On July 25th, the French team won the final of the Pandanet Go European Championship, just behind the Ukrainian team. The French team was composed by Fan Hui 2p, Thomas DeBarre 6d, Benjamin Drean-Guenaizia 6d and Tanguy le Calve 6d. Click here for more info.

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Age: 32
Years playing go: 12
Lives in: Dallas, Texas

“Go is possibly one of the last things in this world that involves long-form communication. In a society of five-second videos and messages, go is one of the few opportunities you have to sit down with someone and do something for at least 30 minutes. That chance to interact, to discuss, and to mutually change one another, is what I like most about go.”

First in a series; if you’d like to participate, tell us your favorite thing about the game of go, include your name, age, how long you’ve played go and where you live, and email to journal@usgo.org. Be sure to include a current photo!

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Hajin Lee 3p, popular for her YouTube broadcasts under the name Haylee, has announced she will host a series of exhibition games with the AGA-certified professionals on her YouTube channel.  Each episode will include a short interview with the guest, the exhibition game and a game review.  The schedule of games: Sep. 5 : Calvin Sun 1P; Sep. 12: William Gansheng Shi 1P; Sep. 19: Ryan Li 1P; Oct. 3 : Andy Liu 1P.  Broadcast time will be US Eastern Time 7PM. Lee, a frequent attendee at both US and European go congresses, is also secretary general of the International Go Federation. “My thanks to Hajin and our pros for putting on these broadcasts, which I very much look forward to watching,” said AGA President Andy Okun.

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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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