Players from six continents and assorted islands will gather at the Montien Riverside Hotel in Bangkok for this year’s World Amateur Go Championship June 7-10. The Asian contingent will be young, including 12-year-old contestants from Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, and Malaysia and teenagers from China, Hong Kong, Korea, Macau, Singapore, and host country Thailand. Japan will field a two-time former world champion, and Europe will field several players who have placed high in past years. Danny Ko represents the US and Juyong Koh is playing for Canada. Click here for video self-introductions by sixteen of the fifty-eight players. Click here for the list of players and the event schedule. The events main sponsors are CP All, The Siam Commercial Bank, and Red Bull. Seven games each round will be broadcast on Pandanet. Ranka Online will carry reports of the entire event.
– Ranka Online 

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The AGA is selecting three players to represent North America in the 2015 Samsung Cup World Baduk Masters World Division. The 12-player World Division will be played August 2nd – 5th in Seoul, Korea. Interested players should be available to play in the online selection tournament on the third and fourth weekend of June. Eligibility: AGA/CGA member and US/Canada citizenship, AGA 6.0 minimum rating required, amateur or certified professional by the AGA; US players must meet the AGA overseas eligibility criteria. The selection tournament will be held on KGS Go Server. Interested players should send their names, AGA number and rating and country of citizenship to cherry.shen@usgo.org by midnight, Sunday, June 14th. Note that the format of the tournament is single elimination so players may be out earlier than August 5.

The three selected players will each receive a $1,000 stipend toward their expenses traveling to Korea, but must arrange their own air travel and lodging. The World Division winner will play in the Main Round of the Samsung Cup, so there is a chance that players will go back to Korea in the second week of September. The winning player will also receive approximately $5,000 in Main Round prize money. Note that AGA professionals can participate in the Samsung Cup General Division at the end of July although there are no monetary subsidies. Interested AGA professional players should email Cherry Shen for Main Division details.

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The local chapter of the American Go Association met at the Seattle Go Center on Tuesday, May 26, and unanimously elected Peter Nelson 5d (right) as the new Chapter Representative.  They also changed the name of their chapter to “Seattle AGA Chapter” from “Seattle Go Center”.  The Seattle AGA Chapter is organizationally distinct from the nonprofit that runs the Seattle Go Center, although many local players are members of both groups.  The name change was intended to reduce confusion between the two groups.  The Seattle AGA Chapter sponsored the Tacoma Go Congress in 2013.

Nelson will be attending the U.S. Go Congress in Minnesota this August, and the Annual Meeting of Chapter Representatives.  He has been a regular at the Go Center  since moving to Seattle from Minnesota in 2014.  He has given many teaching games at the Go Center, and he also teaches online as longstridebaduk.  Nelson has done well in local tournaments, winning the Seattle Pandanet Team Qualifier in September of 2014, and placing second in the Open Section of the 2015 Spring Tournament, losing only to Edward Kim 7d.  He may be contacted by email.
– Brian Allen

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Note: this is a translation from the French Go Review, with which the E-Journal is now exchanging reports. It’s a bit longer than our usual reports but we wanted to give you a sense of their style. You can find the original report here.

The village of Guitte, hidden in the countryside half an hour outside the Breton capital welcomed anew the Rennes Tournament during Easter weekend. Irene, the manager of the Ker Al Lann holiday camp still doesn’t know the rules of go, but she understands one thing very well, that the regulars who descend there every year to put stones on a board require only a few things: a room to play quietly and repose until nightfall and some good meals to reset their clocks to zero.

Forty-odd players came together to do battle, but the duel was limited to a battle in fuseki, joseki, or tesuji. Because the fabric of the Rennes Tournament is not based on the diverse range of drinks consumed, nor the korrigans (French leprechauns) who tickle the feet of those who go to bed late to wake them up in time for the next round; it is made from the innumerable activities and games that the organizers offer to the participants. Thus, we have presided over a second Olympiad of go and outdoor games, won this year by an all-female team, the Gazelles, composed of Christèle Derrien (whose cakes we enjoyed all weekend), Brigitte Doisneau and Élise Cherbonnel. They lead the competing teams in a programme mixing skill and endurance : pétanque, Möllky and Go-Athlon (10 minute blitz on a 13×13 board). The prize for our three winners: a magnificent chocolate goban!

