Seattle,
Washington, at the Seattle Go Center. The Kisei title is decided in a
best-of-seven match with 8 hours thinking time per person. The
challenger comes from a large knockout tournament where the final is
decided in a best of three match.
"Yamashita Keigo up to now is by far the most successful student from the Ryokusei Academy, the go school run by Kikuchi Yasuro," according to a report on Sensei's Library [http://senseis.xmp.net/?YamashitaKeigo] "His spectacular style has renewed interest in the game of go." Born in 1978 in Asahikawa City, Japan, he achieved 1-dan in 1993, 7-dan in 2000 and 9-dan in 2003. His title wins include the 1998 23rd Shinjin-O (King of The New Stars Title); in 1999 he won the 14th NEC Shun'ei (New Stars Hayago) and the 24th Shinjin-O; in 2000 he won the 30th Shin'ei (New Stars Title), the 25th Gosei and the 25th Shinjin-O; in 2001 he won the 26th Shinjin-O and in 2003 he took the Kisei from O Rissei, who had held it for three straight years.
In 2001, Yamashita won the prestigious 38th Shusai Prize in recognition not only of winning the Gosei title at the age of 21, but for a go style that is "a breath of fresh air," according to Jan van Rongen. In his first book, "Challenging Tengen," Yamashita explains his style and provides a historical survey of tengen players going back to Shibukawa Shunkai.
Challenger Hane Naoki, born in 1976, is the current holder of the Tengen title. He is the son of Hane Yasumasa, who won the Oza and Okan titles. By winning an Oteai game on 25 July 2002, Hane Naoki gained promotion to 9-dan, and set a new record for fastest promotion to 9-dan at the Nihon Ki-in: 11 years and 3 months. One of the strongest players of the young generation, he played in the Kisei, Meijin and Honinbo Leagues simultaneously in 2001. In 2002 he also won the 43rd Okan title and came second in the 49th NHK Cup. Late last year he won the playoff for Kisei challenger against Cho Chikun; the Kisei title is his first "big" title match.
JIE LI REPEATS AS N.A. REP AT STUDENT OZA:
Jie Li 9d will once again
represent North America at the 2nd World Student Oza this year in Japan
at the Nihon Ki-in. The first World Student Oza was held in January 2002
and featured sixteen players from around the world representing Japan,
China, Korea, Taiwan, Europe, North America, South and Central America
and Thailand. Ye Lingyun of China took first place and Jie Li placed
11th.
OUR ERROR, NOT NAKAYAMA'S:
Diagram 3 in last week's Nakayama attached
file (2004.01.05 Nakayama NS-2.pdf) had an error: the pincering black
stone with one space between it and the pincered white stone should be a
three-space low pincer. We apologize for the error.
GOUSIOS GUESSES RIGHT IN PHOTO QUIZ:
Peter Gousios' "educated guess"
won him last week's AGA Homepage Photo Contest, showing regulars Jim
Gonnella, Stephen Lee, and Stephen's son Andrew at the
Central New York Go club (AKA the Syracuse Go Club), in a photo taken December 1st by
Anton Ninno. We're seeking email contact info for Timothy Huang (photo
winner on 12/15), Zeke Tamayo (review 12/1/03); and James McKee (12/29
photo contest winner) please email wmscobb@comcast.net
MICHAEL YAO VICTORIOUS AT JUSAN DAN TOURNAMENT:
The third Jusan Dan
tournament took place in Stockholm, Sweden the 3rd-5th of January.
Sixty-seven people participated in six rounds of fierce competition.
Michael Yao 4d came out ahead winning all of his matches. Olof Fridh 5k
also won all of his games, while Carl-Joh Ragnarsson 3d , Tomas Larsson
7k, Max Nilsson 9k, Urban Nilsson 12k, and Fredrik Barrud 17k won five
out of six rounds.
- from the European Go Federation, reported by Ethan Baldridge
PAK CHI-EUN CASHES BIG PAYCHECK IN WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP:
In Shanghai, China this week, Pak Chi-eun 4p won two straight games against
Yun Yeong-seon 3p to win the 2nd Jeongganjang Cup (aka, the Women's
International World Championship), and a respectable 30 million Korean
won (about 25 thousand dollars). In game one, Pak, who has been
nicknamed "the female Yi (Lee) Ch'ang-ho", played White and defeated Yun
by 3.5 points after 246 moves. Game two was even longer (290 moves) but
the result was the same: Pak played Black and won by 1.5 points. Due to
this victory and her other performances this year, Pak has been promoted
to 6p by the Korean Go Association. In a related note, to assuage the
disappointment of Chinese go fans, three promising young Chinese players
challenged Rui Naiwei 9p, last year's champion, to a series of games
associated with the Jeongganjang. Neither the Chinese players nor Naiwei
made it into the final rounds of the tournament. Unfortunately, we have
no further information on the details of this special event. Game
records can be found at www.go4go.net.
