AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association

This month's special offer is entering byo-yomi! Through December 31, join the AGA and take 5% off Go books, equipment and software at Samarkand! Samarkand offers a range of fine products for Go enthusiasts of every caliber and taste, from Japanese Hiba table boards -- "An unbelievably good deal we got on these," raves Samarkand owner Janice Kim, "less than half you'd expect to pay for Hiba" to Shin-kaya table boards. Also available: new roll-up SoftMats -- portable, economical, chic -- Reversible Slotted Boards and, just in from Japan, Stone Bags, the new way to carry stones. Check out these great new products and much more at at http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237566&u=http://www.samarkand.net/&g=0&f=-1

Get your discount now by joining the AGA at http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237563&u=http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp&g=0&f=-1 and when you order from the good folks at Samarkand, just let them know you've joined and are eligible for the new member discount!

December 16, 2002

In This Edition:
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
SCOREBOARD: Princeton, NJ
GAME COMMENTARY: Joseki Now and Zen
GO NEWS: Fujitsu Round 1 Winners; S&S Offers Combination Savings THE GO PLAYER'S GUIDE TO JAPAN: Pilgrimage to In-noshima GO REVIEW: A Compendium of Trick Plays JANICE KIM'S Life In B League GO CLASSIFIED AGA OFFICER CONTACT LIST


CALENDAR OF EVENTS (U.S.)

January 4/5: Santa Clara, CA
11th Zhu Jiu Jiang Goe Tournament
1st Prize $1500!
Professionals: Zhu Jiu Jiang 9-Dan, Ming Jiu Jiang 9-Dan, Jimmy Cha 4-Dan Janice Kim 1-Dan Pre-register at indagoe@goedharma.com
Info: Ernest Brown 415-641-1452 indagoe@goedharma.com

January 5: Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424 go@seattlego.org

January 11: Salem, OR
Salem Winter Tournament.
levenick@willamette.edu, 503-370-6486

January 11: Arlington, VA
Winter Warner
Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@worldnet.att.net

January 11/12: Piscataway, NJ
Feng Yun Doubleheader
Two tournaments sponsored by Feng Yun, 9P, including a 4-round rated event and a Youth Tournament.
Details at: http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237557&u=http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/~lruss/feng_yun_tournament.htm&g=0&f=-1
Feng Yun gotournament@yahoo.com

January 18-20: Evanston, IL
4th Annual Winter Workshop
(This year with Guo Juan 5P)
Mark Rubenstein 847-869-6020 mark@easyaspi.com

January 19: Boston, MA
MGA Winter Handicap Tournament
Don Wiener 617-734-6316 donwiener@earthlink.net

FOREIGN

December 28-31: London, England
London Open
Geoff Kaniuk geoff@kaniuk.demon.co.uk
http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237558&u=http://www.britgo.org/tournaments/london/&g=0&f=-1

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=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237564&u=http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.html&g=0&f=-1
For the European Go Calendar see http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237565&u=http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/go/tourn.html&g=0&f=-1

SCOREBOARD: Princeton, NJ

December 7: Princeton, NJ
Princeton Fall Ratings Self-Paired
20 players, 6 new AGA members, 2 renewals
32 rated games

"Most Improved Player goes to Peter Straus," reports TD Rick Mott. "Peter's entering AGA rating was -18.5. He entered as 4 kyu and won 2 of 3 games, for a tournament rating of -4.5. Congratulations, Peter!" Robert Chung, a new AGA member, entered at 2D and won all 3 games. Larry Bartels, with most games played (7), won 5 of them and crept across the 4 kyu barrier.

GAME COMMENTARY: Joseki Now and Zen

"We seem to be entering an era in which the idea of cataloguing or memorizing moves as 'joseki' is falling by the wayside," writes Janice Kim in the latest issue of the American Go Journal. "I couldn't find a recent game in a major tournament that had a full-on-double-diamond-marked joseki in it, but I could find lots of games in which players 'freely modified' their approach." The attached game, played between Rui Nai Wei 9P and Baek Daehyeon 4P proves Janice's point as Rui ignores joseki as early as move 10 and goes on to do it again less than twenty moves later. Although this game has only a few joseki comments, we thought Journal readers would enjoy seeing what happens after move 27, which is where the game ends in the Journal. We've also included the entire text of Janice's Life in B League column.

To receive the weekly attached game records, join the AGA today at http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237563&u=http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp&g=0&f=-1


GO NEWS

Fujitsu Round 1 Winners

Round 1 of the 16th North American Fujitsu Qualifier was played on the IGS on December 7, reports TD Michael Bull. Rounds 2-4 will be played face to face January 18, 2003 at a location on the East Coast to be announced.

Winners were: Jimmy Cha over Kim Moon Chong; Lianzhou Yu defeated Hosuk Yi; Hui Ren Yang beat I-Han Lui; Yuan Zhou over Ted Ning; Thomas Hsiang won by forfeit against Jonathan Wang; June-Ki Beck beat Jung Hoon Lee and John Lee defeated Richard Liang.

