News / Articles

HUANG TOPS 3RD FENG YUN TOURNEY: Kevin Huang won a tense third-round struggle with second place finisher George Zhuo to claim victory in theOpen Section of the 3rd annual Feng Yun Tournament, held on January 8 in Piscataway, NJ. The tournament actually included three events; a 19x19 SwissMcMahon (63 players), a 13x13 event for youth beginners (14 players), and abetween-rounds self-paired tournament, ably directed by Larry Russ and Steve Bretherick with expert WinTD consultation from Chuck Robbins. ="A specialaward for good sportsmanship went to Jasmine Yan and Yang Xu for handling aconfusing scoring situation with great maturity,=" reports Bretherick. Every player received a choice of t-shirt or tote bag and a number of volunteerparents helped with drinks, snacks, and pizza for lunch. ="Thanks especially to Vicky Chang for sharing her professional expertise in keeping the manyyounger players focused,=" says Bretherick, ="The result was good decorum, good sportsmanship and a lot of fun for all.="
COMPLETE RESULTS:
19X19 TOURNAMENT
- OpenSection: 1st: HUANG, Ke, 4 pts;  2nd: ZHUO, Yansong;, 3pts.; 3rd: CHEN, Zhaonian, 2 pts
- 5d-1d: 1st: HU, Michael, 4 pts; 2nd : HUANG, Xiaoying, 3 pts; 3rd : XU, Wenjie, 3 pts;
- 1k-6k: 1st: ZHANG, Lionel, 4pts; 2nd: SHANG, Kevin 4 pts; 3rd :ZHAO, Zhongxia, 4 pts.
- 7k-15k:1st: ZHANG, Peter, 4 pts 2nd: NAZIF, Zaher 3 pts 3rd: XIA, Daniel 3 pts
- over 16k: 1st: ZHU, Daniel 4 pts; 2nd: LIN, Maverick 3 pts. 3rd: VEL, Sudhir 3 pts.
13X13 TOURNAMENT. 7-player round-robin on 2 tables
Table 1: 1st: Jay Hung; 2nd: Kristian Leung; 3rd:Mellisa Danitz  
Table 2: 1st: Claudia Jiang; 2nd: Sean He; 3rd: Sean Li, William Chen (tie)

CLEAR LAKE WINS 3RD HS TITLE: Clear Lake High School in Houston, Texas successfully defended their National High School Team Tournament title a third consecutive year with a last-shot victory over Riverview High School in Michigan in late December as the last hours of 2004 ticked away. ="This year saw tremendous growth with over one hundred competitors from seven states, and we hope 2005 will expand just as well,=" reports Howard King. The 2005 tournament starts in April-May2005.
FINAL RESULTS:
Champion: Clear Lake HS, Houston, Texas; Challenger: Riverview HS, Riverview, Michigan
Playoff Finalists (alphabetical order): Clear Lake HS, Houston, Texas (second team); Highland Park HS, Highland Park, New Jersey; Lincoln MS, Santa Monica, California; Monta Vista HS, Cupertino, California; New York Metropolitan, Consolidated HS in New York City; Plano Senior HS,Plano, Texas
See the full report at www.geocities.com/seaottergoclub/RSCPlayoffs.html

YUAN ZHOU TO PLAY IN WORLD STUDENT GO OZA: The Nihon Ki-in has invited Yuan Zhou 7d, winner of the 2004 ING Redmond Cup to represent the United States at the 3rd World Student Go Oza Tournament. The Student Oza will be held in Japan February 26-27th.   

CHAPTER NOTES: The Central New York Go Club is now the Syracuse Go Club: find out all about the club (a chapter of the AGA) at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syracusegoclub; the Northwest Chicago (IL) Go Club has moved and is now at: 790 Busse Road (upstairs at the Korean Daily News) in Elk Grove Village, IL. The club is open M-F 9A-7P, Sat 9A-12noon.

