AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association February 23, 2004 In This Edition: U.S. GO NEWS: Yang Wins N.A. Fujitsu Qualifier; Ming Jiu To Teach At Go Camp; New Go Club Howls At NC State; Ventura County On The Board; New Southern Cal Group Plans Tourneys; Teacher Of The Year Nominations Open; Captivating Bug WORLD GO NEWS: Nakano Wins Barcelona Go Tournament; Another Coup For Li Shen In The UK; April In Paris; Summer In China GAME COMMENTARY: Kyu v. Kyu (A Pro Look) YOUR MOVE: Readers Write HARD TIMES AT THE GOBAN THE TRAVELING GOBAN: Counting Isn't Everything GO ONLINE GO CLASSIFIED CALENDAR OF EVENTS ATTACHED FILES: 2004.02.23 Allen-Whyte, Liping Huang Commentary.sgf; 2004.02.23 S&S, Counting Liberties Problem.SGF; 2004.02.23 Furuyama Tesuji 48-L8.pdf [only with Games Edition] U.S. GO NEWS YANG WINS N.A. FUJITSU QUALIFIER: Huiren Yang took 1st Place in the North American Fujitsu Qualifying Tournament, held last weekend, February 21 and 22 on the IGS Go Server. Thomas Hsiang took second and Jimmy Cha and I-Han Lui tied for third while Jung Hoon Lee was fifth, John Yoon was sixth, Steve Stringfellow seventh and Norman Chadwick finished in eight place. MING JIU TO TEACH AT GO CAMP: Ming Jiu Jiang 7P has agreed to be the full-time professional teacher for this year's AGA Go Camp. "He has taught Go to countless kids in the Bay Area over the years," reports Camp organizer James Chien, "With his great teaching experience and knowledge, campers are sure to drastically improve their go strength while enjoying the lessons." More info & registration at http://www.usgo.org/gocamp/index.asp NEW GO CLUB HOWLS AT NC STATE: The Wolf Go Club is a new registered student organization at NC State University and part of the Triangle Go Group, reports John Troy Hurteau. "We meet Thursday nights in the Talley Student Center and welcome both students and non-students to join us." For more information contact laroyce@ncsu.edu VENTURA COUNTY ON THE BOARD: Go players in the Ventura County, California area (Ventura/Oxnard/Camario/Thousand Oaks/Westlake Village/Port Hueneme/etc.) are organizing a local go club, reports David Whiteside. More info at dewhiteside@earthlink.net NEW SOUTHERN CAL GROUP PLANS TOURNEYS: The newly formed SocalGoCLub is planning monthly rated tournaments the first Sunday of each month, reports John Hayes. Details at jhayes@goodwillsocal.org TEACHER OF THE YEAR NOMINATIONS OPEN: Nominations for the annual Teacher of the Year are now open, reports None Redmond. Nominees must have taught in at least one class of children regularly for the last two years, started a youth club or involved students with the local go club and encouraged their joining the AGA as youth members or as affiliates of the local club, must be a full member of the AGA, have entered his/ her students in available tournaments - local, inter-scholastic, and, if possible, the national youth tournaments on the Internet, and must let students know about the Summer Go camp, the Go Congress, CyberCamp, and other AGA sponsored activities. "The Teacher of the Year must be an example to other teachers both in teaching go and drawing young people into a love of the game," says None, who adds that candidates may nominate themselves. Nominations must be accompanied by the teacher's credentials. Deadline is April 1st; send to chinski@inreach.com CAPTIVATING BUG: Last week's photo of a bug on a go board sparked a lot of very creative entries for the best photo caption. Competition was tough, but a sterling panel of judges, after long and careful deliberation gave the nod to "The 'walking' tesuji is a powerful way to attack on the second row," by B.J. Herbison. Strong contenders included "The beetle's vital point is your vital point." (Solomon Smilack), "Ahhh! Foiled again by the infamous bug tesuji!" (Pete Schumer) and "Apparently go software isn't quite ready for competition in the real world." (Joel R. Simpson). Honorable mentions to our other contestants: S. G. Fawthrop, David Saunders, Matthew Kulikosky, Roland Crowl, Jason Taff, Joshua Guarino, Bob LoPiccolo, Bill Strider, George Foster and Laura Kolb. THIS WEEK'S CONTEST: The famous professional go player on the right in this week's photo has a nickname that's based on his endgame wizardry; what's the nickname? Check out the photo at http://www.usgo.org/index.asp and email your entry to us at journal@usgo.org WORLD GO NAKANO WINS BARCELONA GO TOURNAMENT: The 22nd Barcelona Tournament took place on the 14th and 15th of February. In even years this is part of the European Toyota Tour, so there was a big turnout of ninety-six