AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association
November 25, 2002
In This Edition:
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
SCOREBOARD: Menlo Park, CA; Lakewood, CO
GAME COMMENTARY: Playing Elsewhere
GO NEWS: Pro Teaching Games at Japan Expo in LA; How to Play Handicap Go; 25%
Off on 16,000 Pro Games: Last Week! THE GO PLAYER'S GUIDE TO JAPAN: "I love go
so much" WHY WE PLAY: David Dinhofer GO REVIEW: Learn to Play Go, Vol. I (2nd
ed.) GO CLASSIFIED AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST
CALENDAR OF EVENTS (U.S.)
December 1: Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424 go@seattlego.org
December 7: Princeton, NJ
Fall Ratings Self Paired Tournament
Rick Mott 609-466-1602 rickmott@alumni.princeton.edu
FOREIGN
December 6-8: Sevilla, Spain
3rd Spain Open
spain@european-go.org
December 5-8: Milano, Italy
5th Italian Go Congress
http://gm12.com/r.html?c=157873&r=157560&t=88498618&l=1&d=48844011&u=http://www.figg.org/tornei/2002/gs/register.html&g=0&f=48844023
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://gm12.com/r.html?c=157873&r=157560&t=88498618&l=1&d=48844018&u=http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.html&g=0&f=48844023
For the European Go Calendar see
http://gm12.com/r.html?c=157873&r=157560&t=88498618&l=1&d=48844019&u=http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/go/tourn.html&g=0&f=48844023
SCOREBOARD: Menlo Park, CA; Lakewood, CO
November 17: Menlo Park, CA
Family Pair Go Tournament
1st: Peter Shi/YangYang Shi; 2nd: Yifan Zhang/Alice Zhang; 3rd: Zhini Zhang/Tony
Zhang; 4th: Charles Slater/Tommy Slater; 5th: Roger Ku/Lawrence Ku; 6th: Roger
Zhong/Sichen Zhong; 7th: Chi-hung Chen/Calona Chen; 8th: Jeffrey Chou/Kevin
Chou; 9th: Steve Burrall/Karoline Burrall; 10th: John Irving/Lucy Chang; 11th:
Symeon Noon/Patrick Noon
- reported by Mingjiu Jiang
November 23rd: Lakewood, CO
2002 Denver Fall Open
TD: DeeDee Lee Eckles
21 Players
Open Section: 1st: 4-0 Jung H. Lee 8d, 2nd place tie between 3-1 Guoming Huang
7d & 3-1 Zipei Feng 6d
2nd Section: 1st: 3-1 Jim Michali 4k; 2nd: 3-1 Ron White 3k, 3rd: 2-2 Bob
Mendenhall 1d
3rd Section: 1st: 5-0 Anthony Kenyon (promoted to 8k), 2nd: 4-1 Will Morrow 11k,
3rd: 3-2 Brock Cheney 8k
"A wonderful Fall day perfect for our Spirit of Thanksgiving Tournament,"
reports DeeDee Eckles. "Thanks to all those who participated."
GAME COMMENTARY: Playing Elsewhere
"When I was learning go, I was told: If you don't know how to answer, play
elsewhere," says Guo Juan in today's game commentary, an exciting game between
two young Chinese professionals. In a special bonus, today's game includes
comments by Wang Yuan 8P, and Guo Juan makes effective use of Jan van der
Steen's Gobase to not only provide fuseki variations but specific pro games in
which they were played.
To receive the weekly game commentaries, join the AGA today by clicking here:
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GO NEWS
Pro Teaching Games at Japan Expo in L.A.
The Japan Go Association is once again sponsoring a go booth at the Japan Expo,
held in the West Hall A of the Los Angeles Convention Center, November 30 (10am
- 7pm) and December 1 (10am - 6pm).
"As you come in the glass doors," reports Richard Dolen, "the go activity is to
the far right of the Auto exhibit, and consists of four adjacent booths, one of
which is numbered 921. There are also many other events at the Expo, including
arts and crafts, cultural exhibits, Japan regional vendors, carnival quality
fast food and hawkers of miscellaneous stuff."