Thanks and appreciation to Chris Kirschner, the North American Masters Tournament Committee, and Tweet and the IGS. Special thanks to the Referees: Todd Heidenreich, Mike Peng, Ulo Tamm, Jason Taff, David Frankel, Sangit Chatterjee, Moon Cha.

S&S Offers Combination Savings

Slate & Shell has a timely holiday offer on go software and books. Get MasterGo, the definitive software for studying pro joseki and fuseki, along with three life and death pocket-sized problem books and save $22.00. MasterGo plus Yilun Yang's 2 volumes of Go Puzzles and Maeda's Life and Death Problems, regularly $142, is now $120 until the end of December. Check it out on the S&S website at http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237561&u=http://www.slateandshell.com&g=0&f=-1 The system will automatically apply the discounts.


THE GO PLAYER'S GUIDE TO JAPAN: Pilgrimage to In-noshima

NOTE: In this special series, E-Journal editor Chris Garlock reports on his go experiences, adventures and observations during a recent trip to Japan. Comments and suggestions -- especially from readers who live or travel in Japan - are most welcome.

It's profoundly appropriate that to visit Shusaku's grave you've got to take trains, busses, hitch a ride in a car and then climb a sharply ascending path on foot. It's also fitting that the final resting place for the greatest go player in history is unremarkable, a plain stone marker among a hillside of plain stone markers.

Honinbo Shusaku (1829-1862) was born on In-noshima, a gorgeous little island lapped by the sparkling blue water of Japan's Inland Sea. In-noshima's steep green hills are dappled with fruit groves and the beauty and seclusion of the place explain why pirates made it their hideout. Shusaku's mother taught him go when he was four and by six he was already a prodigy. He went to Tokyo at the ripe old age of eight to study with Honinbo Jowa and made shodan when he was ten years old. At 17, he took four straight games from the great Gennan Inseki, an astounding accomplishment for a green 4-dan against a seasoned 8-dan. In 1848, still eight months shy of his 20th birthday, Shusaku was made heir to Honinbo Shuwa. Now entitled to participate in the annual castle games played in the presence of the shogun, Shusaku played and won 19 castle games, the only player to do so in the 250-year history of castle games. Shusaku is one of just two go players great enough to earn the accolade of "Go! Saint (Honinbo Dosaku is the other).

That's history and there's lots more in both "The Go Player's Almanac" and John Power's indispensable "Invincible: The Games of Shusaku." But walk up that steep path to Shusaku's grave and kneel there on the hard pebbles after pouring the traditional ladle of water over the gravestone and you'll feel the restless spirit of the great master still moving among the stones. This is more than mere fancy, for it turns out that down the hill is Shusaku's birthplace, where his eldest brother's granddaughter still lives and maintains a memorial. On display is the goban on which Shusaku's mother taught him to play, scrolls recording the young prodigy's comet-like ascent to the pinnacle of the go world, a wall full of books, fans, wall hangings and artwork about Shusaku. On the wall hangs a reminder of the pirate days, a 10-foot long sword used by wives to defend themselves while their husbands were away. On the way out there are guest books to sign: I look back through the stack filled ! with beautiful signatures inscribed in kanji: aside from a few European go pilgrims, there are virtually no Western visitors to the birthplace of the great master.

Go is very much alive in Shusaku's hometown, 140 years after he died of cholera in 1862. Gisho Murakami, President of In-noshima's Igo Association, takes me on a grand go tour of the town, which in addition to Shusaku's birthplace and grave, also boasts a go club in the town community center with internet go access on a computer in the corner, handwritten tallies of tournaments against visiting clubs, regular classes for children and of course the usual chain-smoking oldsters perched over well-dimpled table boards dusty with cigarette ash.

After a sumptuous lunch at the posh hotel that now stands where a pirate castle once overlooked the bay, Murakami continues the tour, showing me the playing rooms on the hotel's second floor where major title tournaments have been played so often that the ceilings are equipped for the television cameras needed to broadcast the games. In-noshima has taken its commitment to go even farther: in 1997 the city officially declared go In-noshima's "Official Cultural Sport," the only community thus far to do so in all of Japan. And twice a year, In-noshima hosts a Shusaku Festival, featuring a pro-am tournament, simultaneous games and a final played out on stage before a full auditorium of hundreds of go fans. Small wonder that Shusaku's hometown has been dubbed "The City of Go." In a tourist twist we can only hope American cities will soon pick up on, In-noshima has pioneered "Igo catering" a scheme wherein visiting go players can ring up the local go association, which will arrange ! to send over a local player matched to the appropriate playing strength.

