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March 30: Rochester, NY
Empty Sky Spring Tournament
Steve Colburn tournament@emptysky.org 585-703-3977

Get the latest go events information.

Those who were lucky enough to be able to attend Ireland’s premier event, the Confucius Cup, may like to see if they can spot themselves in the report published by the Sun Emerald – see here

On March 17th a group of Bay Area Go Players Association volunteers gathered and gave free go lessons to beginners in Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood (across the bay from San Francisco). More than 35 people of various ages and diverse backgrounds learned to play go at this fourth annual event. Each took home the informative Way to Go booklet and a 9×9 starter go set. Herb Doughty, a veteran go teacher in the local community, recalled his high point of the day: “I spent some time this afternoon teaching four members of one family, spanning three generations.” Event organizer and Bay Area Go board member Jay Chan reports, “It was a lot of fun. We’re planning to do it again later this year – next time in San Francisco’s Japantown neighborhood.” An AGA ratings tournament was held concurrently with the free lessons, and Argentinian Gabriel Benmergui 6d dominated the dan section with four wins and no losses.
- Roger Schrag 

Paul Anderson, former President of the American Go Association and the New York Go Center, has died. Anderson worked at IBM in New York and Japan for many years, and arranged the IBM-sponsored matches in the late 1980s. He was President of the American Go Association for two years in the late 1960s, leading an AGA delegation to Japan, and President of the New York Go Center from 2005 to 2009. “Paul was a department head in IBM Japan (my memory is that he was head of the printer division for Asia),” writes go journalist John Power, “and he persuaded IBM to sponsor a fast-play tournament — one hour per player plus 30 seconds per move — with limited international participation (two Chinese and two Koreans in a first round of 64). It lasted for three terms from 1988 to 1990.” Power also notes that “Yi Ch’ang-ho made his international debut in the first tournament, but won only one game. An American and a European also played in the qualifying tournament.”

The exhibition match between Chang Hao 9P and Andy Liu 1P was broadcast live on KGS on March 23. Stephanie Yin 1P and Gansheng Shi 1P provided live commentary; Yi Tong recorded the game and Todd Blatt transcribed the

download SGF file

commentary.  The match was part of the ACGA Spring Go Expo, a two-day event held jointly at Harvard University and MIT, sponsored by the American Ing Foundation. The Expo also includes simultaneous matches against professional players, a preview of “The Surrounding Game,” the first feature-length documentary on go, presentations by experts in game theory, and Chinese culture, public teaching and demonstrations, a youth go tournament, and cultural performances.

Tim Klancisar 4k won the Kyu Turnir tournament, played on March 23 in Kranj, Slovenia. Pavel Kos 4k was second and in third was Peter Gaber 1k. NOTE: The photo of Jin Zou 6d in our 3/20 China Cup report (Jin Zou 6d Repeats as China Cup Winner in Berlin) was courtesy EuroGoTV.
- adapted from a report on EuroGoTV; click here for all their latest reports; photo: Anna Marconi 11k, who  placed 4 of 17. Result table. 

The American Go Association recently launched its official Facebook page. “Like” this page and follow it for information about go and the AGA. There’s also now a Google+ community for the AGA; join the community and follow the latest news there as well. “We will investigate additional uses of both of these social networks and associated tools,” says Bart Jacob, who’s helping coordinate social media for the AGA. Options include using Hang Outs in the Google+ community for live discussions around topics of interest to AGA members and the go community in general. “Post your ideas, suggestions and feedback on both of these sites,” Jacob urges.

The Ing Foundation is holding its final round for the World Youth Goe Qualifier this weekend, in Menlo Park California.  Andrew Lu 6d and Albert Yen 6d will compete in the Senior Division; Jeremy Chiu 5d and Austen Liao 3d will compete in the Junior Division.  Ing coordinator John Kwei also announced that the “Special Representation” position is still open, and interested parties may contact the Ing Foundation.  Download the attached file to apply. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor

The Walthers brothers are tantalizingly close to raising the $8,000 they need to create a free movie trailer (German Brothers Team Up to Produce “Fascinating” Go Video  2/4/2013 EJ) to inspire more go enthusiasts. Sven Walther, a go player and computer scientist, and his brother Lars, an actor and filmmaker, plan to make the video available on YouTube, so anyone “can use it to promote the game wherever you want.” Their goal “is not to explain the rules, but to create some fascinating atmosphere to represent the game. The novice will see it and say ‘Whoa, what’s that game? Wanna learn more!’” The project will only receive funds if at least $8,000 is raised by Monday, March 25 at 11:59PM PT.
- Annalia Linnan 

Former German go champion Jin Zou 6d won the 4th China Cup in Berlin on March 17.

