The first-ever Australian Go Congress is set for January 25-31, 2015 in Sydney. The new event is timed to coincide with Australia Day on January 26, when Sydney Harbour “will be transformed into a floating festival” with music, boats and fireworks, reports Sang-Dae Hahn, who’s chairing the Australian Baduk Organising Committee. “We’re definitely looking forward to our first Congress,” Australian Go Association vice president Neville Smyth told the E-Journal. Smyth, IGF director for Australia/New Zealand, is in Gyeongjiu, Korea for the World Amateur Go Championship. As at similar congresses in Europe and the U.S., the Australian Go Congress will feature tournaments, simuls with professionals and lessons. The delegation of professionals will be led by An Younggil 8P of the Korean Baduk Association and Go Game Guru. The Congress will be held at Dunmore Lang College, Macquarie University; registration is $200AU ($180 USD) and rooms run A$85 to $98, with hotels also available near the venue.

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Defending champion Andy Liu swept the 4th annual Young Kwon National Online Tournament (YKNOT), winning all five games. Winners in other divisions were Dazhi Xu in the 4-5D division, Peiyu Tang in the 1-3D division, Ary Cheng in the 1-5k division, and Monsoon Srestha in the 6k+ division. The online tournament ran June 21, 22, and 28th. “Special thanks so tournament sponsor Young Kwon, who has sponsored this tournament for four years now,” said AGA Tournament Coordinator Karoline Li, who also thanked “my TD team of Dennis Wheeler, Julie Burrall, Matthew Burrall, and Jay Tabaniag, as well as KGS for hosting the tournament.”

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by John Power, EJ Japan Correspondent

Iyama Takes Game 5 To Win Honinbo: Iyama Yuta (at left) completed his Honinbo title defense by winning the fifth round to take the title 4-1 over Ida Atsushi. The fifth game was played at the Hotel Hankyu Expo Park in Suita City, Osaka Prefecture on June 30 and July 1. It was a very difficult game featuring attack and counterattack, and the players following the game in the anteroom at the tournament venue had a lot of trouble predicting the moves. The fighting spilled over from the left side into the center and then into the bottom, but eventually came to a peaceful end with Ida capturing some black stones. A tense endgame fight followed, with Ida using up all his time allowance for the first time. Ida had a good position, but on move 198 he missed a move that would have secured him a win by 2.5 or 3.5 points (according to the newspaper commentator, Yo Seiki 7P). Then, on move 212, Ida made a fatal mistake; the move was played in the final minute of byo-yomi after the game recorder had read out ‘nine’. In conducting the 30-second byo-yomi, the recorder reads out ‘ten seconds,’ ‘twenty seconds,’ then ‘one’ to ‘ten’ for the final ten seconds. If he reads out ‘ten,’ the player loses on time. The move Ida played under this pressure let Iyama upset his lead. Iyama increased his lead after that and was ahead by ten points on the board when Ida resigned on move 247. Click here for Younggil An’s game commentary on Go Game Guru.
In winning the Honinbo League, Ida Atsushi added to his budding reputation for deep and accurate reading and fighting ability, but in this title series Iyama showed that he was more than a match for him. This is Iyama’s 24th title and he has also maintained his sextuple crown, currently holding six out of seven of the major Japanese go titles (the only one he doesn’t currently hold is the Judan). Just to review his record here, he first achieved the sextuple crown when he won the Kisei title in March 2013; he lost the Judan title in the following month, but resumed his sextuple crown when he won the Meijin title in October. He has now kept it for eight months.

Fujisawa Rina Wins First Title: The final of the 1st Aizu Central Hospital Cup Women’s Tournament was held at the Konjakutei, a traditional inn, in Higashiyama Hot Spring, Aizu Wakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture on June 26 and 27. Fujisawa Rina 2P (left), playing black, beat Okuda Aya 3P by resignation after 193 moves. This victory will extend the illustrious history of the Fujisawa name in Japanese go; Fujisawa Rina is Fujisawa Shuko’s granddaughter. A number of records were set in this tournament. The prize of seven million yen is the biggest for a women’s tournament in Japan; the final was the first two-day game in a woman’s tournament; at fifteen years nine months, Fujisawa Rin became the youngest woman to win a title in Japan and also the youngest player of either sex to make a sealed move.

