A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

Csaba Mero 6D (left) won the 2013 Confucius Cup, played March 2-3 in Dublin, Ireland. Zebin Du 4D took second place and in third was Antoine Fenech 5D. Latest European tournament results available on EuroGoTV’s website. 

Late in February, the 3rd Huang Longshi Cup kicked off, pitting the five strongest women from China, Japan, and Korea against each other.

Kim Chaeyong gave Korea a quick start, taking out Japan’s Osawa Narumi 4P and Ishii Akane 2P, as well as China’s Song Ronghui 5P and Chen Yiming 2P. However, 14-year-old Yu Zhiying 2P from China stopped Kim’s run, and added two of her own, defeating Japan’s Okuda Aya 3P and Korea’s Kim Hyelim 2P. That leaves Xie Yiin 6P and Mukai Chiaki 5P for Japan, and Yu Zhiying 2P, Li He 3P and Wang Chenxing 5P (who won 8 games in a row in last year’s tournament) for China. Korea may be in the best position with Park Jieun 9P left, as well as Choi Jung 3P and Moon Dowon 2P

Round 2 begins on April 6th. The Huang Longshi Cup is an international women’s win-and-continue team tournament between China, Japan and Korea named after Huang Longshi – a famous Chinese go genius from the Qing dynasty.
Adapted from a report on Go Game Guru; click for game records and more information. Edited by Ben Williams
photo: Team Japan – from left: Mukai Chiaki, Xie Yimin and Osawa Narumi. 

NJO Game Records?  “Does anyone have access to the SGF for Andy Liu’s win over Mingming (Stephanie) Yin at the New Jersey Open?” asks EJ reader Robert P.
Due to unavoidable scheduling conflicts, top-board games were not broadcast or recorded this year; the E-Journal hopes to broadcast the NJO in 2014. 

Folding Board Query: “I was wondering if you have any more info on these boards (Whence the Seattle Portable Set? 9/2/2012 EJ),” writes Sergio Miranda Elmaleh. “I am considering of buying one of these and I was wondering what the durability of the folding seam is.”
We never did get a response to the original report; if anyone has info, please email us at journal@usgo.org and we’ll pass it along.

Youngsters from Portland, OR, took on kids from Mexico City, in a friendly match on KGS, held on Feb. 24th.  The Portland group, organized by Peter Freedman, played two rounds, and won 9-5, with one tie. The Mexican group are students of Siddhartha Avila’s, at the Pipiolo elementary school, and have competed with the Portland kids before, who Avila says are “much stronger this year”.  The kids video conferenced with each other before the matches, and were able to meet their opponents by Skype as well as across the board.  ”Some of the kids we played plan on visiting Portland before going on the Go Congress in Tacoma this summer,” reports Freedman.  ”They and their parents will homestay with our go families, spending a week playing go, soccer, and sightseeing with us.  Our families are really revved about this idea.”  Winner’s Report: Portland 2 game winners: McCaleb Nessler-Cass 16k, Jordan Reed 24k, Hikaru ?k; 1 game winners: Wilson ?k, Ellis Zehnder 23k; Mexico 2 game winners: Samuel 17k; 1 game winners: David Martinez 16k, Sebastian 20k, Yatzitl 24k.  Story by Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor -Photo: Students from Pipiolo competing, by Siddhartha Avila.

Park Junghwan continued Korea’s dominance of the Nongshim Cup, defeating Jiang Weijie 9P to take home the 11th Korean win in the Cup’s 14-year history.

Park was the new anchor for Korea in the team tournament,  handpicked by Lee Changho himself. Jiang was a newcomer to the tournament as well.

The final round kicked off on February 26th, with Choi Cheolhan breaking his personal 8-game losing streak against Chen Yaoye. However, he lost his next game to China’s Xie He 9P.

Xie’s record at the Nongshim Cup is 2nd best in the cup’s history, and got him promoted to 9P in the first place. That left Park to face both Xie and Jiang, but he was able to pull out victories against them both and bring the Cup back to Korea after China won the tournament last year.

Adapted from a report on Go Game Guru; click for game records and more information. Edited by Ben Williams

Sixteen-year-old Fan Tingyu 3P defeated Park Junghwan 9P on March 6th to become the youngest winner of the prestigious Ing Cup.

Fan Tingyu Left, Park Junghwan, Right

The Ing Cup, go’s longest-running international tournament, has been called the Go Olympics, since it held once every four years.

