E-JOURNAL SPECIAL EDITION 2: Our second special edition of the American Go E-Journal comes to you from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where the 2005 Ing Memorial Tournament has just concluded. Today's edition includ es a winner's report from the Ing Memorial and the side tournament, along with a breathtakingly ferocious Round 5 game between Fan Hui and Catalin Taranu and a report on the bustling European Go Cultural Centre, where last weekend's events took place. We are pleased to provide this special edition to all our readers as a bonus and strongly encourage non-member readers to consider supporting this kind of world go journalism by subscribing to the Member's Edition at http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp
FAN HUI WINS ING MEMORIAL: Fan Hui 2P (China) won the 2005 Ing Memorial Tournament in Amsterdam yesterday, narrowly beating out second-place winner Catalin Taranu 5P (Romania) by one point on SODOS (sum of defeated opponent's scores) for the $3,000 top prize; both players were 5-1 in the 3-day tournament, as were 3rd-place winners Alexandre Dinerchtein 1P (Russia) and Guo Juan 5P ( Netherlands). As reported in Friday's EJ, the Ing Memorial featured two dozen of Europe's top players competing for $7,000 in prizes at the Ing-sponsored event at the European Go Center. The rest of the top winners: 5th: Dragos Bajenaru 6d (RO); 6th: Csaba Mero 6d (HU); 7th: Cornel Burzo 6d (RO) & Zhao Pei 6d (DE); 9th: Radek Nechanicky 6d (CZ); 10th: Benjamin Teuber 6d (DE).
VANDERSTAPPEN SWEEPS ING SIDE TOURNEY: Filip Vanderstappen 5d took top honors in the 2005 Ing Memorial side tournament, winning all five rounds in a tough field of fifty one players. Other top winners: Rudi Verhagen 5d (2nd), Dick Riedeman 3d (3rd), Bob van den Hoek 1d (4th), Cheng Zhuo 2d (5th), Nico Spruit 4d (6th), Bram Koster 2d (7th), Marc Eerbeek 1k (8th), Mark Theelen 1d (9th) & Wang Zi 1d (9th). The American contingent had mixed results, with Darrell 6k winning six out of seven in the lower group and Phil Straus 1d (European rating) and Chris Garlock 1d taking a beating w ith 1-4 and 1-2 results (Garlock byed out Sunday to record the Ing match).
INVINCIBLE AGAIN: The third printing of John Power?s classic ``Invincible, The Games of Shusaku`` will be out in just a few weeks, according to Peter Zandfeld of Schaak en Gowinkel het Paard, the book?s European distributor. The new printing includes 200 of the rare hardcover versions, available from het Paard (along with all the go and chess equipment you could want) or publisher Kiseido. Along with all of go legend Shusaku?s games, the book includes a comprehensive history of go and extensive game commentaries. Special thanks to everyone at het Paard, who graciously allowed us to use their computer to post today?s edition of the EJournal.
KISEI GOES TO GAME SEVEN: For the second year in a row, the Kisei title match in Japan will be decided in the seventh game. Hane Naoki 9P won the sixth game by 6.5 points to even the match with Yuki Satoshi 9p of the Kansai Kiin a t three games each. The decisive moment in the game came at move 107, when Yuki loses his corner. You can replay or download the game record at http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/collection/bytour2.php?tid=13
ZHOU TAKES FIRST GAME IN CHUNLAN FINALS: In another half point title match victory, Zhou Heyang 9P of China defeated Lee Changho 9P of Korea in the first game of the best-of-three-game contest for the 5th Chunlan Cup. The second game will be on March 16th. You can download the game record at http://www.go4go.net/english/bytournament2.jsp?&id=5 .
CHANG HAO WINS ING CUP FOR CHINA: In a major achievement for China and for himself personally, Chang Hao 9P won the 5th Ing Cup by defeating Choe Choelhan 9P of Korea by three points in the fourth game of their title match. Chang took the $400,000 US prize with a score to 3-1. It's the first time China has won this prestigious international title established by the late go benefactor Ing ChangKi in 1988, and the first time Korea has not won it. This is also the first international title for Chang Hao, who has finished as the runner up in six international tournaments, including the Ing Cup last year. The Ing Cup is held only every four years.
