by John Power, Japan Correspondent

Ida fights back in Judan: Ida Atsushi 8P suffered some setbacks recently but he also won his first open title, as detailed in our last report,
and he seems to be taking his cue from the latter. In the second game of the 53rd Judan title, Ida defeated Takao Shinji Judan (left) by resignation after 220 moves, so he has evened the score in the match at 1-1. Takao fell behind when he missed the best move in a fight: he read a variation out correctly for 17 moves but hallucinated about the result. The game was played on March 26 at the Old Tanaka Family Residence in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture. This is a three-story Western-style brick house built during the Taisho period (1912-26), with a Japanese-style building, tea house and garden being added later. The whole complex was designated a Nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Asset in 2006. The game was played in the teahouse. The third game will be played on April 9.

Yamashita keeps sole lead in Honinbo League: The last game of the sixth round in the 70th Honinbo League was played on March 26. Yamashita Keigo 9P (B, right) beat Ryu Shikun 9P by resignation. He improved his score to 5-1 and hung on to the sole lead. All the games in the final round will be played on April 2. Two other players, Ida Atsushi 8P and Cho U 9P, are on 4-2 and so still have a chance of winning the league. Cho U plays Yamashita in the final round; if Yamashita wins, he becomes the challenger; if Cho wins, he will be tied with Yamashita and could meet him in a play-off. The word is “could,” because if Ida wins his final game against Yo Seiki 7P, creating a three-way tie, only the top two-ranked players qualify for a play-off, which would mean Ida and Yamashita. If a play-off is necessary, it will be held on April 6.

Promotions
To 8-dan (as of March 27): Kurotaki Masanori (150 wins)
To 3-dan (as of March 24): Kyo Kagen (40 wins)

Crazy Stone wins computer go tournament: The 8th UEC Cup Computer Go Tournament was held at the Electrical Communications University in Chofu City in Tokyo on March 14 and 15 with 22 programs competing. In the preliminary tournament, the programs that  won the 6th and 7th cups, Crazy Stone (developed by Remy Coulom of France) and Zen (developed by Team DepZen of Japan) took first and second place in the seven-round Swiss System preliminary tournament, but Zen suffered an upset loss in the quarterfinals of the knock-out stage. Zen is rated 5- or 6-dan on KGS, but it lost to Nomitan, a Japanese program rated as 2- or 3-dan on KGS. In the final, Crazy Stone beat DolBaram, a Korean program developed by Lim Jae-bum. Two commemorative games were played with Cho Chikun (25th Honinbo Chikun) on March 17. Taking four stones, DolBaram won, but on three stones Zen lost.

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Chess Grandmaster Tiger Hillarp has become a dan go player on KGS, according to a recent post on Hillarp’s blog, Chess at the Bag of Cats. “It might seem like a rather small step for mankind, but it felt quite big to me and merited a rather bouncy and ungraceful dance around the livingroom,” wrote Hillarp, who also includes two game commentaries. We were alerted to this news by a post by Michael Bacon on his Armchair Warrior blog, which includes GM Peter Heine Nielsen’s comment about “The tradition of the best Japanese board game players to be interested in a game other than their ‘main’ one.” Bacon has been learning go and writes that “Having playing chess most of my adult life, Go is like entering a portal into a completely new and different universe.”

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EYGC: The UK had six players representing it at the European Youth Go Championships held on March 12-15 in Zandvoort am Zee in the Netherlands. The team ended with a score of 14 points out of 36. 5 members played in the Under 16 section, and 1 in the Under 12 section. Photos and results can be found at the official 2015 European Youth Go Championship website.

Pandanet Go European Team Championship: On March 17, Britain dropped their first point of the season with a draw against Portugal. Bulgaria drew with Croatia and South Africa beat Greece to claim third place. The British team remains at the top of the C League. 

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Trigantius Tournament: On March 7, the Trigantius Tournament was held in the Cambridge University Social Club. Taking the Trigantius Trophy, and his second title since taking up tournament Go at the start of 2015, was London’s Charles Hibbert (3d) with three straight wins. Other three game winners include Alison Bexfield, Yuji Tanaka, Martin Harvey , Philip Smith, Richard Mullens, Fred Zhu, and Ben Murphy. 52 players participated in all.

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Through May 31, Kiseido is having a sale of all English-language go books; order 3 or 4 books and get free shipping; order 5 books or more and get 10% off the listed price with free shipping. Kiseido has also obtained two kaya go boards with legs, one with tenchimasa grain and the other with tenmasa grain. Also, Chess and Go: A Comparison, the second in a series of essays by Richard Bozulich, is now available.

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Students under the age of 25 who register for the Nihon Ki-in Summer Go Camp before May 31 will get 10% off the program fee. The intensive training program for non-Japanese go players who want to raise their level and improve their go skills will receive “excellent lectures and workshops every day by highly-selected and richly-experienced professionals of the Nihon Ki-in.” The camp runs August 21 through September 3 at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo. In includes a special training program on August 27 at ‘Sugi no yado’ where the legendary Fujisawa Shuko hosted his famous ‘Shuko training camp’ each year with promising young professionals.

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Twenty-seven children, ranging from  preschool to 4th grade, played in a chess and Go tournament at Taborspace in Portland, OR, on Sunday, March 15th, reports Peter Freedman. “This winds up the tournament season for players from the three schools where Fritz Balwit and I  teach afterschool chess and Go clubs. Kahlial Lofquist is pictured holding  the school  Mind Sports Championship  trophy, awarded  to  the  school  with  the  highest  win/loss  percentage  for  chess  and  go  combined, which went to Irvington Elementary.” Go winners: 1st:  Tommy  Boyd, 4-0, Beverly Cleary; 2nd: Kahlial Lofquist  3 1/2 -0 (one bye), Irvington; 3rd: Olin Waxler, 3-1,  Beverly  Cleary. Also finishing  at 3-1, but  playing  weaker  opponents: Emmet Mayer and Mason Bonner. Chess winners: 1st: Leo Frankunas, Irvington; 2nd: Dylan Nakaji, Richmond; 3rd: Edwin  Chen, Ainsworth . Mind Sports records: First: Irvington, 24-20; 2nd: Beverly  Cleary, 13-12; 3rd: Richmond, 9-9. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo by Peter Freedman.

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Karoline Burrall (right) has exchanged her role as AGA Tournament Coordinator for work as a Congress correspondent for the AGA E-Journal. “We owe Karoline a huge debt for the tireless work she put in and the extremely professional and skilled job she did in the tournament coordinator position,” said AGA President Andy Okun. “We couldn’t have gotten by without her tremendous effort.” Longtime Southern California player Cherry Shen (left) has taken on the Tournament Coordinator title and the bulk of the job, including managing foreign representative selection. Like Burrall, Shen comes from a family of go players including father Gary Shen, a frequent Congress volunteer and So Cal regular. “Cherry has long shown willingness to help out in many go events and I’m grateful to her for volunteering again,” said Okun. Among other things, Shen won an AGF college scholarship in 2010, represented the US at the World Mind Games in Lille, volunteered for the American Collegiate Go Association, taught go in an elementary school and served as translator for “The Surrounding Game” team. She lives and works in New York, where her day job is in finance, Okun said.

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