players, including three pros. The top five finishers were Nakano Yasuhiro 8p of Japan with 5 wins, Setoo Takik 5p of Japan at 4 and 1, Kurahasi Masayuki 9p of Japan also 4 and 1, Yanagida Seiji 4d of Japan at 3 and 2, and Guo Juan 7d of the Netherlands at 3 and 2. A nice set of photos from the tournament can be found at http://www.goprat.com/bcn2004/page_01.htm . Participants in recent US Go Congresses will recognize at least one of the players. - reported by Joan Pons Semelis of Spain ANOTHER COUP FOR LI SHEN IN THE UK: Britain's representative to the Ing Chang-Ki Memorial Cup in Czechia in March will be 12-year old Li Shen (5 dan) who lives in London. APRIL IN PARIS: The annual Paris Tournament, the biggest in Europe after the main event at the European Go Congress, will be held from April 10th to the 12th and all players are welcome. This is the final event in the yearly Toyota Pandanet European Go Tour, so most of the top European players will be there. There were 280 participants last year, and there's still time to plan to attend. http://www.aligre.org/paris2004/paris2004.php?topic=index&language=english SUMMER IN CHINA: Carl Johan Ragnarsson and Michael Yao are organizing a go-trip to China this summer. "The trip is expected to last from the middle of June to the middle of August," report the two Sweden-based go players, "and it will be possible to participate for one to three months or longer. During the stay in China, we will live together in an apartment and play go on a nearby go school. There will be possibilities to visit professional events, the Chinese go federation and for sightseeing in the Peking area." Check out details and photos at http://gongames.com/china/index-e.html GAME COMMENTARY: Kyu v. Kyu (A Pro Look) Today's commentary offers a pro look at a game between two amateur kyu players, Kevin Whyte 1k of the USA and John Allen 2k of the United Kingdom, played on www.dragongoserver.net, a turn-based go site. The commentary is by Liping Huang 4p, who lives and teaches in the Chicago area. Our first bonus file is a capturing race problem from Counting Liberties and Winning Capturing Races by Richard Hunter, published by Slate & Shell; check the book out at http://www.slateandshell.com The second bonus file is the latest tesuji lesson from the indefatigable Kaz Furuyama, who this week explores The Attachment for Blocking. DON'T MISS ANOTHER WEEK OF GAME COMMENTARIES! Join the AGA today for just $30 and get the attached game commentary files next week! Join now at http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp YOUR MOVE: Readers Write SUPPORTING DREAMS: "I was very impressed by the story by Aria von Elbe (BEGINNER'S MIND, 2/16)" writes Kio Kanda. "and I would like to send a monetary contribution to the club for buying some boards and stones. My son was president of his high school's go club in his senior year. Its go club had been organized before he began this school and I went to their meeting to teach few times." ELEVATED BY A TYPO: Philip Waldron 6d, who has joined the E-Journal as a game editor, is not the Canadian Go Association President; an editing error abbreviated the word "former" (his term expired last September). We regret the error. A list of current CGA Executives and their contact information may be found on the CGA's web page at http://www.go-canada.org HARD TIMES AT THE GOBAN by Joel Turnipseed A lot of my go pals come from chess, but I could never get into the vein-popping intensity and week-devouring memorization that chess demands. No—before go I was a poker player. During my first couple years of college, it was $100 buy-in night every night, accompanied by cases of cheap Leinenkugels, Cheers re-runs, and SportCenter. In the Gulf War, we had one game of Guts that the major had to call when the pot got to $3K—with geometric growth, the loss of that thing would have triggered a marital showdown even the most hardened Marine couldn't handle. I don't play like THAT anymore, but I do enjoy a monthly game with the guys in the neighborhood. This weekend's biggest Guts pot suffered the deflationary effect of marriage, mortgages and maternity — it ran to twenty-four bucks—but it had the same rush and crash as a cheap frat speed hit. Last fall, I played in a fake-money promotional riverboat tournament with James McManus, the author of Positively Fifth Street and fourth-place finisher in Binion's World Series of Poker. It was at a book industry convention, and the rest of the players ran the expected gamut from cigar-chomping distributor in a seersucker suit to Wisconsin librarian in a hand-knit reindeer