by John Power, EJ Japan Correspondent

Chunlan Cup Semifinals: In our last report, we gave the results in the quarterfinals of the 10th Chunlan Cup. The semifinals were held two days later, on Tuesday 27th. Zhou Ruiyang 9P (China) beat Chen Yaoye 9P (China) by resig. and Gu Li 9P (W) beat Kim Ji-seok 9P [“Je-seok” in my previous report was a mistake] by resig. That gives an all-Chinese final. It’s good to see that Gu Li (right) seems to have recovered from his loss in the 10-game match with Lee Se-dol.

Chen Yaoye Wins Siyuan Cup World Mingren Championship: The first major go event of the new year was the 4th Siyuan Cup World Mingren (Meijin) Championship, held in the city of Xi’an in Shaansi Province in China from January 5 to 8. Xi-an is the city that was known as Changan when it was the capital of China in the early Han and Tang dynasties. This tournament pits the holders of the Meijin titles in Japan, Korea, and China against each other in an irregular knock-out. The players draw lots to see who plays in the first round; the winner of that game goes to the final, while the loser then plays the third player; the winner of that game goes to the final. Iyama Yuta of Japan was eliminated in the first round in the 1st and 2nd Cups, but did better this time. In the first round, playing white, he beat Pak Yeong-hun 9P of Korea by resig. after 137 moves. Pak (B) then lost to Chen Yaoye 9P of China in a marathon game lasting 306 moves. Pak calculated that he was losing by half a point, so he played a do-or-die move on move 196; that prolonged the game but widened his losing margin, so he resigned.  In the final, Iyama, who had white, missed a number of chances to wrap up a narrow win. In the end, his lack of familiarity with the Chinese rules let Chen stage an upset by half a point. Iyama played an endgame move that was correct under the Japanese rules but not the best under the Chinese rules, in which the dame points are important.
Past results: Previously this tournament was known as the China Changde Cup World Mingren Weiqi Championship and was held in the city of Changde in Hunan Province. First prize is 300,000 yuan (about $48,400). Previous winners: 1st (July 24‾27, 2010). Gu Li 9P (China); 2nd (August 17‾20, 2011). Pak Yeong-hun 9P (Korea); 3rd (September 10‾13, 2012). Jiang Weijie 9P (China)

Suzuki to Challenge for Women’s Meijin: All the games in the final round of the 27th Women’s Meijin League were held on January 8 at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo. The result was that three players ended up on 4-2, but there is no play-off in this league: the top-ranked player takes precedence. This was Suzuki Ayumi 6P (right), ranked number three; actually she lost her last game, but still topped Aoki Kikuo 8P (league newcomer) and Mannami Nao 3P (also a league newcomer), the other players on 4-2. Suzuki will make her first challenge for the Women’s Meijin title, which Xie Yimin has held for seven years in a row. It will be Suzuki’s first title match for seven years. The results: Chinen Kaori 4P beat Suzuki Ayumi by 7.5 points; Mannami Nao (B) beat Mukai Chiaki 5P by 6.5 points; Aoki Kikuyo beat Ishii Akane 2P by resig.
If Mukai had won her game, she would have been the challenger. Final placings in the league are: Suzuki, Aoki, Mannami, and Kato Keiko 6P (who had a bye in the last round). Mukai, Chinen, and Ishii lost their places.

Meijin League: Two games were played in the 40th Meijin League on January 8. Takao Shinji Tengen beat Kono Rin 9P by resig. and Yamashita Keigo 9P beat Murakawa Daisuke Oza, also by resig. On 2-0, Takao provisionally leads the league; the other players mentioned above are all 1-1.

Honinbo League: In the first game of the fourth round of the 70th Honinbo League, Mimura Tomoyasu 9P beat Cho U 9P by resig. Mimura and Cho are both on 2-2. Ida Atsushi 8P has the lead with 3-0. He will play Ryu Shikun in this round.

2014 Statistics
Here are some of the statistics for the 2014 tournament year in Japan.
Most wins
1. Kono Rin 9P: 50 wins 26 losses
2. Kyo Kagen 2P: 45-12
3. Fujisawa Rina, Women’s Honinbo: 40-14
4. Ichiriki Ryo 7P: 36-14
5. Takao Shinji Tengen: 34-23
6. Ida Atsushi 8P: 33-15
7. Yamashita Keigo 9P: 32-20
8. Shida Tatsuya 7P: 31-10; Iyama Yuta Kisei: 31-19
10. Kobayashi Satoru 9P: 28-11

Best winning percentages
1. Kyo: 78.95%
2. Imamura Yoshiaki 9P: 75.86 % (22-7)
3. Kataoka Satoshi 9P: 75.76% (25-8)
4. Shida: 75.61%
5. Fujisawa: 74.07%

Most successive wins
1. Kono: 19
2. Kyo: 17
3. Ichiriki: 16
4. Kyo: 13

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1ChpBGk

The Central London Go Club A team — Franciso Divers, Michael Webster and Chuck Fisher — won the 2014 season of the online league and reclaimed the GoGoD shield from Edinburgh. The second division was won by the Cornish Rogues, who will be moving up to the first division next year. The next season of the online league is scheduled to start promptly in April.
– edited by Amy Su from a report on the BGA website.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1ChpB99

