A delegation of Cuban go players has been invited to attend this year’s U.S. Go Congress for the first time and AGA board member Robert Gilman is coordinating fundraising efforts to support the visit. “The Cubans have greeted our invitation with ‘immense joy’,” Gilman — who organized the 2013 visit by US players to Cuba (Traveling Board: U.S.-Cuba Friendship Match “A Rare Opportunity”) — reports, “but the key question is money. Cuba is a poor country, the Cuban internal currency is worthless in the U.S. and the AGA does not have the budget to sponsor the delegation, so we’re asking the go community to step up. Cubans have made strong efforts to develop go there, but isolation from the international go community and limited internet have handicapped them. This visit will help them develop and extend bonds with our neighbors to the South.” The invitees are  Cuba’s top two players and the president of the Academia Cubana de Go. The video here describes this effort.

Contributions can be made through either the AGA or the American Go Foundation (AGF); contributions to the AGF are tax deductible. In either case, put “CC2014” in the memo field, and mail the check to Gilman at  P.O. Box 40020 in Albuquerque, NM 87196-0020. Checks will be acknowledged as they are received but not cashed until its clear the project is a go. If you are contributing, please complete the form here.

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January 25: Austin, TX
Austin “Dead of Winter” Go Tournament
Bart Jacob bart.jacob@gmail.com 512-659-1324

January 26: Columbus, OH
Chinese New Year Tournament
Tim Kington timkington@gmail.com 614-560-1708
Dajiang He dajiangh@gmail.com

January 26: Lancaster, PA
Lancaster Frostbite Go Tournament
Sam Zimmerman szimmerman@ctipc.com 717-892-1249
Jason Long jason@long.name 717-315-9097

Get the latest go events information.

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The second season of the Pandanet AGA City League is set to begin shortly. “We have 18 teams of players ranging from professionals to 12-kyu players,” reports TD Steve Colburn. The first round will start on January 25 at 3p EST on Pandanet.

The A League teams include Boston (Ke Lu, Huiren Yang, Jie Liang, Yunzhe Zhang and Chun Sun), Greater Washington (I-Han Lui, Eric Lui, Jie Li, Yuian Zhou and Daniel Chou), Toronto (Colin Zheng, Xiaofei Deng, Tiger Gong, Sarah Yu and Hank Xie), Vancouver 1 (Cathy Li, Tianyu Lin, Juyong Koh, Leo Tian and Michael Ma), and Seattle 1 (Michael Cho, Dong Baek Kim, Edward Kim, Ho Son and Sung-Chui Cho).

B League teams include Washington DC 1 (Edward Zhang, Lin Lu, Liang Yu and Yangan Li), Chicaho (Laura Scott, Bill Chen, Albert Yen and Kevin Zhou), Raleigh (Owen Chen, Liqun Liu, Changlong Wu, Feng Ye and Bradley Jones), Washington DC 2 (Zhenging Gu, Justin teng, Kevin Wang, Zhixiong Shi and Zhenying Gu), San Francisco 1 (Steven Burrall, Matthew Burrall, Aaron Ye, Jeremy Chiu and Hugh Zhang) and New York City (William Lockhart, Stephanie Yin, Zhaonian Chen and Yingzhi Qian).

The C League teams include West Tennessee/Memphis (Daniel Miller, Wangqian Li, Liang Zhao, Xue Li and Yixian Chen), Seattle 2 (Oren Laskin, Bert Hallonquist, Andrew Jackson, Nick Sibicky and Steve Stringfellow), Katy TX 1 (Pete Henninger, Shijiang Lu, Jurn Kwan, Ji Lian and Yuanbiao Li), Katy TX 2 (Pete Henninger, Yue Wu, Bao Doan, Katherine Zhang and Chris Clark), Vancouver 2 (Cathy Li, Jack Yang, Qi Zheng, David Lu and Harrison Dow), Lincoln (Joshua Edmonds, Grant Brownyard, Chris Rodgers and Mitchell Allen), Brentwood/Nashville (Anthony Long, Anna Liu, Shawn Ray, Seth Cardew & Michael Miceli) and Syracuse (Richard Moseson, Xinde Ji, Chang Kim, Jared Beck and Richard Sollish).

