A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

Europe’s top youth players are gathered in Budapest this weekend for the European Youth Go Championship, which runs March 8-10. They’ll compete in a 6-round main tournament as well as a 5-round side tournament; click here to see results. Game records and videos are also being posted on the EuroGoTV website.

Csaba Mero 6D (left) won the 2013 Confucius Cup, played March 2-3 in Dublin, Ireland. Zebin Du 4D took second place and in third was Antoine Fenech 5D. Latest European tournament results available on EuroGoTV’s website. 

Late in February, the 3rd Huang Longshi Cup kicked off, pitting the five strongest women from China, Japan, and Korea against each other.

Kim Chaeyong gave Korea a quick start, taking out Japan’s Osawa Narumi 4P and Ishii Akane 2P, as well as China’s Song Ronghui 5P and Chen Yiming 2P. However, 14-year-old Yu Zhiying 2P from China stopped Kim’s run, and added two of her own, defeating Japan’s Okuda Aya 3P and Korea’s Kim Hyelim 2P. That leaves Xie Yiin 6P and Mukai Chiaki 5P for Japan, and Yu Zhiying 2P, Li He 3P and Wang Chenxing 5P (who won 8 games in a row in last year’s tournament) for China. Korea may be in the best position with Park Jieun 9P left, as well as Choi Jung 3P and Moon Dowon 2P

Round 2 begins on April 6th. The Huang Longshi Cup is an international women’s win-and-continue team tournament between China, Japan and Korea named after Huang Longshi – a famous Chinese go genius from the Qing dynasty.
Adapted from a report on Go Game Guru; click for game records and more information. Edited by Ben Williams
photo: Team Japan – from left: Mukai Chiaki, Xie Yimin and Osawa Narumi. 

NJO Game Records?  “Does anyone have access to the SGF for Andy Liu’s win over Mingming (Stephanie) Yin at the New Jersey Open?” asks EJ reader Robert P.
Due to unavoidable scheduling conflicts, top-board games were not broadcast or recorded this year; the E-Journal hopes to broadcast the NJO in 2014. 

Folding Board Query: “I was wondering if you have any more info on these boards (Whence the Seattle Portable Set? 9/2/2012 EJ),” writes Sergio Miranda Elmaleh. “I am considering of buying one of these and I was wondering what the durability of the folding seam is.”
We never did get a response to the original report; if anyone has info, please email us at journal@usgo.org and we’ll pass it along.

Youngsters from Portland, OR, took on kids from Mexico City, in a friendly match on KGS, held on Feb. 24th.  The Portland group, organized by Peter Freedman, played two rounds, and won 9-5, with one tie. The Mexican group are students of Siddhartha Avila’s, at the Pipiolo elementary school, and have competed with the Portland kids before, who Avila says are “much stronger this year”.  The kids video conferenced with each other before the matches, and were able to meet their opponents by Skype as well as across the board.  ”Some of the kids we played plan on visiting Portland before going on the Go Congress in Tacoma this summer,” reports Freedman.  ”They and their parents will homestay with our go families, spending a week playing go, soccer, and sightseeing with us.  Our families are really revved about this idea.”  Winner’s Report: Portland 2 game winners: McCaleb Nessler-Cass 16k, Jordan Reed 24k, Hikaru ?k; 1 game winners: Wilson ?k, Ellis Zehnder 23k; Mexico 2 game winners: Samuel 17k; 1 game winners: David Martinez 16k, Sebastian 20k, Yatzitl 24k.  Story by Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor -Photo: Students from Pipiolo competing, by Siddhartha Avila.

Park Junghwan continued Korea’s dominance of the Nongshim Cup, defeating Jiang Weijie 9P to take home the 11th Korean win in the Cup’s 14-year history.

Park was the new anchor for Korea in the team tournament,  handpicked by Lee Changho himself. Jiang was a newcomer to the tournament as well.

The final round kicked off on February 26th, with Choi Cheolhan breaking his personal 8-game losing streak against Chen Yaoye. However, he lost his next game to China’s Xie He 9P.

Xie’s record at the Nongshim Cup is 2nd best in the cup’s history, and got him promoted to 9P in the first place. That left Park to face both Xie and Jiang, but he was able to pull out victories against them both and bring the Cup back to Korea after China won the tournament last year.

Adapted from a report on Go Game Guru; click for game records and more information. Edited by Ben Williams

Sixteen-year-old Fan Tingyu 3P defeated Park Junghwan 9P on March 6th to become the youngest winner of the prestigious Ing Cup.

Fan Tingyu Left, Park Junghwan, Right

The Ing Cup, go’s longest-running international tournament, has been called the Go Olympics, since it held once every four years.