Zou (left), who lives in Leipzig, won last year and defended his Golden Challenge Cup against Ma Xiao 5d, who took second place, and Johannes Obenaus  5d, who was third. The Cup was held in the Chinese Cultural Center Berlin, surrounded by Chinese culture, enabling local participants to meet go players from China. Free tournament admission has been granted to players of Chinese nationality since the very first China Cup. The tournament also serves to build a bridge between Berlin, capital of Germany, and Hangzhou, the capital of China’s Zhejiang province. The Cup is supported by some local companies from Hangzhou and Chinese professionals sometimes make an appearance. A highlight this year was the presence of Hang Tianpeng 4P from China. Hang is the director of the Weiqi school in Hangzhou, where last year three students successfully became new go professionals. Hang commented tournament games for Cup participants, gave a short workshop and promised to give additional workshops especially for kids and teens in Berlin. Click here for complete tournament results.
- Jan Engelhardt, E-Journal Correspondent; photo courtesy EuroGoTV

Tian-Ren Chen retained his British Youth Go Championship title on March 17, defending the title he won last year. Second was Matei Mandache, a fellow-student at Loughborough School. The Castledine Trophy was won this year by Loughborough, who beat Aston 2-1. The Best Primary School award went to Sandilands, Manchester, who entered five 8- and 9-year-olds, who enjoyed some successes in this their first-ever tournament away from their school. This year’s event was held at the new venue of King Edward VI (Aston) School, Birmingham, attracting 27 competitors aged 7 to 18, with strengths from 37 kyu to 1 dan. An Easter egg prize was awarded to each of the winners and runners-up in each age group, as well as those with 3 or 4 wins. There were also prizes for the three children who correctly answered all the go puzzles on a hand-out. Tony Atkins was again the master of ceremonies, organizing the pairings for each of the 5 rounds, and presenting the prizes. Click here for complete results.
- adapted from a report on the British Go Association website

Play continued last weekend in the Pandanet-AGA City League A and B Leagues, as the top players in the country competed in some thrilling games. All three of the A League Board 2 matches last weekend featured exciting ko fights: Eric Lui (Greater Washington) defeated Daniel Ko (LA), Jie Liang (Boston) beat Edward Kim (Seattle 1), and Zhaonian Chen (NYC) defeated Bill Lin (Vancouver). As it stands, Los Angeles defeated Greater Washington 2-1, Boston downed Seattle 1 2-1, and Vancouver BC vs New York City stands at 1-1. Los Angeles is currently leading the league with 6 points followed by Greater Washington and Boston with 4 points each. Play continues with all Leagues on March 31st starting at 1PM EST, when you can watch live on IGS. All up-to-date results can be found on the City League pages.

The Western Massachusetts Go Club is honoring Teddy Feldman (In Memoriam: Teddy Feldman 3/3 EJ) by renaming their summer tournament The Teddy Feldman and Dolph Rosoff Memorial Tournament. Feldman, 89, a long-time contributor to the American go scene, passed away on March 1. After teaching herself to play go in 1955, she soon became a regular at The Marshall Chess Club in Manhattan, the first go venue in New York City. She and her late husband Dolph Rosoff were very active in helping to develop the early go scene in Washington Park Greenwich Village and the upper west side Nippon Club. She was single-handedly responsible for teaching the game to hundreds of people. Teddy Feldman was granted a Shodan Diploma from Iwamoto Honinbo, making her the first woman amateur shodan outside Asia. She was later granted a 2-Dan diploma by legendary professionalEio Sakata. She was a frequent player at innumerable go meets, Congresses and tournaments, where her joy at playing, spirit of teaching and learning always shone through. She is survived by her sons Micah 5 Dan and David, many grand and great-grandchildren, and a large extended family.A future memorial service is planned. Micah (myfeldman@yahoo.com) 413-530-8040 can be contacted for further information.
- photo: Teddy Feldman at the ’87 US Go Congress; photo courtesy Bill Saltman