CORRECTED NJO DATES: The New Jersey Open will be held February26 & 27 in  Princeton, NJ, NOT January 26-27, as erroneously posted on the AGA website. We apologize for the error. For details/info, contact Rick Mott 609-466-1602; rickmott@alumni.princeton.edu

RECORD TOURNAMENT PLAY: The last two years have seen the highest amount of tournament play in the last twelve years, according to data compiled by database manager Sam Zimmerman. Not only are more go players competing, they'recompeting more often. From 1992 through 2002, about 1,000 players competed in tournaments each year, a number that jumped 30% to 1,388 in 2003 and 1,410 in 2004. Overall tournament participation (i.e. someone who playedin three tournaments counts as 3, not 1) increased as well, up from an average of 2,300 through 2002 to 3,077 in 2003 and 3,125 in 2004. A related factor may also be that there have been more tournaments in recent years, although that data has not thus far been calculated.

A GO PLAYER'S NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS: ="Let's all make six simple New Year resolutions!="suggests  Anton Ninno of the newly-renamed Syracuse Go Club: 1. Joinyour local go club (or start a new one!); 2. Become a full member of the AGA for 2005; 3. Help your go club become a chapter of the AGA; 4. Donate a go book to a school or public library; 5. Watch the feature film, ="TheMasters of Go="; 6. Read ="The Master of Go=", by Yasunari Kawabata. Optionally, you might also...7. Upgrade your Go equipment, at long last!="What are your Go Resolutions for the New Year? Email us at journal@usgo.org and we'll run the best ones next week!

SHODAN CHALLENGE GROWS IN 2005: John Irving is our first 2005 Shodan Challenger, making a grandtotal of fourteen kyu-level go players to have taken up the challenge of achieving shodan by this year's US Go Congress in Tacoma Washington in August.="I have been playing go for many years, and although I got up to the high teen kyus within a year or two, I haven't moved much in the last 10+ years,=" says Irving. ="I'm currently a 50-year old 15k, and I am making it my New Year's resolution to see if it's true what the books say: that anyone can make it to shodan if they apply themselves.=" Adds Irving, ="Happy New Year to go players everywhere!=" The E-Journal is following the progress of each Shodan Challenger and has arranged for professional game analysis to help the Shodan Challengers improve their games. See photos of some of the Challengers at http://www.usgo.org/photos/   Want to take the Shodan Challenge? Email us today at journal@usgo.org

THIS WEEK'S NEW CLASSIFIED HIGHLIGHTS: Go equipment from $35 to $2,500; Adult go camp?; Looking for players in Everett, WA;  Anyone in Missoula playing go?; 5dan offering one free lesson; check out all of these and more in Go Classified below.


WORLD GO NEWS

RUI NAIWEI RETAKES KOREAN TITLE: With a decisive 2-0 score over Cho Hyeyeon 5P, current holder of the title, Rui Naiwei 9P has taken back the Women's Myeongin (Meijin) title she lost to Cho last year. Rui won both games by resignation. Rui actually lost in the first round of this tournament to Lee Minjin 4P, butshe persevered through the losers' bracket and defeated Lee in the finals to become the challenger for the title. After losing the first game, Rui won seven in a row to take the title, all of them by resignation. Download the games at http://igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp/fm2.html

CHOI CHEOLHAN WINS KUKSU FIRST ROUND: Defending champion Choi Cheolhan 9P defeated challenger Lee Changho 9P by resignation in just 149 moves in theGame 1 of the 48th Korean Kuksu. Game 2 of the best-of-5 tourney is set for February 14. Download the game at http://www.gogameworld.com/
- gogameworld.com

LEE SEDOL TAKES 5TH WORLD: Lee Sedol 9P scored his fifth world championship on January 8, beating Chang Hao 9P in the last game of Toyota Cup WorldOza. Lee Sedol took Game 1on January 5 by resignation and lost Game 2 on January 7, setting up the decisive final round. Chang's dreams of a world championship title were dashed  by his ="gentle play=" in the final round, according the go4go.net report. Download all three rounds at http://www.go4go.net/english/index.jsp

