Portland Open Go Tournament

Jeff Horn and Edward Kim review their championship game.

Reed College, November 1-2, 2003

I went to the 2003 Portland Open with Jason Baghboudarian. There I saw Edward Kim and Om Ki (from Lakewood), and Jeff Horn (Kent) and Frank Brown (Seattle). Frank, Jason, and I didn't fare so well, but Edward Kim won (of course), and Jeff was second (having lost only to Mr. Kim); and I believe Om Ki was third. A great showing for South Puget Sound!

It was fun to play new faces in my strength range -- with more than 40 players, most pairings had low or no handicaps. The tournament itself was run pretty smoothly by Glenn Peters, with luxuriously long time limits (60 minutes each, plus 5 byo-yomi periods 30 seconds). For the first time in my memory, none of my games went into overtime.

Saturday night, I stayed in a "youth" hostel, for the first time ever. It was great -- very inexpensive, very friendly. I plan to stay there any time I'm near Aaron French vs. Julie Burrall Portland. Lounging around after dinner, Jason and I had a game, then taught the rules to a student from Philadelphia, another from Alaska (en route to Cali), and an Italian. Reservations are strongly recommended -- this was the "off season", and the place was full. So full, in fact, that I slept in a tent in the back yard (mattress and many blankets included; quite comfy).

Hosteling International-Portland, Hawthorne District
3031 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Portland, OR 97214
hip@portlandhostel.org
[Toll Free: 1-866-447-3031] [Local: 503-236-3380] [Fax: 503-236-7940]

After the tournament, four of us hung around to play "just one more game", which featured Jeff's trademarked Trash Talking, keeping us in stitches. Then Frank and Jeff lit out for the north, but Jason and I couldn't say no when Julie Burrall (aged 11, I think, and rated 20k, though she's stronger) and her brother Matthew (15 I think, and rated a strong 3-dan) asked us to play.

The Burralls live near Sacramento, California, and have 6 AGA players in their family. They had driven about 12 hours just to play in the Portland tournament. Jason gave 9 stones to Julie (who learned to play when she was 6 years old), and was able to pull out a win. Matthew (who started playing when he was 4 years old) gave me 6 stones, but his preoccupation with juggling Halloween chocolate eyeballs was evident on the board. (Plus, he kindly allowed me to take back two of my more offensive blunders...) Frank Brown from Seattle vs. Ben Tilford

We did get to corner Bob O'Malley and hear some of his side of the AGA President and Directors controversy. FWIW, he stands by the decision to replace Chris Kirschner with Deedee Eckles, but strongly feels that it should have been done more openly. He says he thought that the Board's gag order was still in effect, or else he would have more thoroughly publicized his problems with Kirschner's administration long before that fateful October 16th tele-meeting. I also talked to a couple of go club organizers from Oregon, both of whom were unhappy with Bob's decision, but who wanted to hear a better explanation from him before casting stones.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. I hope I can go again next year.

Most of the photos below were shot by Robin Payne of the Salem Go Club (Salem, Oregon). She couldn't play because she had some homework to finish, but she graciously recorded the event with my digital camera. Thanks, Robin!

When Glenn Peters lends me some of his free time, I will pare this down to a dozen or so of the better shots, and add captions (help in identifying the players appreciated!).