Kono Makes Good Start In Gosei Challenge: Kono Rin 9P has made a good start in his challenge for the 39th Gosei title. In the first game, played at the Matsushima Ichi-no-bo hotel in the town of Matsushima in Miyagi Prefecture on June 26, Kono (B) secured a resignation after just 129 moves. After the game, Iyama expressed considerable regret about move 18, a move which seemed to put him on the back foot early in the game. Kono built thickness on the right side and went all out in attack when Iyama invaded. Rather than play negatively and attempt to live small, Iyama also went all out and tried to live on a large scale. However, Kono was able to bring down his group. Kono suffered straight losses in his Gosei challenge last year, so he has already improved on that performance. Iyama suffered his second title-match loss in a row; both games were short, which was perhaps due to Iyama’s aggressive play when he fell behind. The second game is scheduled for July 20.

Kisei Leagues: Recent results in the 39th Kisei Leagues are listed below. It may be a little early to talk about leaders, but just for the record there are four players on 2-0: Yamashita Keigo (right) and Kono Rin in the A League and Murakawa Daisuke and Kobayashi Satoru in the B League.
(June 26) (A League) Yamashita 9P (B) beat Takao Shinji Judan by resig.; Yamashiro Hiroshi 9P (B) beat Hane Naoki 9P by 2.5 points; (B League) Kobayashi Satoru 9P (B) beat Cho Chikun, 25th Honinbo, by resig.
(July 3) Cho Riyu (B) beat Cho Chikun by resig.

Yamashita Misses First Chance To Win 39th Meijin League: On 6-2, Yamashita Keigo was two wins clear of the field in the 39th Meijin League, but he missed his first chance to become the challenger when he dropped his seventh-round game to Cho U. The latter is now on 5-2 and will be hoping for Murakawa Daisuke to help him out by beating Yamashita in the final round. If Cho U won his last game, he would qualify for a play-off with Yamashita. At the other end of the league, Ko Iso, who has played all his games and won only two of them, is the first player to lose his place.
Below are results of games played since my last report.
(June 19) Takao Shinji 9P beat Murakawa Daisuke by resig.
(July 3) Cho U 9P beat Yamashita Keigo 9P by 1.5 points; Takao Shinji 9P (B) beat Ko Iso 8P by resig.

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Cho Hunhyun: “No shortcuts” to Stronger Play and World Go
“There are no shortcuts” to getting stronger at go, Cho Hunhyun 9P told the E-Journal in an interview during the World Amateur Go Championship in Korea, where he served as chief referee. “You must study hard. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and you must know these and focus your energies accordingly.” Considered one of the greatest go players of all time, Cho has played and won more professional games than any player in the world, with nearly 160 titles and 1,900 wins. After giving the signal for games to begin each day at the WAGC, Cho (right), impeccably attired in a crisp gray suit and perfectly adjusted tie, would quietly move about the playing area observing the games. And while he was impressed with some of the play, he says a lot of work remains to be done. “In the past, Japan has put a lot into developing go around the world, as have China and Korea in recent years, but many other countries should put more effort in as well.” Cho called the recent development of professional systems in both the United States and Europe “a big step for international go” but acknowledged that cultural barriers remain a challenge. “For example, chess is not very popular or very strong in Korea and it’s not easy to change the circumstances or situation, so figuring out how to popularize go in the West is not an easy question.” Cho was quietly optimistic, however, noting that “It took us a lot of time to get to where we are now, proving that the time we have invested in world go has not been wasted.”
– Chris Garlock; photo by John Pinkerton

Striving Hard in Brunei: “Go is hardly known at all in Brunei,” said Chai Hui Lim, President of the Brunei Darussalam Go Association, on her first visit to the World Amateur Go Championship. “It’s a real challenge to get people interested in go but like many other countries we are striving hard to popularize the game,” she said. This was Brunei’s second year of participation in the WAGC. “I think it’s great that so many countries are getting together for an international competition!” said Lim.
– Ranka; photo by Ivan Vigano