CHO CHIKUN WINS FIRST GAME IN JUDAN: Playing in a title match for the first time in two years, Cho Chikun 9P defeated O Rissei 9P, the current title holder, in the first game of the 43rd Judan title match. Cho won with Black by a half point. You can download the game record at http://www.go4go.net/english/bytournament2.jsp?id=17 . John Power reports on the Nihon Kiin home page that Cho made a blunder in the middle game that cost him four points, but O missed several chances to put the game away, allowing Cho to catch up in the endgam e for the narrowest possible victory. The second game will be on March 17th.
CHO U BAGS ANOTHER TITLE: By defeating Ryu Shikun 9P in the 24th Japanese NEC Cup, Cho U 9P has collected his fourth current title. He already holds the Meijin, the Honinbo, and the Oza. Cho is in the finals of the 52nd NHK Cup, where his opponent will be Yoda Norimoto 9P. Moreover, he has a shot at his first international title in the finals of the 9th LG Cup against Yu Bin 9P of China, scheduled to begin at the end of March. For pictures and Cho's career highlights see http://www.gogameworld.com/gophp/playerinfo.php?id=19 . He is obviously the number one player in Japan at present.
BOULDER YOUNGSTER RISING FAST: Seven~year~old Jae Hyun Choi of the Boulder, Colorado kids club has won 13 consecutive games and gone from 22k to 16k between January 30 and March 13, reports David Weiss. ``He went fr om losing to our former strongest player by 4 stones on January 30 to beating her taking white the last two times that
they played,`` says Weiss.
GAME COMMENTARY: The Pro's 20-Kyu Mistake
A "20-kyu mistake" cost Fan Hui 2P his fifth-round game against Catalin Taranu 5P Sunday morning at the 2005 Ing Memorial tournament in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The hard-fought game features an early large-scale sacrifice that's miraculously resurrected later in the game with a clever tesuji involving a medium-sized sacrifice. Fan Hui received professional training in China while 32-year-old Catalin Taranu recently returned from a 9-year stint studying go in Japan.
To view the attached .sgf file(s), simply save the file(s) to your computer and then open using an .sgf reader such as Many Faces of Go or SmartGo. Readers who need .sgf r eaders can get them for most platforms at Jan van der Steen's http://gobase.org/sgfeditors.html
THE TRAVELING GO BOARD: Europe's Go Central
by Chris Garlock
Tucked away in a nondescript exurban Amsterdam neighborhood next to a car dealership, the European Go Cultural Centre is a bustling hub of activity, not just for the Dutch go scene and the European go community, but for other "mind sports" like bridge, chess and draughts (checkers), which are now contending for recognition as Olympic sports. Nearly two dozen clubs and organizations are based at the Centre.
When Iwamoto Kaoru visited Amsterdam in 1999, he insisted on taking public transportation because he wanted the European Go Cultural Centre to be easily accessible to everyone. The site in Amstelve en, just 15 minutes from central Amsterdam by tram or train (or 30 minutes by bike, the preferred mode of transport for many Dutch) was well-chosen, because the Centre is visited by over 2,000 people each week. While some 500 of those are go players, "About half are bridge players," reports Centre Manager Eric Puyt, a third are from the local Japanese community, and the rest play chess, checkers or other mind sports.
As in the other go centers Iawamoto established in Seattle, New York and Sao Paolo, the heart of the EGCC is the the tatami "Kunwa" room (the name Iwamoto used when he won the Honinbo title in 1946). The Centre has hosted the initial games of three major Japanese title matches, the 1992 and 2000 Meijin and the 1996 Kisei. And just as in the tatami playing room in the Nihon Kiin in Tokyo, Kawabata's scroll inscribed with the Japanese kanji for "Endlessly Deep" hangs on the wall. Unique to this Centre, however, is the haiku by the Centre's first President, Jan Leyen, which reads
This oldest game
beginning with nothing
endless universe
The two-story building contains four large playing rooms, administrative offices and two bars. The second bar, upstairs, was added last year when it became clear that the one downstairs couldn't handle the needs of the growing numbers of players who can be found after (or even during) matches re-hashing games over endless glasses of good local beer. "People need a place to eat and drink," explains Puyt. While smoking is not permitted in the playing rooms, the downstairs bar can get quite foggy, although this seems to be pretty much true of every bar in Amsterdam.