January 18: Cambridge, MA
Massachusetts Go Association Winter Tournament
James Peters jamesp30@gmail.com 617-372-6839
Eva Casey eva@theworld.com 617-666-8934

Get the latest go events information.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/17AdISu

The special offer of two months of free access to BadukTV English has just been extended through January 31. Anyone who joins, renews or extends their membership with the AGA between now and then will receive two months of free access to BadukTV English thanks to a joint effort of the AGA, GoGameGuru and BadukTV. Baduk TV English takes the best of the 24-hour Korean cable channel Baduk TV, with lessons, game commentary and problems analyzed by professionals, and adds English subtitles.  There are several hundred hours of material in the library already and new material all the time. After joining or renewing, click here to take advantage of the offer.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1snVOeM

Germany: Matthias Terwey 4d (left) took the Essen 2015 on January 11. Behind him were Barbara Knauf 3d and Bernd Radmacher 4d. Poland: Also on January 11, the Polish Youth Championship – U16 playoff finished in Ozarow Mazowiecki with Stanislaw Frejlak 4d in first, Maksym Walaszewski 1k in second, and Julia Bednarska 18k in third. Netherlands: Frank Janssen 6d bested Rene Aaij 4d at the wintergo_2014 in Overasselt while Dick Riedeman 3d came third. 
– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1IgHo43

In perhaps the most gripping game yet, Ryan Li beat Eric Lui in Friday morning’s AGA Pro Qualification Tournament match, giving him a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-5 finals. Game 3 is underway now on KGS; Myungwan Kim will start a live commentary soon. Lui took a solid cash lead early in the game and hundreds of viewers on KGS thought he seemed to be in a good position after deftly surviving Li’s splitting attack. But Li kept up the pressure and as Lui went into byo-yomi, the game kept getting more and more complicated. Eventually, with the life and death of multiple groups at stake, several huge kos and even a seki, both players were battling the clock as well and in the end, Lui, behind on the board, lost on time as well.

On the next board, Ben Lockhart’s kill of Jeremy Chiu’s large central group put him within one game of clinching third place in the tournament. Matthew Burrall’s win against Daniel Gourdeau evened the score in their battle for fifth place (Gourdeau won their match in the round-robin section earlier in the week).
– report/photo by Chris Garlock

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1ASXHBT

Xinming Simon Guo, a licensed Math teacher in Illinois and founder of Go and Math Academy, will organize an educational workshop at the 2015 Conference of MMC (Metropolitan Mathematics Club) of Chicago. The workshop will be  Saturday, January 24,  at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, Lincolnshire, IL. Guo has been advocating go and math in the educational world for many years. Math teachers, math educators, school administrators and even go amateurs are welcome to attend. Details are available at http://ift.tt/1Axz38y.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1Axz38A

Though frigid temperatures on Thursday closed schools around Boston and coated the Nantasket Beach with frozen surf, the action was hot on the boards at the AGA pro qualification championship. Ryan Li returned to form Thursday morning in the deciding AGA pro qualification championship top-bracket match against Matthew Burrall, taking just 120 moves to win the game, another crowd-pleaser with plenty of complicated fighting. Li advances to play Jeremy Chiu in the next round, which will be broadcast live at 4p Thursday on KGS. Click here for latest results and game records.

Eric Lui awaits the winner of the Li-Chiu match, having defeated Ben Lockhart Thursday morning to assure his berth in the semi-finals. In the other morning match, Daniel Gourdeau, still battling a nasty cold, needed just 118 moves against Ricky Zhao to advance to the next match, which will be played on Friday against Matthew Burrall. Zhao placed 7th, as Yuan Zhou had to withdraw due a family emergency.
– report/photos by Chris Garlock

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1HVX4t9

The American Go Yearbook 2014 Member’s Edition Collection has just been released. The annual compilation is one of the benefits of membership in the American Go Association, collecting the content of the Member’s Edition of the American Go E-Journal, the largest English language go publication in the world. “We appreciate member support of the AGA and hope that our members will find this collection a valuable and useful resource,” said EJ Managing Editor Chris Garlock. Click here for details on AGA membership. New this year (just added): all 2014 sgf files in a handy downloadable zip file.

Each week the E-Journal delivers original content from a team of contributors that now includes Michael Redmond 9P, Myung-wan Kim 9P, Yilun Yang 7P, Guo Juan 5P, longtime teacher Yuan Zhou 7D, the inimitable Kazunari Furuyama, as well as new US professionals Gansheng Shi 1P and Calvin Sun 1P. 

The Yearbook also includes the EJ’s special reports on the 2014 U.S. Go Congress, the 2014 World Amateur Go Championship and the 2014 Cotsen Open. The handy online resource gathers links to this wealth of material, enabling members to quickly find what they’re looking for on a month-by-month list. Once selected, game records or PDFs open up quickly and easily for review or download. Click here for details on AGA membership.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1BJkaPS

Ryan Li 7d defeated Eric Lui 7d by 7.5 points in the final round of the round-robin section of the ongoing AGA professional qualification tournament. In other Round 7 action, Ben Lockhart beat Jeremy Chiu, Ricky Zhao defeated Matthew Burrall and Yuan Zhou – in his second consecutive half-pointer – beat Daniel Gourdeau. Click here for results, game records and the grid for the  championship section of the tournament.
– report/photo by Chris Garlock

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1FokJor