sweater. Which is to say: I was one of three people who even knew how to play poker, along with Jim and the guy whose cigar held six quarts of saliva at night's end. I won—and damn did it feel good. I was reminded of all of this by the coincidence of this weekend's neighborhood poker game and the visit of an old friend whom I've twice tried to teach go. When I think of why we haven't tried again, I'm reminded how cool it felt to walk the decks of the Betsey Northrup as it chugged down the Mississippi on a mild October evening wearing Jim McManus ' Binion's WSOP jacket-—and that there's no way in hell I'm ever going to beat, say, whoever takes fourth in next year's Meijin tournament. We love to win in America, and we love a lucky winner. Confucius railed against go because it encouraged gambling-—it wasn't a fatal admonition in ancient China, but in a land of X-Box and X-Games, it's a hard pitch to sell a game in which you quite literally don't have a chance. THE TRAVELING GOBAN: Counting Isn't Everything by Erwin Gerstorfer At the 1981 European Go Congress in Austria several Asian professionals were present. One Japanese professional was accompanied by his family, including his six-year-old son. This boy was going to enter primary school just after returning home, but he was already a strong amateur 3-dan. Before the Main Tournament a friendly match between Asian and European players took place. The then Swiss Champion, also a 3-dan, was matched again the boy. His father, the professional, who had played the Swiss player before on other occasions, proposed that the boy should take the white stones. The boy was quite little, so he just put his chin on the table in front of the board, and played in this posture for most of the game. The Swiss player soon discovered that he was no match for the boy. He fell further and further behind and was prepared to give up, but the boy never looked up from the board and the Swiss player, not knowing any Japanese, didn't wanted to frighten him. Thus, he was forced to play out the lost game to the last dame point. But the really bitter end was yet to come. When the time came to count the game, the boy finally looked up, gestured that the Swiss player should wait for a moment and went to get his father. The boy needed his father to count the result, not because of the language barrier, but because the boy had won by over thirty points and had only learned to count to ten. GO ONLINE By Roy Laird When most people study go, they look at professional games, life-and-death problems and other technical commentary. But to an enthusiastic subset, "Studying Go" also means learning about it as a social, historical, and cultural artifact. Those who have crossed the "digital divide" love the fact that the strongest computer programs routinely lose to small children and mid-level amateurs. When we play go, we do something that cannot be programmed. A number of well-written articles have expanded on this theme, notably Katie Hafner in The New York Times at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01EEDC1F38F932A3575BC0A9649C8B63 and http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00C1EF93B580C778EDDAB0994D0494D81, David Mechner in The Sciences at http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~mechner/compgo/sciences/ and Michael Brooks in New Scientist. It was a bit of a struggle to get the Brooks article, but worth it. Go to www.newscientist.com and sign up for a free seven-day trail of the archive. Search for "reiss" (Go4++ programmer Michael Reiss is interviewed at length) and you'll find the article. But for those who crave scholarly discourse about go, the "Mother Lode" is the semi-annual International Conference on Baduk, which publishes its proceedings. The first two conference have published a total of more than forty articles on a wide variety topics. To learn about how to get your copy of the proceedings book, go to http://www.usgo.org/yearbook/2003ICOB.asp. Copies are available to AGA members only while supplies last! Now that I've shared some interesting links with you, I hope someone has a link I'm looking for. On GoTalk, the lively British forum, someone recently mentioned an article that supposedly demonstrates objectively that go is the most difficult of all games, but couldn't recall where it appeared. Apparently the author started from the assumption that if Player A can beat Player B in two out of three games, Player A is one level stronger than Player B. He/she then determined that in chess, there are about twenty-five such "degrees of difficulty," but that go contains nearly