Send in your US Open (or Masters Division) game record(s) in sgf format with all game info complete, including both players’ full names, and the round number(s), and we’ll add it (them) to the official US Open crosstab. Email game records – by Friday, August 22 – to journal@usgo.org.
– photo by Chris Garlock
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Teach how to play Go in your town. It’s fun!
So you want to run a Go demonstration for Learn Go Week, but aren’t sure what to do?
You’re not alone. Since proposing Learn Go Week in July, we’ve received more questions about this than anything else.
The good news is that it’s not that hard, and we’ll work with you to make it as easy as possible.
We have customizable posters, brochures, printable Go sets and much more ready for you to use.
Don’t run a Go demo on a deserted island!
If you’re only going to do one thing right and don’t have time to worry about anything else, make it your choice of location.
A good location for your Go demo can partly make up for a total lack of promotion and other preparation (as long as you still have a Go set).
On the other hand, a poorly chosen location can ruin even the most meticulously planned event.
Choose a location with a lot of foot traffic.
Choose somewhere which:
Examples of good locations are public spaces near popular shopping areas, popular parks and tourist attractions (check whether you need permission to use the space).
Read more about choosing a location
Use this customizable poster to promote your event AND your Go club.
If more people know about your event, more people will come. It’s that simple.
And the more ways you promote your event, the more people will know about it.
You can promote your Go demo on shoestring budget in each (or all) of the following ways:
This brings us to one of the main reasons for Learn Go Week. Three Go players running a local teaching event isn’t that remarkable, but the same three local Go players who are now part of a global phenomenon involving thousands of players is a completely different story.
That’s another reason why you should register your Learn Go Week event, to help create a tangible list of events which you and other Go players can show to the media to credibly claim that x people are involved.
If you’ve been involved with your Go club for years, I’m not asking you to do anything different to what you usually do (unless you want to). I’m just asking you to do what you always do to promote your club, and to do it on the same day as everyone else.
This isn’t boy scouts, but the principle is the same. The more prepared you are the more smoothly things will run.
We have all kinds of material for you to print and give to people
Have a look at our event checklist to get ideas about what you’ll need on the day. You can find all the Learn Go Week checklists here.
Keep it simple! Don’t lecture people or they’ll fall asleep.
Now that you’ve got people’s attention, teach them! That’s why you’re doing this, right?
Remember, you love Go so it should be easy to talk about it with enthusiasm.
When teaching beginners, keep things simple to start with and get people playing and having fun as soon possible.
After a satisfying day of teaching people to play Go, it’s tempting to think that your job is done.
However, if you have a Go club (or want to start one) you’ll be selling yourself short if you don’t follow through afterwards.
This requires a little preparation too, but it’s as simple as asking people to write down their email address on the day (if they seem interested).
Once you have some new contacts, email them to invite them to other local Go events and meetings. If you don’t have any events, invent one!
All of these tips come from our Guerrilla Go Marketing Toolkit. Check out the toolkit for many more suggestions and resources.
What we’ve discussed here only scratches the surface of what’s possible when promoting Go.
I know a lot of you also have a lot of experience promoting Go and have been doing this for years. I’d love to hear your ideas about the best ways to run a Go demonstration.
What are your top tips for readers who are new to all this?
To share your ideas, click here and leave a comment below.