The captains of each teams are listed first. Leagues A and B will have five rounds and League C will have seven. Click here for the 2014 schedule.
photo of the 2013 Pandanet-AGA City League finals by Steve Colburn 

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The first game in the upcoming jubango between Lee Sedol 9P and Gu Li 9p will be broadcast live on KGS with live game commentary by Myungwan Kim 9P. The first game in the series (Big Jubango Between Lee Sedol & Gu Li Set To Start In January 11/29/2013 EJ) is scheduled for January 26 (1/25 in the US) and the 10-game match will run monthly throughout 2014. Whoever wins six games wins the match. “We’re very excited to bring this series to the global go community,” said Kim. “This is really great for western go fans,” agreed American Go Association president Andy Okun. The KGS broadcast commentary will begin at 4p EST on January 25 and Kim will be joined by James Kim 1D,  along with Matthew Burrall 7d and Andrew Lu 7d. The team intends to broadcast and comment on the entire game, which could run over 8 hours. “We may need to take some breaks from time to time,” says Myungwan Kim. “But basically we’ll stay up until the game finishes giving our best explanations and entertainment.”

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Croatia: Lovro Furjanic 1d bested Zoran Mutabzija 5d at the 2. Velika Gorcia Open on January 12 while Mladen Smud 1k placed third. Turkey: The Istanbul City Championship Finals finished on January 4 with Ozgur Degirmenci 2d in first, Mustafa Morca 2k in second, and Hayri Killic 1d in third. Ukraine: Andrii Vdovin 2d conquered the 2014 Championship of the Dnipropetrovsk region on January 5. Kostiantyn Lopatenko 2d came in second and Volodymyr Oblovantyi 1k was third.
– Annalia Linnan,  based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news

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Last Saturday, January 11, the Las Vegas Go Club (LVGC) was at full capacity. “New membership to our club is up and we are hoping that it transfers to long-time go players.” reports Mike Wanek. “In the last month or so, we have had four new members who have started to attend the club regularly.” The seven regular members of the LVGC were very surprised when over 15 people showed up for last week’s meeting. “Currently, our main goals for the club are twofold,” says Chris Tettamanti. “First, to generate interest in the great game of go and second, to boost membership to the AGA.” As the club grows, donations are collected to buy much needed club equipment. Sean Jacobson noted that “The latest set of donations will go to purchasing new game clocks. We are very close to having enough in donations to purchase 5 or 6 of them already. This will allow us to create mini-tournaments on days that we have a large turnouts.” Weekly meetings of the Las Vegas Go Club — which welcomes players of all strengths — are on Saturdays from 4pm to 10pm at the IHOP at 7490 S. Las Vegas Blvd.

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download SGF file

Black to play. Both sides must find a clever move for optimal play. The first move is relatively easy, as White lives easily if Black plays any other move.
Published in the January 17, 2014 edition of the American Go E-Journal.

This bonus tsumego is just one example of the material, including pro game commentaries, available to Member’s Edition subscribers. Click here for more on how you can sign up today.

Michael Redmond 9P shares with the E-Journal some of his own tsumego compositions. For these more challenging problems, dan players can test their reading speed and accuracy, while kyu players can play through the solutions to learn ideas and techniques.

Michael based this problem on a very similar position that arose around move 63 of the just completed 1st game of the Kisei championship match in Spain. Click here to see the game record.

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A story about a battle between elderly Korean patrons and a McDonald’s in Queens, New York, mentions go in passing. Apparently the Korean seniors prefer the McDonald’s to the other facilities that “cater to the elderly in the neighborhood,” according to a January 14 report in The New York Times. “Civic centers dot the blocks, featuring parlors for baduk, an Asian board game, and classes in subjects from calisthenics to English,” the report adds. No mention of whether the seniors are playing baduk in the McDonald’s.
photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times. Thanks to Ted Terpstra for passing this item along. 

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