In the evening, the place was filled with games large and small, the more athletic passed the time with table tennis, whilst the rest amused themselves at the carrom table. Meanwhile, the former winner of the blitz tournament played all the while, whilst serving drinks at the bar.

At midnight, the poker players made their appearance and the sound of chips announced that the night would not finish until all accounts were settled at Ker Al Lann.

For the other nocturnal side events, Alban Granger defeated Mael Rabase to win this year’s Phantom Go World Championship, the famous Blitz (is Wrong) Championship passed into the hands of Tanguy Le Calvé (who faced Jean-Loup Naddef in the final), and the backgammon tournament was energetically won by Emeric Salmon who faced a very combative Florence.

And what about the go? We are getting there.  Forty participants and 5 rounds full of surprises, notably Remi Vannier, our president, who in a style as thoughtful as the thought he put into succeeding to beat successively Tanguy Le Calvé and Mathieu Delli-Zotti, the joint winners of the tournament (4 points each, Mathieu winning on tiebreak while also being the official barman). We can equally cite Emmanuel Nadeau, a young player who arrived in Canada and for whom the Breton air seemed to suit very well, since he managed to score 4 points in his category and shone brilliantly in the egg chase of Saturday morning.

In conclusion, it was a very beautiful weekend, and we are able to give you the dates of the 5th to 8th of May 2016 to book in your diary for next year’s event.

Translated from the French by Mathieu Delli-Zotti, Ian Davis & Olivier Dulac; photos by Sébastien Cordrie and Bertrand Vachon

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The Academia Cubana de Go has announced that it will host the 17th Ibero-American Championship tournament in Havana October 9-11. US players are very welcome, organizers say.  “I had a great time,” says Bob Gilman, who was one of four US players at last year’s Ibero-American Championship in Quito, Ecuador in 2014

The relaxation of restrictions on travel to Cuba by US citizens should make it easier for US players to travel to Havana for this tournament, says Gilman, who visited Havana in 2013 with a group of US players. “Travel for a competition is now permissible under a ‘general license.’” While prior government approval is not necessary, travelers must maintain documentation for five years that this travel meets the specifications in the Treasury Department regulations. “I am doubtful whether a trip extending much before or after the tournament would meet the regulatory standards for travel for a competition,” says Gilman. “Another possibility would be a ‘people to people’ group trip such as in 2013.” While this would permit seeing more of Cuba, it “requires more organization and has its own set of regulatory standards to meet,” notes Gilman, who adds “I would be interested in hearing from US players interested in making the trip.” Write Gilman here.

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The AGA, together with the American Go Foundation (AGF), will bring two Cuban players to the US Go Congress in St. Paul this August and is raising funds to support the effort . “Cuba has a very active go community,” says AGA Director Bob Gilman, who has taken the lead in organizing this visit, “Bringing these Cubans to the Go Congress will help build links with players in the United States and is very timely as relationships between the US and Cuban governments continue to improve.”

The players are Rafael Torres Miranda, President of the Academia Cubana de Go, Cuban 2 dan, and Professor Lazaro Bueno Perez from the province of Camaguey, Cuban 8 kyu. Professor Bueno has been active in teaching the game in his home province. Because the Cuban players cannot afford the trip on their own, the AGF is conducting an independent fund-raising campaign to bring them to the Congress. For more on how to support the effort, see the additional information here.

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Thanks to a new reciprocal agreement between the American Go E-Journal and the French Go Review, readers of both publications will benefit. The FGR is translating longtime go journalist John Power’s reports for the E-Journal into French and publishing them on the Revue Française de Go blog (three have been published so far ; click here for the most recent one). In return, they will be providing English translations of selected reports on the FGR blog for publication in the E-Journal.

“Go is a global game and we’re tremendously excited to launch this cooperative publishing venture with our colleagues in France,” said E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock.

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