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Mark Lee 7D (Lee Sang Hyeop) defeated Songyan Jiao 7D in just 208 moves on Saturday morning to sweep the 2014 US Open Masters
Division, 9-0. Conner Li 3P took second with 7 wins followed by Matthew Hu 2P in third place also with 7 wins. With 6 wins each, fourth place went to Songyan Jiao 7D, Ryan Li 7D took fifth, Andy Liu 1P took sixth, and Calvin Sun 1P took 7th. “My opponents were very tough but I think maybe I was a little lucky,” the modest 17-year-old former insei from Korea told the E-Journal after his final win. “After my first couple of wins I was able to build my confidence.” Lee (left) said that he was so focused on playing his best in each game that “I wasn’t really thinking about winning the championship, so it’s just now starting to sink in.” The Masters is the first title that Lee, who studied with Myungwan Kim 9P (at left, with Lee, reviewing Saturday’s game) when he was younger, has won since he was 11. “It was clear to me (back then) that he was very talented and smart and had a lot of potential,” said Kim. Lee, who’s thinking about moving to the US, will be visiting Kim in Los Angeles for a few months this autumn, teaching go and studying English, and plans to compete in the Cotsen Open at the end of October. “As a former insei, he dedicated his whole life to studying go to be a pro,” said Kim. “While it may be still an ongoing project he hopes to find some other meaningful work in his new life in the US.” Click here for the Masters crosstab. photo by Phil Straus
US Open: top winners (6/7D): 1st: (tie) Xiaotian Hu & Xuyu Xiang; 3rd: Daniel Chou; click here for complete winner’s list. NEW THIS YEAR: Send us your US Open game record in sgf format with all game info complete, including both players’ full names, and the round number, and we’ll add it to the official US Open crosstab. Email them – by Friday, August 22 – to journal@usgo.org.
Other Events: Jeff Wu 5k won the 13×13 kyu championship in a final game with Ann Wu 10k, while April Ye 1D took the dan championship. In the 9×9 tournament, no winner emerged from the dan division but Matt Mo 10k won both of his playoff games to win the kyu division. Speedy players Yukino Takehara 1k and Will Lockhart 5D progressed furthest in Lightning Tournament’s kyu and dan divisions respectively. Julian Erville 1D took first place in the Midnight Madness, followed by Yukino Takehara 1k in second place, and Jeremy Chiu 6D won first place in the Die Hard Tournament on Wednesday with a perfect four-win record. In the Women’s Tournament: Top Bracket: 1st: Chen Jiahui (4-0); 2nd: Wan Yian; 3rd: April Ye. Middle Bracket: 1st: Kelly Liu (4-0); 2nd: Yoko Ohashi; 3rd: Amanda Miller. Bottom Bracket: 1st: Marjorie Hey; 2nd: Alexandra Platz; 3rd: Kaoru Hidaka. 13×13 photo by Karoline Li
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Bill Lin 7d and Aaron Ye 6d are the winners of the Redmond Cup, after a series of online matches, and then a live final at the US Go Congress. In the Junior Division (under 13) Ye, who has held the Redmond title for the past three years, made it clear he has no intention of giving up his title. He won all five rounds of the online qualifiers, and then cemented his status with two wins in a row against runner up Jeremy Chiu 6d, who lost on time in round 1 on Sunday, and then was defeated on the board again on Monday. Both boys are 12 years old. In the Senior Division (under 18) Bill Lin was undefeated in the six round qualifiers, but then stumbled in the first round of the finals, losing to two year reigning champ Jianing Gan 7d on Sunday afternoon. He came back fighting strong on Monday though, winning that round, and then claiming the title with a second win on Thursday. Matches from both divisions were broadcast live on KGS, and hundreds of viewers watched the games.
Friday’s big event in the Youth Room at Congress was the Youth Team Tourney, where teams of three compete against each other, just like in Hikaru no Go. 16 teams competed, 48 kids total, in both dan and kyu brackets. Top honors were won by Zhen Xianan 7d, Yifei Gao 6d, and Xinying Jiang 6d (with Aaron Ye as the alternate on one match). In the Kyu Division, Patrick Zhao 10k, Kilin Tang 12k and Daniel Zhao 14k won first place. All six received prizes in the Youth Room, as a well as a trophy at the awards banquet, and a free one month membership for Baduk TV. – Story and photos by Paul Barchilon E-J Youth Editor. Top: Bill Lin 7d vs. Jianing Gan 7d in the Redmond Cup finals; Bottom: Kyu Division winners in the Youth Team, at right, demonstrate the advanced strategy that won them the match.