The semifinals, which took place last September, set up a showdown between Park and Fan in Singapore, where the first two games of the final were held. They left Singapore with one win apiece in the best-of-5 final.

The three final games were set for Shanghai, starting on March 4th, with Park hot off his win at the Nongshim Cup. Fan took Game Three, and the pressure was on Park, though he was playing as White, to stay in the match.

Game Four was a thriller, with Park, playing white, making a lot of territory early, with a number of weaker groups. Park ended up sacrificing two of the groups to reinforce the center. However, Fan played brilliantly to take away the center territory, with ko battles throughout the board. By the time it was all settled, black was ahead by 3 points and Fan had captured the title.

By winning the Cup, Fan not only becomes the youngest player to win the Ing Cup, but if he’s promoted to 9P, as is customary after winning an international title,  he will be the youngest player to do that as well, breaking Chen Yaoye 9P’s record.

Fan took home about $400,000 US for his efforts.

Adapted from a report on Go Game Guru; click for game records and more information. Edited by Ben Williams

Almost exactly a year since co-directors Will Lockhart and Cole Pruitt decided to shoot a documentary on the game of go — The Surrounding Game — the team is moving into the next phase of the project. “We have come a very long way and the filming itself is almost complete, but we still have a long way to go to get to a finished film” says Lockhart. The team filmed at the 2012 U.S. Go Congress and AGA Pro Tournament last summer, traveled to China and Korea in the fall, and spent the winter organizing their extensive footage. “We’re now launching a second fundraiser to raise money for post-production, including hiring a full-time editor, commissioning original music, and digital mastering of the film,” says Lockhart. A new fundraising goal of $30,000 has been set to reach a final cut of the film.

The new fundraiser begins this Saturday, March 9 and will operate via The Surrounding Game’s brand new website, which also features a recently-released trailer for the film. “We are adding Chinese- and Korean-language options for the site to make the project and fundraiser accessible to an international audience, and we’ll be offering a ton of new rewards which weren’t available the first time around,”  says Pruitt. We want “The Surrounding Game” to be as well-produced as it can possibly be, and we hope you’ll share the project with your friends and family and help us reach our goal.” He also noted that last year “we passed our initial goal quickly thanks to a lot of support from EJ readers.”
- screencaps from the latest Surrounding Game trailer

While the U.S. team prevailed in a February 16-17 friendship match in Cuba, “the true victory was in realizing this rare opportunity for players from the two countries to come together,” said trip organizer Bob Gilman.

A team of 11 U.S. players competed with Cubans at the Academia Cubana de Go in Havana. The US players ranged from 5 dan to 24 kyu, and the Cubans had a similarly wide range. The event drew coverage on Cuban sports TV.

“They are just a wonderful group of people and their passion for the game came through every minute we were with them,” said AGA President Andy Okun. “When the barriers between our countries are gone, the North American go community will be that much richer.”

“All the players I played showed intense fighting spirit,” Okun added, “and I think they will benefit a lot once they have easier access to resources and opponents.” He also noted that “The rum they served out to celebrate the end of each day’s play was awfully good.”

Anthony Chen 5d agreed that ”If the Cubans get to play go on the internet, their
strength will improve dramatically. Since their travel is limited, they don’t play against many different styles of players. It was good that our US team was able to provide a measuring stick for them, but if they can play regularly on the internet, I am sure they will raise their level rapidly.”

Catherine and Royce Chen each brought donations for the Academia: Catherine 10 new copies of Cho Hun-Hyeon’s Lessons on Go Techniques Vol. 2, a book she had translated, and Royce 50 used go books he had collected. The Cubans presented the US players with gifts of Cuban handicrafts.
photo: Cuban player Sergio Seara Saenz (left, in white shirt) and Andy Okun (at right, with back to camera); photo by Joel Olson

Former AGA President Phil Straus (l) recently dropped by the Santa Monica Go Club where he played a game with go author, translator — and Santa Monica Go Club member — Richard Dolen.
- photo by Jeffrey Tsao

The 26th Evening News Cup was held on January 6-12 in Xian, once the starting point of the silk road, now a center of China's software industry. The tournament is sponsored by the Chinese Weiqi Association and the China Evening News Journalists' Association. Although its financial rewards are modest (10,000 yuan -- about 1600 dollars or 1200 euros -- for 1st place) it is China's foremost amateur tournament because since 1992 the winner (or runner-up in 2002-2005) has represented China at the World Amateur Go Championship. The winner also receives a promotion to 7 dan and has the option of turning pro, as Qiao Zhijian did last year. This year the field included four former world champions who remained amateur: Sun Yiguo (1993), Li Daichun (2001), Hu Yuqing (2005, 2009), and Bai Baoxiang (2011). It also included 2010 WAGC runner-up Wang Chen, winner of the 120,000-yuan Chenyi Cup in 2011 and the Amateur Tianyuan in 2012 and ranked, along with Hu and Bai, among China's top four amateur players.