Featured at the go booth this year is Masaru Konagai 8P, who will offer teaching
games at no cost, subject to availability and his stamina. Konagai Sensei was
born in 1963 in Tokyo and has a degree in Literature from Meiji University (a
college degree is fairly rare among Go professionals, according to Dolen). He
was a semi-finalist of the 7th dan division of the Kisei Tournament of 1997 and
a finalist of the 7th dan division of the Kisei in 1998.
If you have questions about the event, or would like to volunteer for a 3-hour
shift at the booth teaching members of the public (compensated by free parking
and a complimentary ticket) please call Richard at 310 828 0478 or email him
rdolen@worldnet.att.net.
How to Play Handicap Go
Slate & Shell has just published a companion volume to Yuan Zhou's highly
popular "Understanding How to Play Go". This volume, "How to Play Handicap Go",
involves the same step-by-step analysis of some of Zhou's games and offers sage
advice for the players of both colors. His opponents (some of whom win!), are
well known members of the AGA. See it at www.slateandshell.com
25% Off on 16,000 Pro Games: Last Week!
During the month of November, AGA members who renew get the powerful new
MasterGo software for just $75, 25% off the $100 retail cost. The just-released
MasterGo upgrade now includes an incredible 16,068 searchable pro games!
Instantly see how the pros handle your favorite fuseki or joseki patterns and
improve your own game!
PLUS, you'll continue to receive the special Games Edition of the E-Journal,
receiving a new .sgf game file each and every week along with the E-Journal's
latest Go news and reviews. Check out a FREE MASTERGO DEMO at
http://gm12.com/r.html?c=157873&r=157560&t=88498618&l=1&d=48844013&u=http://www.mastergo.com/download.asp&g=0&f=48844023
It's the most efficient move: get stronger and get a great deal! Join today at
http://gm12.com/r.html?c=157873&r=157560&t=88498618&l=1&d=48844016&u=http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp&g=0&f=48844023
To receive your discount, join the AGA (see above), then email Chuck Robbins at
crobbins@ctipc.com to arrange to receive your copy of MasterGo!
THE GO PLAYER'S GUIDE TO JAPAN: "I love go so much"
By Chris Garlock
After the Pair Go Tournament ended last Monday, I left Tokyo in search of go
adventures. Over the course of five days last week, I traveled to go-related
sites in Osaka, Kyoto and Miyazaki. I saw Sansa's mulberry go board, knelt
before Shusaku's grave in Innoshima and played rengo at the Iwami No Kami shrine
in Kaibara. In Miyazaki I watched nondescript chunks of wood become
beautifully-finished gobans worth thousands of dollars and ordinary-looking
clamshells transformed into polished go stones.
Everywhere I went, I met go players who unhesitatingly welcomed me into their go
clubs, their temples and even their homes. Though I was a complete stranger who
could only speak a few halting words in their language, they patiently answered
my questions and embraced my quest as though it were their own, as indeed, it
is, for we are all following the path of go.
In a special series over the next few weeks, I'll report on my go experiences,
adventures and observations. Although I covered a lot of ground, my visit was
brief and there's much I did not see; I welcome your comments and suggestions,
especially from readers who live or travel in Japan.
As in so many other things -- monks with the latest cellphones, for example --
go in Japan is a study in contrasts. While Hikaru no Go has generated new
popularity for go among Japanese youngsters, I saw virtually no kids at clubs
outside the major go centers in Tokyo and Osaka. These "go kaisho" -- often no
larger than a living room with a dozen or so men chain-smoking and drinking
endless cups of green tea over well-worn boards -- are ubiquitous throughout the
country and, in many ways are arguably the soul of the game, the countless
places where go is part of the day-to-day fabric of each community's life. "It's
an old man's game," my young interpreter in Innoshima said, evidencing both the
old Japanese respect for elders and a newer generation's distance from
tradition.
Everywhere I found intense pride but also concern about the game's future, as
many I spoke with noted that Korea and China not only produce stronger players
now, but are far ahead of Japan in training the next generation of go players.
Go's natural resources have been depleted, as well: there's little kaya left and
hardly any of the Miyazaki clamshells that yield the highest-grade stones.