forty such "degrees." Does anyone know where to find that article? If so, please e-mail it to webmaster@usgo.org. Thanks! GO CLASSIFIED WANTED: Go players in the Ventura County, California area (Ventura/Oxnard/Camario/Thousand Oaks/Westlake Village/Port Hueneme/etc.) Contact David Whiteside at dewhiteside@earthlink.net (2/23) WANTED: Looking for old go trash; old boards, game records, broken equipment, books (any language), newspapers, magazines. If you have anything to sell or give up to a youth player striving to learn more, email samuraipanda5@hotmail.com (2/23) WANTED: Looking for a portable Go set; email Snyder4410@hotamil.com (2/23) WANTED: Go Reviews; older complete years, 60's & 70's. Send info on condition and price to flynp1@comcast.net (2/23) WANTED: 1993 Ranka Year Book. Contact Clay@Smith.name (2/23) WANTED: Go players in Raleigh, NC. The Wolf Go Club is a new registered student organization at NC State University and part of the Triangle Go Group. We meet Thursday nights in the Talley Student Center and welcome both students and non-students to join us. For more information contact laroyce@ncsu.edu (2/23) AVAILABLE: Anyone is interested in lessons with an igs 5dan, contact icarii@zoominternet.net to schedule a free evaluation lesson, (2/23) WANTED: Old issues of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean magazines. Also wanted: old books of game collections. Contact Gordon Fraser at gordon@wui.net (2/16) WANTED: Go players in the Dayton, Ohio area. Contact camismyname@msn.com (2/16) WANTED: Go players in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Contact Alex at alexgenaud@yahoo.com (2/16) WANTED: Copy of "First Kyu" by Dr. Sung-Hwa Hong. Contact Krstic Dejan at dkrstic@verat.net (2/16) WANTED: Go players in the Asheville, NC area. Please contact ichliebedeinunderhosen@yahoo.com (2/16) WANTED: Go players in Verde Valley (Arizona) area; contact perudodudo@yahoo.com (2/2) WANTED: K-12 teachers who want to start a school go club, add go to their classroom activities, or explore the concept of using go to integrate math, social studies and language arts. Join the Scholastic Go Project on our Blackboard website. Free. Contact Anton Ninno at aninno@cnyric.org (2/2) WANTED: Looking for "Enclosure Josekis" by Takemiya Masaki. Please e-mail price and condition to rberger6@nyc.rr.com (2/2) Got go stuff to sell, swap or want to buy? Do it here and reach nearly 7,000 Go players worldwide every week at Go Classified! Listing are free and run 4 weeks; send to us at journal@usgo.org CALENDAR OF EVENTS February 28: Sacramento, CA Davis/Sacramento Quarterly Tournament Fred Hopkins 916-548-8068 cfredhop@msn.com February 28: Charlotte, NC 2004 Carolina's Open Tournament Wayne Hansen 704-536-4805 whansen319@yahoo.com http://www.home.earthlink.net/~transwri/ February 28: Tacoma, WA Roy Hayashi Memorial Go Tournament Mike Malveaux 253-906-0095 mikem@hilltopgo.com http://www.hilltopgo.com/ev/rhm2004/ February 28 & 29: Princeton, NJ New Jersey Open Rick Mott 609-466-1602 rickmott@alumni.princeton.edu March 7: Sunnyvale, CA 8th Jujo Jiang Cup Youth Goe Tournament Mingjiu Jiang 650-969-2857 mingjiuj@hotmail.com March 13: Chicago, IL Learn the Jack Benny Bob Barber 773-467-0423 komoku@earthlink.net For the European Go Calendar see http://www.european-go.org/TOURNAMENTS/TListbyDate.htm GET LISTED & BOOST TURN OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach over 6,000 readers every week! List your Go event/news In the E Journal: email details to us at MAILTO:journal@usgo.org Ratings are on the web! Check the website; http://www.usgo.org for the full list. GET YOUR TOURNAMENT RATED! Send your tournament data to MAILTO:ratings@usgo.org AGA CONTACT LIST: For a full list of AGA officers, contacts & their email addresses, go to: http://www.usgo.org/org/index.asp#contactinfo Published by the American Go Association Text material published in the AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL may be reproduced by any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source. PLEASE NOTE that commented game record files MAY NOT BE published, re-distributed, or made available on the web without the explicit written permission of the Editor of the E-Journal. Please direct inquiries to journal@usgo.org Articles appearing in the E-Journal represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the American Go Association. 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 mailto:journal@usgo.org ===== This is archived at http://www.hilltopgo.com/agej/2004/2004-02-23.txt The 2004 index page is at http://www.hilltopgo.com/agej/2004/