- reported by Dennis Hardman
This week we bring you Yilun Yang's latest set of tsume-go problems, three life-and-death puzzles ranging in difficulty from beginner to advanced; look for the solutions next week.
Our bonus file is Kaz Furuyama's latest tesuji lesson, "Important, Fundamental Matters." Enjoy!
DON'T MISS ANOTHER WEEK! Get the weekly game commentaries and problem files PLUS the E-Journal's go news, reviews and columns AND the brand-new 2003 American Go Yearbook! All for just $30; join the AGA today at http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp
Once a year or so a pal of mine and I get together for some strong bachelor caveman time: a good pack of Drum tobacco, bourbon, French wine, or Belgian beer, great films we've been saving up (from Jackass to Fassbinder), killer new CDs and nothing but several days' downtime to take it all in. If he's in Minneapolis, we'll head over to the Walker then out for sushi at Origami; if I'm in Vegas, we'll spend at least one day out in Red Rocks or Valley of Fire, two of America's great hikes and both within an hour of the Strip.
Since this year's trip was in late December, it was time to brave the Orange Alert and head out to Nevada. The only real necessity of our trips is that our wives (and soon, kids) have to be out of town: how much fun would it be if we had to sneak out to the garage to roll up those last 3 am cigarettes while polishing off a second bottle of Chateau Margaux? More importantly, being alone with a long-trusted pal gives us the space we need to really share what we've been working on down there in the volcano, to hammer on the doubts we brought up with the fire.
Doubt turned out to be the theme of this trip: my pal was struggling with his paintings and where to go for a next book, while I sat in his studio moaning about how I can't find my way into this book I'm supposed to be writing about go. We watched a documentary on the artist Robert Irwin, who claimed that his career really took off when he discovered how to make doubt work for him as a creative force. The next two days were spent trying to out-doubt each other. It was a great time.
I had a lesson with Kerwin the day after I got back, our first in three weeks. We've been at 8 stones for a while now, but he played more aggressively than usual. I felt bewildered all game, but kept thinking, "Use your power to attack and build profit." I thought it, but had no idea whether I was actually DOING it. Talking about doubt in your pal's garage is so much cooler than feeling it in the heat of a game. I lost the game by twenty-odd points after some incredibly stupid shortage of liberty oversights turned my clever yose warriors into forlorn prisoners. The funny thing? Jim said that it was the best game I've played so far; that I was starting to see how power worked and could have ended the game early with just a couple more moves. Which ends a roundabout way of saying: doubt is a sign things are working FOR you and that as much as go can teach us about life, there's a lot away from the goban we could bring to it.
WANTED: Looking for some out-of-print English language go books (Enclosure Josekis, All About Thickness and a few others). Jeff Vogel; rberger6@nyc.rr.com
FOR SALE: Exotic Go Stones for the serious collector. Semi-precious 10mm x 21.5mm; lapis, jade, carnelian, jasper and more. http://www.algorithmicartisan.com/gostones (NOTE: the E-Journal is very interested in reader reviews of these stones; email us at journal@usgo.org)
WANTED: Go-playing/teaching K-12 educators to share ideas and plans for promoting go within schools. Contact Brian J. Olive at oliveb@ocps.k12.fl.us
Got go stuff to sell, swap or want to buy? Do it here and reach more than 6,000 Go players worldwide every week at Go Classified! Send to us at journal@usgo.org
January 17 & 18: New York, NY
2nd Toyota/Denso North American Oza Championship
Roy Laird 212-662-5501 roylaird@nyc.rr.com
January 17-19: Evanston, IL
James Kerwin Workshop
Mark Rubenstein 847-869-6020 mark@easyaspi.com
January 18: Boston, MA
MGA Winter Handicap Tournament
Zack Grossbart 617-497-1232 zack@grossbart.com
January 23 & 24: Houston, TX
Winter 2004 Tournament
Christopher Vu 281-480-8615 wasonlyyesterday@yahoo.com
January 31: Gainesville, FL
3-Board Team Tournament
Devin Casadey igoclubuf@yahoo.com
http://plaza.ufl.edu/lavigne/
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: January 10
For the European Go Calendar see http://www.european-go.org/TOURNAMENTS/TListbyDate.htm
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