The Evanston Go Club’s regular quarterly tournament at the Arlington Heights Go Club on March 16 was its last there. “Sadly, this is the last tournament we will have there, as they are closing next week,” reports local organizer Mark Rubenstein. “Mr. Yong Yu, the owner of the club, has graciously offered us his space for our tournaments for the last three years. His club is the only one in the Chicago area that was open seven days a week. We wish Mr. Yu well, and thank him for his generosity.” This was also the first Chicago tournament that was not directed by the legendary Bob Barber. “Bob has run four tournaments a year for the past 20 years!” says Rubenstein. He has now turned over the reigns to Rubenstein, who directed last weekend’s tournament. “The Chicago go community is indebted to Bob, and we want to publicly thank him for all he has done over the past 20 years,” said Rubenstein. “We intend to keep running tournaments every quarter. The challenge now is to find a venue.” Rubenstein designed and built custom tournament software using FileMaker Pro, and debuted it at this tournament. The software imports the TD list from the AGA, and uses that data to enroll players in the tournament and verify their AGA membership status. “It automatically pairs the first round based on ranks, then enables the TD to quickly and easily pair players in subsequent games, self-paired style,” says Rubenstein. The software keeps track of each player’s availability, sets the proper colors and handicap for each game, calculates each players’ winning percentage, and manages all the financial aspects of the tournament. It also generates a text file of the results, suitable for sending to the AGA for entry into the ratings database. “The database made it so easy to manage the tournament, I was able to be the TD and play four games myself!” said Rubenstein. Winners for the day (each with 4-0 records) were: Albert Yu 6d, Steffen Kurz 3k and Tim Torres 10k.
- photo: Albert Yu 6d plays Bogdan Dobresku 5d; photo by Mark Rubenstein

The first Tula Go Cup went down to the wire March 16-17 as Dmitriy Surin 6d, Igor Nemliy 5d and Andrey Kashaev 5d battled it out in the final rounds. Kashaev won against Surin in the first round, then Nemliy defeated Kashaev, and later in the fourth round Surin won against Nemliy. Vasiliy Andrienko 4d, who defeated Andrey Kashaev in the fourth round, had a shot at getting into the top three; the final standings depended on the last round and the Berger and Buchholz scores also had major impact. Dmitry Surin defeated Vasiliy Andrienko in the last round to clinch the title win, with Nemliy in second and Kashaev taking third. The tournament was held in the ancient historical city of Tula, Russia, and was the first major event in this region. First mentioned in 1146, Tula is connected with many historic events and important battles of Russian history. The Russian go community was not active here until 2010 when Innokentiy Dmitriev 3d started to promote the game and work with students. His successful work allowed him to organize last weekend first big tournament, attracting 30 participants, including some top Russian top players. Ilya Shikshin 7d – the strongest Russian player – also attended but did not take part in the tournamen, instead playing two simuls. Tula has made a bid to host the Championship of Russian Central Federal District. Click here for results and a photo album.
- Daria Koshkina, E-Journal Russia Correspondent; photo: Surin (grey sweater) plays Nemliy; photo by Michail Krylov/Russian Go Federation

Ireland finally returned to winning ways tonight, eventually taking Cyprus down after a tense struggle. After Gavin got a bit carried away on board 1, we found ourselves on the wrong side of 1-0. Gradually though, helped by a series of rip-offs, we ploughed our way, Gibson-like, to a 3-1 victory.

The tournament to select the player representing Chinese Taipei in the upcoming World Amateur Go Championship was held at the Ta-an Junior High School in Taipei March 16-17. The entry requirement was an amateur ranking of 6 dan or higher. The 65 participants included several insei and, at the other end of the spectrum, Chen Shi, winner of professional titles in the mid-1980s, who took a decade out to earn a PhD in chemistry in the United States, later retired as a professional go player, and now competes as an amateur.