Yet at the Kansai Ki-in in Osaka I met an 11-year-old who just became the
second-youngest pro ever. Harumi Takechi, my host in Osaka and a regular on the
Pair Go circuit, could not attend the International Pair Go Tournament in Tokyo
because she was playing in a women's tournament in Miyazaki with hundreds of
players from around the country. And Innoshima, birthplace of Shusaku, recently
declared go the city's official cultural sport, earning it the unofficial title
of "The City of Go".
Perhaps the most striking thing that I found was a deep, almost religious
passion for the game of go. At a farewell party in Kyoto on Saturday, my host
and new friend Susumu Hyodo shocked me during a game analysis by declaring one
of my moves "rubbish" and tossing the offending stone dismissively on the board.
Such a direct and unvarnished criticism was highly unusual during my visit: the
most anyone would say when I asked for advice was Hmm, maybe you could play here
instead. But Hyodo-san, like many of the players I met during my travels, cares
deeply about go and an ugly move is as distasteful to him as a bad piece of
sashimi. As we traveled from place to play in a sometimes endless succession of
buses, trains and automobiles, Hyodo-san would give me go homework and then,
while I dozed, he'd painstakingly check it over and then review it with me while
the train rattled along to wherever go adventure we were bound that day. I might
have thought him a bit unusual except that ! during the farewell party Saturday,
the topic of intense discussion and debate among the dozen go players was how to
get more kids playing and the best method of teaching beginners.
"The reason I arranged many visits for you during your visit to Japan is very
simple," Hyodo-san told me. "I love go so much. So, I love a person who loves
go. I believe you love go. That's all. See you again here or there."
WHY WE PLAY: David Dinhofer
I first observed the game of go when I was 14 years old. I was participating in
a summer school program for gifted students at Mount Hermon Academy in
Massachusetts, studying Math Logic and solving the completeness theorem. Toward
the end of the summer I saw two boys playing go on the grass. The game was more
than half-finished and all I saw were black and white stones seemingly randomly
scattered on the board, but I became fascinated by the total abstraction of the
game.
The boys taught me Go-moku (a game of five-in-a-row played on a go board) and
when I heard over the high-school loudspeaker the next year that someone was
offering to teach go, I was one of just two of us who showed up to learn. I
taught my brother, sister, father and mother but unfortunately, after two games,
they refused to play any more. About a year later, I was a freshman at MIT and
stopped into a coffee shop in Harvard Square, where I saw a beautiful young girl
playing go with an elderly gentleman. Being a nerd, I found that I would rather
learn go than hit on the girl.
The old man was Wally Chu, half Japanese and half Chinese, and he would
routinely give 21-stone handicaps to unsuspecting beginners. Wally turned out to
be homeless; he lived in that all-night cafe for the whole next year teaching
MIT students how to play go. To get him to play a game, all you had to do was
buy him a cup of coffee and a donut. I moved on to find other Asian students to
play with at MIT and eventually achieved 5k. One summer while I was in medical
school, I wandered into a game room in Manhattan on West 72nd street and ran
into Wally. He was reading a Chinese or Japanese Go journal, waiting for another
go player. I bought him a cup of coffee and a donut. He was happy to see me but
I' not sure he remembered exactly where we had met. We played even and I won. I
still have fond thoughts of Wally and I am grateful to him for his help in
guiding me in this great game.
Why do YOU play this beautiful, frustrating game? What brought you to the game
and what keeps you playing? Tell us in 200 words or less and if we publish the
results in the E-Journal we'll give you a $25 gift certificate to a Go vendor.
GO REVIEW: Learn to Play Go, Vol. I (2nd ed.)
A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game
by Janice Kim 1P and Jeong Soo-hyun 9P
Good Move Press, 176 pages $17.95
Reviewed by Steven E. Polley
This book, part of a four part series is a nearly perfect book for the new
player of go. Written in a simple, straight-forward manner, with illustrations
for almost every concept discussed, the book allows the student to learn at his
on pace, and is ideal for a quick review of any rule or concept. Regardless of
the facet of the game being presented, the authors first give the simplest
examples, and then build each chapter with increasingly advanced ideas- so that
each aspect of go is completely discussed in an easy to understand, step by step
approach.
The book is divided into two parts, covering fundamentals and basic techniques.
Part I consists of eight chapters dealing with topics such as capturing,
connecting, life and death, and ko. Part I also contains, in chapter 8, the
score of an actual 19x19 game that the reader can follow, with excellent
annotations, move by move. After the reader has learned "the basics," Part II,
in six chapters, cleverly builds on that foundation with topics such as:
capturing techniques, connecting techniques, capturing races, and ko fighting.