THE VALUE OF A DECIMAL POINT:  In last week's item on the Mingren title in China (Mingren Makes 4 For Gu Li, 1/3/04 EJ) we incorrectly reported that winner Gu Li collected a $300,000 prize; the actual purse was $3,000 US. The error occurred during editing when an EJ editor mistakenly assumed the reported $3,000 prize for a major professional tournament must be a typo. Westerners are more familiarwith the huge prizes attached to the major Japanese tournaments: the Kisei pays out an impressive $400,000 US, and the Meijin winner receives about $350,000. With a bit of luck a Japanese pro can win over a million dollars ina single year. Things are different in other countries. Besides the Mingren, in China the Tianyuan, another top event, provides $6,000 and the CCTVCup goes up to about $10,000. In Korea, the Kuksu, their oldest pro tournament (now underway, see CHOI CHEOLHAN TAKES FIRST ROUND OF KUKSU above), pays out $28,000 and the Myungin about $26,000. Some of the international events come up to the level of the top Japanese events: the Ing Cup champion gets $400,000, and the winner of the Toyota-Denso World Oza Cup gets about $375,000, counting the value of the fancy car. The winner of the American Pro Ing Cup in 2004 received a prize of $5,000.
- source: http://www.gogameworld.com

GAME COMMENTARY: NHK Cup Round 3 Coming Friday!
    Just a reminder that our game commentaries and reviews have moved to theE-Journal's new weekly Friday edition. The new edition, which began last week, is being distributed only to Member's Edition subscribers, and features game commentaries (look for Alexandre Dinerchtein 1P's analysis of the 12/12/04 Japanese NHK Cup Round 3 game between Hane Naoki 9P and Sakai Hideyuki6P this Friday; we held it last week so that we could include the just-played Internet World Open Go Championship game), reviews of go books, software,equipment and more, as well as updates on tournaments scheduled for that weekend and any late-breaking go news.
    Non-members can sign up now at http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp  The Monday edition, distributed free to over 5,000 readers worldwide, will continue to focus on the latest go news and will include the event calendar and goclassified section.

GO CLASSIFIED

NEW! FOR SALE: Full set of new 8.0mm Japanese glass stones with a pair of new, Japanese, brown plastic bowls ($35); Full set of new 10mm Japanese glass stones in original box ($45); Prices include shipping. Contact Anton Ninno at antonninno@yahoo.com

NEW! FOR SALE, Go Board, Bowls & Stones. Kaya wood board; Masame, Shihomasa cut, with Hand carved Kuriashi style legs. Stones: Hyuga  Clam  (Moon or Flower) &  Nachi Guro Slate (There is a tinge of redness in the white stones).Bowls: Aged Mulberry wood hand-turned Masame straight grain cut. The board was originally purchased in Tokyo in 1971; there are a few dings & nicks on it but it is a beautifully-grained board. The bowls have a little bit of wear but again such a lovely grain on them. The stones are beautifully aged but sadly there are 15 missing of the white & 6 missing of the black. Asking $2,500 US; negotiable. clivetheartist@yahoo.com for details & pix
NEW! ADULT CAMP? I've always wondered why Go Camp is just for kids; are there other adults out there who would be interested in being kids again and organizing our own Go Camp for grown-ups? Let David Dinhofer know at ddinhofer@msn.com

INSTRUCTION, TEACHERS:

NEW! - FREE LESSON: 5dan offering one free lesson on a server of your choice for potential
students.  Contact josh at icarii@zoominternet.net for more details. (1/10)
- WANTED: 14-year-old with a ranking of 17k would like a teacher to play games with, and helpmy game improve to shodan level. E-mail me at TarenSolther@wmconnect.com
- DIANA KOSZEGI, Hungarian 6 dan, is now offering lessons on KGS. For more information please visit diana.koszegi.hu
- JOEY HUNG 8d is giving lessons on both IGS and KGS using voice chat skype.  For detail, email egogames@yahoo.com Joey is also giving free lessons on KGS from 8-9P PST. (11/29)
- CORNEL BURZO 6d EGF (7d AGA) is teaching online on IGS and KGS, also using skype voice chat, for pricing check http://www.golessons.com or email  cornelburzo@yahoo.com  (12/6)