The Evening News Cup is both an individual and a team competition. Most of the players participate as members of three-person teams representing evening newspapers from all over China, their aggregate score determining their team's standing. The field (166 players this year) was divided into A and B blocks. An 11-round Swiss system in each block was followed by a two-round combined play-off for 1st to 8th places. The players played two games per day (one on January 8), with 85-minute time limits followed by 10-second-per-move overtime.

For the first five days block A was dominated by Wang Chen and block B by Hu Yuqing. Nobody could beat them. Wang downed Bai Baoxiang in round 7, and Hu defeated Qian Liuru, a rising teenaged star who contested the 2012 Chenyi Cup with Bai (Bai won), in round 6. On day six Hu remained invincible, winning block B with a perfect 11-0 score, but Wang lost twice, throwing block A into confusion: three players ended up with nine wins apiece and two had eight. SOS points sorted out the top three, putting Wang first, Jinglong Cup winner Li Ziqi second, and teenaged Cheng Honghao, master (mingren) of Anhui and Anqing in 2010 and 2011, third. Bai, who had lost to Cheng in round 10, squeaked into fourth place on a third-level tie-break.

In the semi-final round the next morning block B's No. 1 Hu defeated block A's No. 2 Li, but Block A's Wang, Cheng, and Bai prevailed over, respectively, the 2nd-, 4th-, and 3rd-place finishers in block B: Qian Liuru, eleven-year-old Wang Bo, and teenager Dai Zhitian. In the final round in the afternoon, Hu Yuqing won by resignation over Wang Chen to capture the cup, completing a remarkable week of thirteen straight victories against tough opponents, most of them about half his age. Li Ziqi beat out Qian Liuru for third place, Cheng Honghao beat Bai Baoxiang again to take fifth, and Wang Bo beat Dai Zhitian to take seventh.

On January 13 the top six finishers challenged strong professional opponents (Piao Wenyao, Jiang Weijie, Shi Yue, Tan Xiao, Nie Weiping, Xie He). Historically the amateurs, playing at handicaps ranging from even to two stones, have won more than half of these games. This year the amateurs took black with no compensation and the pros beat them on all six boards.

The team competition was won by a team representing the Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening News, no suprise since the team members were Hu Yuqing, Wang Chen, and 2003 World Student Oza Champion Ye Lingyun. Best woman was Zhao Guanru, who finished 35th in block A. Veteran world amateur champions Li Daichun and Sun Yiguo turned in good results by finishing 7th and 12th in block B.

The upcoming Spring Go Expo, scheduled for March 23-24 in Boston, MA, will now be held at Harvard’s Student Organization Center at Hilles (SOCH) on both days. The event will include a Chinese-American professional exhibition match between Andy Liu 1P and Chang Hao 9P, simultaneous games against professional players, a preview of the first feature-length documentary on go, “The Surrounding Game”, public teaching and demonstrations, a youth go tournament, and lectures on the relevance of go beyond the board.

“We urge everyone in the New England area to try to come to this unique event,” says organizer Cole Pruitt, “especially college students, for whom the ACGA can offer subsidies for travel and stay”. The Go Expo is designed to attract both die-hard players and newcomers alike, with many different kinds of activites throughout the weekend. Click here for the full schedule, as well as registration info; click here for the brand-new Expo flyer.

NJO Results & Standings Posted: Our New Jersey Open report (Andy Liu 1P Wins New Jersey Open 3/3/2013) has been updated to include links to a full NJO tournament report, including prize-winners, and complete tournament standings, including updated ratings and all game results. photo by Rick Mott

AGA Website/Social Media Updates: Liking AGA’s Pair Go Facebook Page: The new AGA Pair Go Facebook page has new photos and urges you to check it out and “Like” it. Go9dan Added: The new go9dan.com server has been added to the AGA’s internet go page; the server’s features include the ability to observe and play multiple games, a teaching game auction, rated and unrated tournaments, and the opportunity to play against professional world go champions.