2015 WAGC Set for Bangkok; IGF Meeting Highlights: Bangkok has been selected to host next year’s World Amateur Go Championship. Thailand’s selection, reported at the July 5  International Go Federation Annual General Meeting in Gyeongju, Korea, marks the first time this major event will be held outside the traditional go strongholds of Japan, China and Korea, as part of the IGF’s ongoing efforts to internationalize the game. Other IGF meeting highlights included improved IGF finances and successful 2013 events, including the World Amateur Go Championship in Sendai, Japan, the Amateur Pair Go Championship in Tokyo, Japan, and the SportAccord World Mind Games (SAWMG) in Beijing, China. The SAWMG will be held again this year in Beijing from December 11-17, and a brand-new event, the Student Pair Go Championship, is set to take place this October in Tokyo, in conjunction with the standard Pair Go Championship, which this year celebrates the 25th anniversary of Pair Go. Also announced were changes to the IGF Board of Executives. This year will see a rotation of roles from Japan to Korea. The new IGF President will be Seokhyun Hong, previously the Korean Ambassador to the US, taking the reins from Koichiro Matsuura. “I will try my best but my work alone is not enough,” said Hong. “We need everyone’s input and initiative to bring our plans to a successful creation.” Jae-ho Yang, the Secretary General of the Korean Baduk Association, takes up the role of Office Director, carrying on the hard work of Hiroshi Yamashiro and, as previously reported, Yuki Shigeno, the long serving IGF Secretary General, passed the post on to Hajin Lee, the main organizer of this year’s WAGC. Norio Wada, the chairman of the Nihon Kiin, will also join the IGF Board of Directors.
– John Richardson, Ranka; photo by Ivan Vigano

EJ, Ranka & IGF Team Up Again: The American Go E-Journal, Ranka and the IGF teamed up again this year to provide comprehensive coverage of the 2014 World Amateur Go Championship in Gyeonjiu, Korea. John Richardson (second from right) contributed illuminating and entertaining game reports, Ivan Vigano (far right) maintained the tournament grid on the Ranka site in virtually real-time and edited the Ranka posts, photographer John Pinkerton (far left) always had the perfect shots for the daily EJ reports, and Chris Garlock (second from left) did game commentaries as well as edited the EJ posts. New IGF Secretary General Hajin Lee (center) not only organized the event, but made sure the team had whatever we needed and even found the time to play some early-morning tennis with the EJ team. Special thanks to Nam Chi-hyung, Thomas Hsiang, the entire WAGC staff and of course the players themselves, who not only made this such a great event but who were so generous with their time. Finally, James Davies and Michael Redmond were much missed; see you next year in Bangkok!
– photo by Yoshitaka Morimoto of the Nihon Ki-in

Click here for all the EJ’s WAGC reports, here for Ranka’s reports and here for complete 2014 WAGC results. 

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Due to technical difficulties with the usual election site the ballots instructing voters to go to www.ballotbin.com have been voided, reports AGA Election Coordinator Arnold Eudell. “If you have successfully voted on Ballotbin your vote will be counted and you will not receive a new ballot,” says Eudell. Every eligible voter should have received a new email that directs them to the Balloteer.com website and includes a voter ID and password. Any questions, email elections@usgo.org

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School kids in Mexico City capped off their year with tourneys in two locations, reports organizer Siddhartha Avila. “We gave the North american Kyu Championship prizes sent by the American Go Association to Valeria Gonzalez and Samuel Suástegui,” said Avila. “All the kids received a kanji, made by artist Yuko Kosaka, that conveyed a good wish or thought for their lives. We are thankful to have such wonderful people around us, congrats to all the young go players! Pictures of the event can be seen here. Our final tourney was July 5th, it was organized for the students at Gimnasio de Go and hosted by Templo Budista Eko, the tournament was divided in two brackets, 16-20 kyu and 10-15 kyu. We also held a tourney at a Chinese School,Instituto de Idioma y Cultura China, on June 21st.  Players ranging from the ages of 5 to 11 competed on 13×13 boards, 1st place went to Nicholas Moran,” Avila reports. Pictures of the event can be seen here. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photos: top: Siddhartha Avila (standing) observing a game at the Chinese school match; bottom: students compete at the Templo Budista.

Winners report, Gimnasio de Go: 10-15k Bracket: 1. Omar Zavala; 2. Lilian Zavala; 3. Valeria Gonzalez; 4. Paula Herrera; 5. Diego Armando Luciano. 16-20k Bracket: 1. Marcos Gonzalez; 2. Rodrigo Villegas; 3. Dante Zavala; 4. Sebastián Bañuelos; 5. Diego Alí. 

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