GO PLAYERS WANTED:
AK: Juneau, Alaska ; stevekrall@yahoo.com (8/23)
AL: Birmingham or Hoover: email goboard@bellsouth.net I'm about 5k; any level is welcome. (9/6)
AZ: Phoenix, AGA 5d looking for go players; michaelscai@yahoo.com (8/23)
CA: Fresno/Visalia, meeting at Borders, 4kyu player, larrygates@sbcglobal.net
CO: Grand Junction: Beginner looking for players; email bevans@hospicewco.com  (12/6)
FL: Ft. Myers: Looking for players in the area interested in startinga go club; email kent=5Fno=5Fgo@earthlink.net  (11/29)
FL: Tampa Bay; Looking for players within 30 minutes of Tampa Bay to help create a club which might be located near USF. rruiz002@tampabay.rr.com  (9/27)
IL: Northern Illinois, Gurnee area. Any rank, age, or shoe size welcome. Looking for friendly or teaching games. Contact (15 kyu) Joe at nothing217@comcast.net (9/6)
IN: Bloomington: Want to help start an AGA chapter?  Contact me now at sfcowling@bluemarble.net  (11/08/04)
KY: Louisville; I would like to start a go chapter in Louisville; I am a
total beginner, but I would still like to play with some actual human
beings. Interested folks should contact ed.hammerbeck@gmail.com
MA: Looking for players to meet on the South Shore, possibly at Thomas Crane Library or Panera's Bread in Quincy. E-mail Adam@polymathsblade.com
ME: Looking for players in the Southern Maine area; allenfr@waterboro.com
NEW!MT: Anyone in Missoula playing go? A beginner friend of mine
might like to meet up if you are willing to teach an eager, quick-learning
absolute beginner. Email chriskubica@yahoo.com
NH: Hanover, Meets 2-5 PM Wed at Hopkins Center Cafeteria; efeustel@direcway.com
NV: LasVegas; Looking for players a new, and I believe the first, area go club. Anyone interested should contact Aaron Thomas at avontron@gmail.com (11/29)
NV: Reno: The Reno Go Club ( http://www.renogo.org ) is looking for people interested in go. Email: info@renogo.org
NY: Syracuse; The Syracuse Go Club invites players who live anywhere near Utica, Geneva, Oswego, and  Cortland to join them on Monday nights. Visit the club's website at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syracusegoclub
PA: Philadelphia; the Penn Go Society meets Wednesday evenings 5:30P in Houston Hall on the University of Pennsylvania campus, 3417 Spruce Street.  Players of all levels welcome. Email either Matthew Bengtson mattbengtson@earthlink.net or Peter Nassar pnassar@vet.upenn.edu for details  (12/6)
SC: Charleston/Lowcountry area. Total beginner looking for teachingand friendly games. Contact Doug: dougsimpson@email.com
NEW! WA: Looking for players in Everettto establish regular go night, maybe at Library Coffee Shop or Bargreens.E-mail mike.mercer@attws.com

GOT GO STUFF TO SELL, SWAP ORWANT TO BUY? Do it here and reach over 5,000 Go players worldwide every week at Go Classified! Listings are free and run 4 weeks; send to us at journal@usgo.org

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

January 15:  Kalamazoo, MI
KZoo's 2nd Go Tournament
Benjamin Schooley 989-287-0123  benjaminschooley@hotmail.com
htto://votar.org/kgc/tourney.html

January 15:  Seattle, WA
Mid Winter Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424  jon@seattlegocenter.org

January 15:  Columbus, OH
1st Annual Ohayocon Tournament
elvenflare@aol.com

January 15-17:  Evanston, IL
6th Annual Winter Workshop
Yang Yilun 7 Dan
Mark Rubenstein 847-869-6020  mark@evanstongoclub.org

January 15-18:  Belchertown, MD
Guo Juan Workshop
Bill Saltman 413-323-8658  b1saltman@charter.net

January 16:  Somerville, MA
MGA Winter Handicap Touranament
Zack Grossbart 617-497-1232  zack@grossbart.com
http://www.massgo.org

January 22:  Richmond, VA
The Slate and Shell Open
William Cobb 804-740-2191  wmscobb@comcast.net

January 29:  Denver, CO
Rocky Mountain Winter Tournament
U. Tamm 303-466-2865  utamm@worldnet.att.net

February 26 & 27:  Princeton, NJ
New Jersey Open (NOTE CORRECTED DATES!)
Rick Mott 609-466-1602  rickmott@alumni.princeton.edu

February 6: Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424  jon@seattlegocenter.org

March 17-20:  Germantown, MD
10th Annual Maryland Yang Workshop
Gordon Fraser 301-540-2640  gordon@wui.net

This is a digest of events for the next month only; for a complete listing see the Tournament Calendar on theAGA website: http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.asp
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 7,000 readers every week! List your Go event/news In the E Journal: email details to us at journal@usgo.org


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