by Myron Souris

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Peter Zunick 1d went 3-1 to top the dan level division in the Mason Go Tournament, held August 22 in Mason, Ohio. Sponsored by the Miami University Confucius Institute, the tournament attracted 18 go players from Mason, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus. The youngest player was Yeming You 20K, an 8-year-old go class student at the Mason Huaxia Chinese School. Mason, Ohio has had the enrichment class for over eight years, and they just started a go club at Mason Public Library. This year, reports club organizer Frank Luo, “Go class students got very excited when the AGA Summer Go Camp was held at Camp Kern, 20 minutes away from Mason.” The class was able to send six students to the Go Camp, which inspired Luo to hold the first go tournament in this mid-west area. With support from the Confucius Institute of Miami University and the local library, the tournament went very well, Luo says. “We already have plans to continue the tournament next year,” Luo added.

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The third and final day of the Mexican Go Congress began on Monday with round 5 of the Mexican Open, then during lunch Myungwan Kim 9P lectured on manipulating the surrounding board situation to prepare for crosscuts. A well-timed forcing move that may be bad locally because it seems to erase aji or makes an ugly shape can be perfectly situated to cause your opponent to collapse at the end of a crosscut sequence if you have made sure to read it out correctly.  After the 6th and final round, Kim reviewed the top-board game (right) in which Congress director Emil Garcia finally managed to triumph over defending champion Abraham Florencia.  Pictured in the lower right corner is a variation (not the real game) showing white collapsing after inappropriately choosing the small avalanche when the ladder is unfavorable.

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The American Go Honor Society’s outgoing leadership has selected Yunxuan Li 7d as this year’s President. The organization runs multiple events every year, the School Team Tournament and the Young Lions, are some of the most popular, and draw students nationwide. Li is excited to lead this year’s cohort of high school student organizers: “I am very glad to take the responsibility of AGHS this year. I hope through the effort we all put in together, we can spread go to a wider audience in North America.” He can’t do it alone, though – Li is calling on interested high school students to apply to be officers this year. The open positions include Vice President, Promotion Head, Webmaster, Tournament Organizer, Secretary, and Treasurer. To apply, download the application form on the AGHS’s website and send it in to AGHSpresident@gmail.com by September 19.

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by John Power, Japan Correspondent for the E-Journal

28th Women’s Meijin League starts: The first two games in the 28th Women’s Meijin League were played on August 20. The main interest this year is the debut of Fujisawa Rina (right) in the league. The sixteen-year-old lived up to expectations, defeating Kato Keiko 6P in her opening game. Taking black, Fujisawa forced a resignation. In the other game, Mannami Nao 3P beat Chinen Kaori 4P by resignation. Xie Yimin has held this title for nine years in a row.

Japan eliminated from TV Asia Cup: The opening round (three games) and the first semifinal of the 27th TV Asia Cup have been played in Seoul. Unfortunately for Japan, its representatives have already been eliminated, so the tournament is now a contest between China and Korea. On August 25, the first two games in Round One were played. Lee Donghun 5P (Korea, at left) beat Ida Atsushi 8P (Japan) by resignation. In the second game, Park Junghwan 9P of Korea (B) beat Liao Xingwen 5P (China) by resignation. The final game of this round was played on the morning of August 26. Yang Dingxin 3P (China) beat Ichiriki Ryo 7P (Japan) by half a point. In the afternoon, the first semifinal was played, with Park beating Lee by resignation.  The second semifinal will be played on August 27. Yang will meet Lee Sedol 9P (Japan), who as last year’s cup winner was seeded into the semifinals. The winner of that game will meet Park in the final on August 28.

New women’s tournament with biggest prize: Financial incentives are getting better and better for women players in Japan. First of all, a new tournament, the Aizu Central Hospital Cup, founded last year, raised the bar by offering a record prize of seven million yen. That has now been topped by the Senko Cup, founded by the Osaka-based Senko Corporation. The Senko Cup Women’s Igo Strongest Player Tournament, to give it its full name, offers a first prize of eight million and a second prize of four million yen. The second prize in itself almost matches the three long-established women’s titles (to be specific, their top prizes are 5,800,000 yen for the Women’s Honinbo and 5,000,000 each for the Women’s Meijin and the Women’s Kisei). The new tournament is open to all professional women players in Japan and the preliminaries start in September. The main tournament, in which the top 16 participate, will start in January 2016 and the semifinal and final will be held in July. Fujisawa Rina, Women’s Honinbo, Xie Yimin (left), Women’s Meijin & Kisei, and O Keii, Aizu Central Hospital Cup-holder, will be seeded in the main tournament. The time allowance will be three hours per player.