In addition to this excellent introduction to Go, Learn to Play Go, Vol. I also
has two extra features that make it an outstanding book for the novice player.
The first is that each chapter is followed by a section called "Try it Yourself"
which amounts to a section of problems that test the ideas presented in the
preceding chapter. The second is ten "extra sections", with from one to three
pages, that are dispersed throughout the text, and give the reader more of a
"feel" for the game. For example, one section explains go etiquette, another go
strength, i.e. the rating system. One gives information about go on the
Internet, and still another introduces the reader to some of the more famous
players of the game.
Another unique feature of this volume is that each copy comes complete with a
reversible 19x19, 13x13 and 9x9 board, so that the reader can start playing
immediately. The 'stones" are paper and can be difficult to use, but still a
nice addition to the book, which is highly recommended for anyone from 30 to
roughly 25 kyu.
GO CLASSIFIED
WANTED: for a forthcoming book, a program or suggestions to convert .sgf files
from GoWrite to Quark. Also wanted, a way to recover GoWrite diagrams that have
turned to red Xs in a Word document. Peter Shotwell; Shotwell@nyc.rr.com
FOR SALE: Play Go in your holiday! 10% off for all Go players at
www.shafston.com jamaica (the owner, Frank Lohmann, is 13k on KGS; players name:
shafston)
WANTED: Human Resources Coordinator for the American Go Association.
Help write & edit job descriptions, assist the AGA to seek & screen volunteers,
& guide energetic volunteers into satisfying positions. Email
chrisk.aga@attbi.com. Or call 206-579-8071 between 7:30A and 11:30P Pacific
time.
WANTED: Software program to convert .UGF files to .SGF files. Contact Fred at
g.u@juno.com
WANTED: "All About Life and Death, Volume 1," by Cho Chikun; "The Breakthrough
to Shodan," by Naoki Miyamoto. John Pinkerton, john.pinkerton@watsonwyatt.com
FOR SALE: Refrigerator Go sets for displaying (or playing) the game on the large
laminated board attached to the metallic surface (for example, a refrigerator -
see http://www.promptpublishing.com); $45 from Michal Lebl, storyspyder@aol.com
FOR SALE: Go boards made of 2.5" mahogany or pine, about 17X19", with 19X19 grid
(cut with small saw, not drawn) and a 9X9 or 13X13 grid on the back. Sanded and
waxed, without feet. $260 ea or $170 ea for 10 or more.
Jim Thomas; waldomesa@cybermesa.com
WANTED: Issues of 'Go World' from the past couple of years. Prefer someone who
has several issues to offer. sfragman@netvision.net.il
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
GET LISTED & BOOST TURN-OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach 4,000 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;
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for the full list.
GET YOUR TOURNAMENT RATED! Send your tournament data to
MAILTO:ratings@usgo.org
AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST:
President; Roy Laird: mailto:president@usgo.org
Eastern VP; ChenDao Lin: mailto:vp-eastern@usgo.org
Central VP; Mike Peng: mailto:vp-central@usgo.org
Western VP; Larry Gross: mailto:vp-western@usgo.org
Treasurer; Ulo Tamm: mailto:treasurer@usgo.org
Membership Secretary; John Goon: mailto:membership@usgo.org Recording Secretary:
Susan Weir: mailto: susan@weirdolls.com
Chapters Coordinator; Bill Cobb: mailto:chapterservices@usgo.org
Tournament Coordinator; Mike Bull: mailto:tournaments@usgo.org
Youth Coordinator; None Redmond: mailto:education@usgo.org
Congress Liaison Officer; Chris Kirschner: mailto:cngrsliaison@usgo.org
AGA Webmaster; Roy Laird: mailto:webmaster@usgo.org
American Go Foundation; Terry Benson: mailto: terrybenson@nyc.rr.com AGA
Librarian; Craig Hutchinson: mailto:archives@usgo.org
Published by the American Go Association
Material published in " AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL" may be reproduced by any
recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source.
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
email: journal@usgo.org
Voice: 202-857-3410
Fax: 202-857-3420
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