25% Off Slate & Shell Books: Slate & Shell is having a sale on all its books, publisher Bill Cobb tells the E-Journal. All S&S books are discounted at least 25% on the web site. The sale — which does not include books imported from overseas lasts through 10am EDT Monday March 11.

Guo Juan School Accepting Students: Guo Juan’s Internet Go School is currently accepting enrollment for its online group class for the 2013 second term, beginning on April 13. Participants also receive a 20% discount on annual membership of the school’s pro lectures. The teaching faculty includes Guo Juan 5P, Young Sun Yoon 8P, Jennie Shen 2P, and Mingjiu Jiang 7P.

March 9: Middlebury, VT
Moyo Madness
Peter Schumer schumer@middlebury.edu 802-388-3934

Get the latest go events information.

The New Jersey Open — held March 2-3 in Princeton, NJ — had a near-record turnout of 114 players. Professionals participated for the first time in the 54-year history of the tournament, and the final round came down to Andy Liu 1P (US, at left) and Ming-ming (Stephanie) Yin 1P (CN, at right), with Andy Liu emerging victorious. This is his second time as NJ State Champion.

“Another highlight of the event was the drawing for the Beginner’s Prize, which has been a feature of the NJO since 1990,” reports organizer Rick Mott. The names of all players 15 kyu and below who completed at least three games were written on index cards, and the newly-crowned New Jersey Champion picked a card at random. This year, the winner was young Audrey Shin, playing in her first tournament. She was much too small to hold the box with a new board, bowls and stones, so it fell to her dad David Shin 4k, who also won a prize as a 4-game winner, to carry it home. “All in all, it was a pretty good day for the Shin family,” said Mott.

Click here for a full NJO tournament report, including prize-winners, and complete tournament standings, including updated ratings and all game results.

- photo by Rick Mott

Jeff Newmiller 1k (right) topped the Davis/Sacramento Go Club tournament last Saturday, March 2, with two wins. There were a total of seven players at the Arden-Dimick library in Sacramento. Cha Tai-An 5k (left), won Division II with a perfect 4 wins.
- Willard Haynes

The American go community lost another longtime friend when Teddy Feldman passed away on Friday, March 1. Feldman — along with her son Micah — has been a familiar sight at go tournaments and events in the Northeast for many years, where she took an obvious delight in sharing the game with friends old and new. The funeral will be in New Jersey on Monday morning.
- photo: Teddy Feldman (l), plays Todd Cesere at the Western Massachusetts Go Club’s Spring 2011 tournament. photo courtesy the MGA

The 2013 Irish Go Congress occurred over the weekend with 38 players attending in sunny Dublin. Csaba Mero, 6d Hungary, won the main tournament, The 2nd Confucius Cup, for the second time with a perfect 5/5 score. In second place was Zebin Du, 4d China, and third was Antoine Fenech, 5d France.

Roger Daniel, 6k UK, and Mikulas Kubita, 15k Czech Republic, won all five of their games, while Thomas Shanahan won four.

The Friday evening Rapid tournament was won by Yuanbo Zhang, 4d China, with five straight wins, while Roman Pszonka, 3d Poland, came second with four.

Full results of the 2nd Confucius Cup are available here and the Rapid here.

iPad/iPod/iPhone user alert: In “SGFs and iStuff” (2/1/13), I looked at some issues related to viewing sgf files on iPods, iPads and other mobile Apple products. I managed to confuse some readers, so please note that I was referring specifically to apps for mobile devices, not desktop-based software. One reader disagreed at some length with my conclusion favoring Smart Go Kifu (SGK) over EasyGo, so I took a closer look at the two apps. The reader raised some specific questions: What about when you’re recording a game and realize you skipped a pair of moves? How do you place un-numbered stones when setting up a problem? I found that both apps have these functions. He also offered a link to a review from last April with information that is, in some cases, incomplete or inaccurate. SGK actually does keep problem statistics, but only for one user (EasyGo can track multiple users.) SGK only imports one file at a time, but that file can contain many games or problems; just concatenate them into one file on your desktop, using software such as the freeware Kombilo.  EasyGo does offer one unique feature — a “time line” type graph that shows where the next comment will be. You can test it in the free version if you like. On the other hand, SGK’s problem collection is better. I’ve been studying a lot of problems lately. I find it is the perfect time filler when you’re waiting in line, riding the train or otherwise briefly idle. If you guess the wrong answer in EasyGo, you get a big red X that tells you to try again. SGK’s response is more thorough. Your wrong move says “1?”, and the other side’s best response appears, so you can play out failed variations and see why they don’t work. (If you don’t even get a “1?”, you know you’re not even close.) When you’re right, your stone says “1!”, but you still have to finish the variation to get credit, and if you go wrong along the way, you’ll get a “?” to let you know, and you can play it out and see why. With so many other features — a playing engine, a collection of 40,000 pro game records and a “Guess Next Move” function , to name a few — SGK still seems clearly worth the higher price. When I’m finished studying SGK’s >2000 problems, I’ll probably pick up EasyGo too, for the problem collection; or I may just get one of the classic problem books that’s available through Smart Go. Or both.
- Roy Laird 