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Mark Lee 7D (right) locked up the US Open Masters Division championship on Friday night with his 8th-round win over Andy Liu 1P, giving the 17-year-old former Korean insei an impressive 8-0 record with one final round to play Saturday morning. Matthew Hu was 6-1 coming into the 8th round but his loss to Conner Li knocked him out of contention for the Masters, leaving the NAMT prize race still up in the air. Click here for the Masters Division crossgrid. photo by Chris Garlock
US Open players undefeated through five rounds (also with one final round left to play Saturday morning): Fan Chen 5D; Nick Blake 3D; Dan Alvira 2D; Gilbert Feng 1D; Yukio Ishiyama 1D; Erik Brummelkamp 4K; Dmitry Dimatov 5K; Adam Jiang 7K; Joe Suzuki 7K; Matthias Kramm 9K; Ann Wu 10K; Mackenzie Brown 10K; Mark Nahabedian 13K; Dowson Yang 20K; Gary Smith 24K. Click here for US Open crosstab results.
Longtime go player Steve Barbieri 1K was the high bidder at the traditional Friday night auction of a go board to benefit the American Go Foundation, his $1,000 bid winning a fierce bidding war for a two-inch kaya board signed by all the professional go players at the Go Congress. Barbieri was clearly inspired by AGA President Andy Okun’s example: he became shodan after winning the auction in 2008. “This kind of generosity is what’s enabled us to continue helping grow the game of go across the United States,” said AGF President Terry Benson. The auction followed a live game commentary by Jungsang Park 9P and Myungwan Kim 9P on the Masters board one game between Lee and Liu. As usual, the board was donated by Yutopian. photo (l-r): Chris Garlock, Myungwan Kim 9P, Steve Barbieri, Terry Ben
son, Andy Okun and Jungsang Park 9P; photo by Steve Colburn.
Matt Mo 10k defeated Jim Fienup 3k in the 9×9 Tournament final on Friday to win the kyu championship; Dirk Riedeman 3D still has to play Zheng Xiangnan 5D for the dan championship.
In the 13×13 Tournament, April Ye 1D beat Gabriella Su 5D to clinch the dan championship, while Jeff Wu 5k is still to face Ann Wu 10k in the battle for kyu champion.
In the Lightning Tournament, the dan finalists have yet to be determined, but Yukino Takehara 1k has advanced to the kyu finals and waits for the winner of a semi-final game to play for the kyu championship.
In the Self Paired Tournament, just 129 games have been played, with Matt Pruner 4D leading in Most Games Played, with 12. No other prize category leaders were available at press-time Friday night.
– reporting by Chris Garlock and Karoline Li; bottom right photo of kids playing a casual game Friday night by Phil Straus
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Published in the August 15, 2014 edition of the American Go E-Journal
Shawn Ray, a 4 dan AGA member, asked his teacher — Kim SeungJun 9P from Korea — about the difference between the Mini and Micro Chinese Openings, which have become very popular recently. Even if you’re not familiar with either variation, you’ll find his explanation interesting. Each week full AGA members get useful information like this in full game commentaries. To sign up for the Members Edition, register with the AGA here.
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In a final showdown Friday afternoon, the Pair Go team of April Ye 1D and Daniel Ko 7D defeated Wan Chen 4D and Jie Liang 7D for the title of 2014 US Pair Go Champions. Eight pairs competed at two top tables at Thursday night’s Pair Go tournament to produce Friday afternoon’s finalists. As first place winners and this year’s US Pair Go Champions, Ye and Ko will represent the US at the International Pair Go Championship in Tokyo the last weekend of October. Wan Chen and Jie Liang took second place, Gabriella Su and Justin Ching were third and Amy Su and Forest Song placed fourth. After two rounds of competition Thursday night, the rest of the tournament produced 13 other table winners: Dahye Lee/Ben Lockhart, Xinying Jiang/Michael Chen, Zhiwei Gao/Chun Sun, Yingzhi Qian/Will Lockhart, Sophia Wang/Lionel Zang, Kaoru Hidaka/Shigeo Hidaka, Samantha Fede/Andrew Jackson, Miyoko Miyama/Yoshitomo Nakata, Melissa Cao/Raymond Feng, Alexandra Patz/Marc Palmer, Yoko Ohashi/Mark Fraser, Jesy Feliccia/Samuel Suastegui, Elan Ma/Eric Wu, and Melanie Arnold/Keith Arnold.