Dr. Chen was one of sixteen who survived the initial rounds played on the 16th. About half of the other survivors were insei, but most of them fell in the next two rounds, which narrowed the field down to just four players. All four were junior high-school students: Wang I-nan, the local favorite since he attends Ta-an Junior High; Huang Tao-lung of Yuang-lin Junior High; Tseng Ping-sin, who attends Yung-an Junior High and played for Chinese Taipei in the International Amateur Pair Go Championship in 2011; and Lin Hsin-wei of Fushan Junior High in Kaohsiung. Lin was the only insei left and he was in good form; he had posted the best record (12-2) in the February Southern Taiwan Insei League. In his last game on the 16th he had beaten Lo Sheng-chieh, men's bronze medalist at the World Mind Sports Games in Lille last August.

In the afternoon playoff among these four, first Tseng defeated Wang and Lin defeated Huang; then Lin decisevely beat Tseng to win a place at the WAGC, plus a first prize of 30,000 Taiwan dollars (about 1000 U.S. dollars). Wang beat Huang to take the third prize (10,000 Taiwan dollars).

The Irish Go Congress, held on the first three days of March at the Teachers Club in Dublin, began with a handicapped five-round Swiss System rapid tournament played on the evening of March 1. Sixteen players participated, bearing six nationalities and ranks ranging from 4 dan to 10 kyu. Chinese 4-dan Yuanbo Zhang took first with a perfect 5-0 score, beating Zebin Du, another Chinese 4-dan, in the final round. Thomas Shanahan (7-kyu) and Irish champion Roman Pszonka (3-dan) scored 4-1 results to take third and second places, while Du Zebin finished fourth. Full results are here.

Next came the main event, the 2nd Confucius Cup, a five-round McMahon tournament played on March 2-3 with sponsorship from the Confucius Institute for Ireland. The field now expanded to 48 players of 11 nationalities, ranked 6 dan to 20 kyu. In the first round Roman Pszonka lost to the 6-dan, Hungary's Csaba Mero, who had won the 1st Confucius Cup last year. Csaba then beat the eventual 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th placers -- Zebin Du (China), Antoine Fenech (France), Brunner Vit (Czechia), and Renaud Julien (France) -- in succession to take first place, while Roman placed eighth. The key game was Csaba's half-point victory over Zebin Du in round 2. Two kyu-level players, Roger Daniel (UK) and Mikulas Kubita (Czechia) also finished unbeaten. Full results are here.

The AGA Go Camp is confirmed for this summer, and will be held two weeks before the Go Congress, from July 20 to July 27. Camp directors Nano Rivera and Amanda Miller will return to organize the event, in an all new location - YMCA Camp T. Frank Soles in Rockwood, PA, about two hours outside of Pittsburgh.  Campers from the ages of 8 to 18, of all skill levels, are invited for a week of go-playing and fun. More information regarding the camp will be available on the AGA camp page soon, and registration will open within the next two weeks.  Inquiries can be sent to Amanda Miller at agagocampeast@gmail.com.  All youth who played in the USYGC are eligible for $400 AGF scholarships to camp, and needs based scholarships will also be available. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.  Photo by Shawn Ray:  Campers try their hand at one-color go, with a computer assist, at last year’s go camp.

Six young students have won free lessons with professional go players, as part of a new AGF program that is being supported by a private donor.  Winners wrote essays on why they wanted the lessons, and some submitted letters of recommendation as well.  The winners include a 12 kyu from Illinois, a 7 kyu from New York, a 21 kyu from Washington, two kyu players from Georgia, and a 5 kyu from Texas.  The teachers are  Yi Lun Yang 7P, Janice Kim 3P, and  Jennie Shen 2P, who will give each student six lessons.  Four more students will be selected at a future date as well.  ”We expect these kids to keep playing, learning, and to try to pass along the knowledge they gain to other players, particularly young people,” writes program organizer Keith Arnold . -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo: Janice Kim 3P