"What did you pray for?" they ask after we descend from Shusaku's grave. "For better understanding of the game," I answer. It was a long way to go to pour a cup of water over a piece of rock but I'd do it all over again in an instant.


GO REVIEW: A Compendium of Trick Plays,
Edited by the Nihon Kiin
Yutopian Enterprises

Reviewed by Lon Atkins, 12K

Don't buy this book if you think it will arm you with dozens of dazzling swindles with which to win games quickly. Buy this book if you are a student of joseki, tesuji and shape - in other words, a student of go!

If you study joseki, you'll find here many trick plays that could foil your joseki efforts if you were to face them for the first time in a real game. If you study tesuji, then you'll see plenty of them here - trick plays are all about setting up tesuji. And if you study shape, you'll see how adhering to the principles of good shape can save you from trick plays and how mindlessly reacting with "natural" moves can sometimes destroy your shape.

There's a mixture of material here: basic trick models, historical examples, theory of trick play, pop psychology, slippery places in joseki, and even some cartoons. The crown of the book is a section of 25 problems by Maeda Nobuaki 9 dan. Solving them will enhance your practical skills.


LIFE IN B LEAGUE
By Janice Kim

I get these weird little moments. I'm thinking about the word 'joseki,' what it means, and just because it means 'offspring of a female canine' when cursing in Korean, if it should be avoided. I'm thinking about the definition in Ishida's great Dictionary of Basic Joseki, in which he says something to the effect of "Joseki are standard patterns that occur in the corners and sometimes, on the sides" - so eloquently simple, while still retaining that mystery element (and sometimes, on the sides, the little voice whispered as we crept into the bedeviled house.) I'm reading in the E-Journal how our last Congress Director found it unhelpful to attend lectures in which the subject matter seemed to involve mostly beating an obscure joseki to death, like, dude, should I be remembering that for my next match up with 5 kyu Stu at the club? And then I get that weird little moment: Nothing! It means nothing! Nothing at all! The angels sing briefly, and then disappear, back to wherever th! ey go (and sometimes, on the sides, on the sides？ Weird, right? Could it be true, that maybe joseki are nothing at all?

Modern Go seems to generate a new 'joseki' every day, to add to the many tens of thousands of already recorded joseki. Maybe this should imply to us that the concept of joseki itself is suspect - what if there weren't any 'joseki' at all, but we just are taking little snapshots of the corner in professional games and putting them in a big book?

Looking at it historically, we can see that the Japanese were on the forefront of cataloguing joseki. Back to Ishida: he says in his forward he personally believes there are no star-point or 3-3 point joseki, because your play should be rather 'free-flowing' or something to that effect. Now, I love Ishida, but come on - this is another clue that there's no such thing as joseki at all. The moves he calls the 'treasure-trove' of joseki - namely, the 3-4 point with a knight's move approach - are also the corner moves that the Japanese played nearly exclusively during the great joseki blossoming. The star point and 3-3 point were considered unplayable right up until the great Chinese player Go Sei Gen played them in his historic match against the Japanese Meijin, causing an enormous stir and angering not a few traditionalists. Now, we all know that the star point is playable and there are a lot of variations. If we were playing the start point all along instead of the 3-4 point no! doubt we'd have as many star point joseki as we have 3-4 point joseki now, and we could say then that there really aren't any 3-4 point joseki, because your play should be rather free-flowing. See? It's just something we make up.

Okay, so if there isn't really any such thing as joseki now, why do we have the concept, and why do people try to study them?

Why indeed? Find out by reading the rest of Janice's column in the latest edition of the American Go Journal, available now by joining the AGA at http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237563&u=http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp&g=0&f=-1


GO CLASSIFIED

FOR SALE: Sets of old "Go World" magazines: 1-48 and 1-15; 17-25; 50-56 and individual copies #22, #40, #43, and #51. Check them out at http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237559&u=http://www.eskimo.com/~dobe/Dobe_ForSale_GO_Worlds01.htm&g=0&f=-1
Or email dobe.doinat@verizon.net

FOR SALE: Go reproductions (see www. kiseido.com--Go and Art for details) can now be ordered directly by telephone and can be paid for in the USA by checks. Contact Peter Shotwell at (212) 874-2913.

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)

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: Copy of the go novel "First Kyu."
Mark Lybrand; maryesme@shore.net

WANTED: MasterGo Team volunteer to enter data into a player biography database. No pay but get your name on the MasterGo website and, possibly, get a free copy of the program. Charles G. Robbins, crobbins@ctipc.com

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: "All About Life and Death, Volume 1," by Cho Chikun; "The Breakthrough to Shodan," by Naoki Miyamoto. John Pinkerton, john.pinkerton@watsonwyatt.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 5,500 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; http://gm12.com/r.html?c=163362&r=163044&t=88498618&l=1&d=55237562&u=http://www.usgo.org&g=0&f=-1 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; Ben Bernstein; 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
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Editor: Chris Garlock
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