Sixteen university students from five continents assembled in Tokyo's Ginza on February 26 and 27 for the 11th World Students Go Oza Championship. The tournament is sponsored by the All-Japan Students Go Association and the Nikkei newspaper, with the cooperation of the International Go Federation. Also cooperating was Pandanet, which organized the online qualifying tournament.

The first round matched the eight players from the four big powers, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (one male and one female player from each), against eight players from Australia, Chile, Finland, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Thailand, and the U.S.A. (one player from each). All but one of these games were won by the big powers, but in losing, Finland's Antti Tormanen gave Korea's Kim Youwhan what he later described as his toughest match of the tournament. In the one game that the big four lost, Maojie Xia, formerly a student at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, China and now studying accounting at the University of Montana in the U.S.A., bested Ouyang Yizhuo, the Chinese female player.

In the next round Maojie Xia nearly did it again. His opponent Go Risa, a former Japanese insei of Korean ancestry, won by resignation but she had to come from far behind. 'A miracle' was how she described her victory. Meanwhile. Serbia's Dusan Mitic handed Ouyang Yizhuo her second loss. In the third round Maojie Xia was back in form, beating Japan's Yanagida Tomoya, who had won the Japanese Students Top Ten tournament last November. Go Risa lost to China's Su Guangyue, Kim Youwhan bested his teammate Chae Hyunji, and Antti Tormanen beat Dusan Mitic.

That left only Kim and Su undefeated. Kim won the deciding game between them in the fourth round to take the championship, while Su took second place on tie-breaking points. Antti Tormanen took third place by beating Lin Hung-ping. This was fairly remarkable, because Lin had started the year by winning the Five Kings Cup in Taiwan, thereby becoming only the second woman in the history of go in Taiwan to earn an amateur 7-dan ranking. Go Risa beat Chae Hyunji to take fourth place, and Lo Sheng-chieh, Taiwan's male player, beat Maojie Xia to take fifth.

The new World Student Oza Kim Youwhan is a student at Myongji University, majoring in baduk, that is, in go. He hopes to make a career of promoting the game after he graduates. 'I was suprised at the strength of the players from countries outside the professional zone,' he said. This sentiment was echoed by Go Risa, who added that she had enjoyed the tournament because it gave her a chance to speak Korean. Runner-up Su Guangyue is studying law at the Shanghai International Studies University and hopes to open a go classroom for children in the future.

Complete results are here.

The US has won the Brunei Friendship Cup, which was held Saturday Feb. 16th, on KGS.  Sponsored by the American Go Honor Society, and the Brunei I-Go Society.   “The match revived an earlier tourney last held in 2010, and renewed an international friendship with countries in Southeast Asia,” reports tournament coordinator Andrew Huang. This year’s event featured two teams from Southeast Asia, a team from Canada, and a team from the United States (selected by a qualifying event the prior week). The US team featured Aaron Ye 5d, Jeremy Chiu 5d, Louie Liu 1d, Sathya Singh 1k, Jeremiah Donley 4k, Joshua Song 12k, Eric Liu 3k, Kalin Bradley 6k, and Monsoon Shrestha 8k. In the end, the Americans were victorious after posting a 3-0 record, while SE Asia Team 2 (2-1) got second, SE Asia Team 1(1-2)  got third, and Canada (0-3) got fourth.  ”Most importantly, some international friendships were made,” reports Huang, “and very exciting games were played (including a triple ko in the qualifying event). We look forward to an even more successful event next year.”  Full reports are here. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo of Brunei players from xinwengolife.wordpress.com.