– report by Karoline Li; photo by Phil Straus. Click here to see Sarah Small’s Pair Go album on Facebook.
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Ted Terpstra, Robert Gilman, Gurujeet Khalsa and Edward (Zhiyuan) Zhang are the winners in the 2014 American Go Association Board of Directors elections. Terpstra defeated Jingwei ‘Jay’ Zheng 16-12 for the Western board seat, Gilman was unopposed in the Central region, as was Khalsa in the Eastern region. In the At-Large Director race, Zhang defeated Diego Pierrottet 85-46. The directors — all of whom are incumbents except Terpstra, who replaces Steve Burrall, who didn’t run — will serve 2-year terms.
photo: Gilman, Zhang and Khalsa at Friday’s AGA Board meeting; photo by Phil Straus
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The US Open Masters Division is a 9-round event, with 6 rounds played at the same time as the US Open and an additional three rounds played Sunday, Tuesday and Friday nights. The new format replaces the 4-round North American Masters Tournament (NAMT) and the 4-round Strong Players Open. Eligibility in the Masters Division is limited to professionals, 7 Dan or stronger players and NAMT qualifiers. Prizes total over $11,000, including $5,000 to the first-place winner and additional prizes to the top three NAMT scorers within the Masters Division. Click here for the Masters Division crossgrid.
Top row, (l-r): Burrall, Matthew; Chen, ZhaoNian; Cheng, Ziyi; Chiu, Jeremy; Cho, Beomgeun; Dong, Yue; Gan, Jianing; Gao, Yifei
Second row: Hu, Zi-Yang; Huang, Andrew; Jiang, Xinying; Jiao, Sonyyan; Ko, Dae-Hyuk; Koh, Juyong; Lee, Joshua; Lee, Mark
Third row: Li, Conner; Li,Dongfang; Li, Ryan; Liang, Jie; Lin, Tianyu; Liu, Xiaohan; Liu, Zhi-Yuan; Lockhart, Benjamin
Fourth row: Ma, Wang; Okada, Ryo; Song, Zirui, Sun, Calvin; Teng, Justin; Wang, Jun; Wu, Changlong; Wu, Lirui
Fifth row: Yang, Huiren; Ye, Aaron; Yu, Lianzhou; Yu, Ximeng; Zhao, Zhongxia; Zheng, Xiangnan; Zhou, Yuan
For profiles of some of the Masters players, check out our pre-Congress series of profiles
US Go Congress Player Profiles: Wu and Zhou
US Go Congress Player Profiles: Sun, Ko, Koh, Lin, Teng & Ye
US Go Congress Player Profiles: Chen, Liang, Lee & Chiu
photos by Chris Garlock
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While most of the action at the 2014 US Go Congress happens on the top floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania in midtown Manhattan, perhaps the most popular – the lectures by professional go players – takes place down on the 6th floor in nondescript conference rooms named after European capitals like London, Paris and Budapest. Each afternoon and evening finds dozens of players raptly following every word of a go professional as he – or just as often, she (click here for the impressive list of pros at this year’s Congress, including four 9-dans) – explores the fascinating mysteries of the game of go. On Thursday night, Feng Yun 9P (left), after an exhaustive review of several josekis, blithely added, “But you can also tenuki: in the opening there are many many big moves, so you can just move on.” Across the hall, Mingming “Stephanie” Yin 1P (right) was exhorting her audience to study life and death problems. “You don’t have to study for hours every day,” she reassured them, “just pick a number of problems to do and then do them every day. They shouldn’t be too easy, and they shouldn’t be too hard, but you must do them every single day. If you do just two every day that’s more than 700 a year; that’s a lot! But you have to do them every day.”
– report/photos by Chris Garlock
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Weiqi To Go 