&nbs p;The Center is open all week long and every other weekend or a wide range of game and cultural activities, but it also serves as Go Central for European go, with go materials in an astonishing 17 languages for use in 23 countries (including both Catalan and Spanish for Spain, despite the limited number of go players there). Four full-time staffers ably run the Centre, including Frank Janssen, Erik Puyt and William Wandel. "Staffing is critical to our threefold mission of go promotion, organizing events and fostering cooperation," says Puyt.
During the EJ's interview with Puyt, we were joined by European Go Federation President Tony Atkins of the United Kingdom, for a wide-ranging discussion of the state of European go. "The advent of the Toyota/IGS/PandaNet Go Tour has created a bit of a circuit for top go players," Atkins said. "Anyone can play in the 13 major events but only the top players get points." There are now over 10,0 00 go players on the EGF's rating list, but recent surveys have indicated that there may be as many as 750,000 in Europe who have played go at one time or another. The challenge for the Federation, the Centre and the various national go associations, is "how to get those players to join us." Membership in the national associations ranges from Portugal's 27 (up from 25) to Germany's nearly 2,000, who can attend tournaments held nearly every weekend somewhere in the country. The new rating system instituted by the EGF in 2000 has proven effective at beginning to establish more consistent ratings across Europe, says Atkins, "though there's still some variance." The annual European Go Congress, a 2-week go marathon, is still the EGF's biggest event, drawing nearly 800 attendees each year.
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BUY, SELL, OR TRADE equipment, books and go materials, find a go teacher, find someone to play go with! COMPLETE GO CLASSIFIEDS NOW ONLINE at http://www.usgo.org/resources/classified.asp
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
March 19: Raleigh, NC
Spring Fuseki
Troy Hurteau 919-515-3318 jthurtea@ncsu.edu
http://clubs.ncsu.edu/go/springtournament/
Mar ch 19: Ann Arbor, MI
Spring Tournament
Eric Jankowski 734-417-5547 erjank@umich.edu
www.umich.edu/~goclub
March 19: Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA
Grant MacEwan Open
Jason Morris 780-497-5479 MorrisJ5@mymail.macewan.ca
March 20: Sunnyvale, CA
9th. Jujo Jiang Cup Youth Goe Tournament
Mingjiu Jiang 650-969-2857 mingjiu7p@hotmail.com
http://www.usgo.org/usa/jujoyouth.asp
March 26: Baltimore, MD
3rd Annual Hopkins GO Tournament
Robert Ferguson robert.ferguson@gmail.com
http://www.jhu.edu/~hopkinsgo/3rdannual.html
March 26: Denton, TX
Yet Another Go Tournament
Paisa Seeluangsawat 940-367-2537 paisa@unt.edu
http://orgs.unt.edu/go/to urnament.html
April 2: Arlington, VA
Cherry Blossom
Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@worldnet.att.net
April 2: Syracuse, NY
Syracuse Spring Ratings Tournament
Anton Ninno 315-479-9073 antonninno@yahoo.com
April 2-3: San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Go Club 2005 Spring Tournament
Steve Burrall sburrall@comcast.net 916-688-2858
April 3: Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424 jon@seattlegocenter.org
http://www.seattlegocenter.org/
June 25-28: Hackensack, NJ
2005 NJ Yang Yi-lun 7p Go Workshop
John Stephenson 201-612-0852 jcs@wingsgoclub.org
https://www.wingsgoclub.org/YangWorkshop2005.asp
August 6-14: Tacoma, WA
21st US Go Congress
Steve Stringfellow 253-761-9466 congress@heffalumps.com
http://www.go2005.org
This is a digest of events for the next month only; for a complete listing see the Tournament Calendar on the AGA website: http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.asp
For the European Go Calendar see http://www.european-go.org/TOURNAMENTS/TListbyDate.htm
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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 Edi tor 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
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