Death of Cho Chikun’s wife: Cho Chikun’s wife Kyoko died of pancreatic cancer on August 7. She was 65 years old.

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The second day of the Mexican Go Congress kicked off on Sunday with a children’s 13 x 13 tournament (right), and Mexican Open rounds 3 and 4 occupied the late morning and early afternoon, followed a lecture by Myungwan Kim 9P on handling crosscuts (left). Kim showed two recent games of Lee Changho’s in which Lee lost early due to not handling crosscuts as well as his younger opponents.  Kim explained that the new generation of professionals receives much more in-depth training in reading out long and complicated sequences than was the case 15 years ago.  Kim said that this was the most important single lecture topic for two reasons: handling a crosscut correctly may often mean the difference between establishing a superior position or completely collapsing, and learning to handle them requires practice of the reading skills that one should be applying constantly other aspects of the game. The Congress concludes on Monday with a final day of activities.

Report/photos by Steven Burrall; photos: (right) TD’s Emil Garcia and Daphne Rios supervise the children’s 13 x 13 action;  (left) Myungwan Kim 9P lectures on the crosscut. 

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“It would be great if there was a system in place to help people who want to play in the pair-go but don’t have a partner to find one”…”Live broadcasting was good, but I’d rather see live pro comments on a large room with many go players”…”Include the topics discussed on the pro lecture schedule board”…These are just a few of the many suggestions submitted on the US Go Congress Survey. Whether you’ve attended a Go Congress or not, Congress organizers are interested in your opinions on a few basic questions so that they can make future Congresses even better. Click here by midnight this Wednesday to take the brief survey; participants are eligible for go prizes!
photo: Feng Yun 9P plays in a simul at the 2015 US Go Congress; photo by Chris Garlock

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by John Power, Japan Correspondent for the E-Journal

Young players make Agon Kiriyama Cup semifinals: The remaining two quarterfinals of the 22nd Agon Kiriyama Cup were played recently. On August 10, Kyo Kagen 3P (B) (aged 15) beat Shuto Shun 7P by resignation.  On August 13, Yo Seiki 7P (B) (aged 20) beat Matsumoto Takehisa 7P by resignation. Kyo and Yo will play each other in one semifinal; the other matches Iyama Yuta (aged 26) and Son Makoto 3P (aged 19). As you can see from the ages, all four are young players, though Iyama is already a veteran in experience. The recent results of the Taiwanese players Yo and Kyo show that they both have exceptional promise; they will probably be titleholders before too much longer.

Iyama reaches Oza final: The first semifinal in the 63rd Oza tournament was played on August 17. Iyama Yuta (B) beat Yuki Satoshi by resignation. The other semifinal pits Ko Iso 8P against Yo Seiki 7P. The winner will meet Iyama in the play-off to decide the challenger on September 7.

Yoda stumbles in top Kisei league, Kono wins A League: In a game played in the S League, the top league, in the 40th Kisei tournament, on August 13, Yamashita Keigo 9P improved his score to 3-1 when he beat Takao Shinji Tengen by 2.5 points. At this point he was in second place. League leader Yoda Norimoto 9P (left) suffered a painful loss in the S League on August 20. Taking white, he lost to Yamashiro Hiroshi 9P by half a point. On 3-1, Yoda now shares the lead with Yamashita Keigo 9P, who has the advantage of being ranked higher (number one) ? there is no play-off within the Kisei leagues. Yamashiro goes to 2-2, so his chances of keeping his place improve. Kono Rin scored his sixth successive win in the A League in a game played on August 13. Taking black, he beat Cho Riyu 8P by 2.5 points. Everyone else in the league has at least two losses, so Kono wins the league regardless of his result in his final game. He also secured promotion to the S League next year. In the knock-out tournament, he will have to win four games in a row to become the challenger whereas the winner of the S League has to win only one game in what is called an “irregular best-of-three.” How this works is that Kono would have to beat the winner of the game between the B and C League winners (both of whom have to win five games to become the challenger), next win a game against the second-place-getter in the S League, then beat the winner of the S League twice in a row. The latter is given an advantage of one win in the final play-off, so his opponent can’t afford to lose a game. That means that in practice, there can’t be a third game in this “best-of-three,” as the winning score will always be 2-0. 
Tomorrow: 28th Women’s Meijin League starts; Japan eliminated from TV Asia Cup; New women’s tournament with biggest prize; Death of Cho Chikun’s wife.

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