The semifinals, which took place last September, set up a showdown between Park and Fan in Singapore, where the first two games of the final were held. They left Singapore with one win apiece in the best-of-5 final.

The three final games were set for Shanghai, starting on March 4th, with Park hot off his win at the Nongshim Cup. Fan took Game Three, and the pressure was on Park, though he was playing as White, to stay in the match.

Game Four was a thriller, with Park, playing white, making a lot of territory early, with a number of weaker groups. Park ended up sacrificing two of the groups to reinforce the center. However, Fan played brilliantly to take away the center territory, with ko battles throughout the board. By the time it was all settled, black was ahead by 3 points and Fan had captured the title.

By winning the Cup, Fan not only becomes the youngest player to win the Ing Cup, but if he’s promoted to 9P, as is customary after winning an international title,  he will be the youngest player to do that as well, breaking Chen Yaoye 9P’s record.

Fan took home about $400,000 US for his efforts.

Adapted from a report on Go Game Guru; click for game records and more information. Edited by Ben Williams

Almost exactly a year since co-directors Will Lockhart and Cole Pruitt decided to shoot a documentary on the game of go — The Surrounding Game — the team is moving into the next phase of the project. “We have come a very long way and the filming itself is almost complete, but we still have a long way to go to get to a finished film” says Lockhart. The team filmed at the 2012 U.S. Go Congress and AGA Pro Tournament last summer, traveled to China and Korea in the fall, and spent the winter organizing their extensive footage. “We’re now launching a second fundraiser to raise money for post-production, including hiring a full-time editor, commissioning original music, and digital mastering of the film,” says Lockhart. A new fundraising goal of $30,000 has been set to reach a final cut of the film.

The new fundraiser begins this Saturday, March 9 and will operate via The Surrounding Game’s brand new website, which also features a recently-released trailer for the film. “We are adding Chinese- and Korean-language options for the site to make the project and fundraiser accessible to an international audience, and we’ll be offering a ton of new rewards which weren’t available the first time around,”  says Pruitt. We want “The Surrounding Game” to be as well-produced as it can possibly be, and we hope you’ll share the project with your friends and family and help us reach our goal.” He also noted that last year “we passed our initial goal quickly thanks to a lot of support from EJ readers.”
- screencaps from the latest Surrounding Game trailer

While the U.S. team prevailed in a February 16-17 friendship match in Cuba, “the true victory was in realizing this rare opportunity for players from the two countries to come together,” said trip organizer Bob Gilman.

A team of 11 U.S. players competed with Cubans at the Academia Cubana de Go in Havana. The US players ranged from 5 dan to 24 kyu, and the Cubans had a similarly wide range. The event drew coverage on Cuban sports TV.

“They are just a wonderful group of people and their passion for the game came through every minute we were with them,” said AGA President Andy Okun. “When the barriers between our countries are gone, the North American go community will be that much richer.”

“All the players I played showed intense fighting spirit,” Okun added, “and I think they will benefit a lot once they have easier access to resources and opponents.” He also noted that “The rum they served out to celebrate the end of each day’s play was awfully good.”

Anthony Chen 5d agreed that ”If the Cubans get to play go on the internet, their
strength will improve dramatically. Since their travel is limited, they don’t play against many different styles of players. It was good that our US team was able to provide a measuring stick for them, but if they can play regularly on the internet, I am sure they will raise their level rapidly.”

Catherine and Royce Chen each brought donations for the Academia: Catherine 10 new copies of Cho Hun-Hyeon’s Lessons on Go Techniques Vol. 2, a book she had translated, and Royce 50 used go books he had collected. The Cubans presented the US players with gifts of Cuban handicrafts.
photo: Cuban player Sergio Seara Saenz (left, in white shirt) and Andy Okun (at right, with back to camera); photo by Joel Olson

Former AGA President Phil Straus (l) recently dropped by the Santa Monica Go Club where he played a game with go author, translator — and Santa Monica Go Club member — Richard Dolen.
- photo by Jeffrey Tsao

The 26th Evening News Cup was held on January 6-12 in Xian, once the starting point of the silk road, now a center of China's software industry. The tournament is sponsored by the Chinese Weiqi Association and the China Evening News Journalists' Association. Although its financial rewards are modest (10,000 yuan -- about 1600 dollars or 1200 euros -- for 1st place) it is China's foremost amateur tournament because since 1992 the winner (or runner-up in 2002-2005) has represented China at the World Amateur Go Championship. The winner also receives a promotion to 7 dan and has the option of turning pro, as Qiao Zhijian did last year. This year the field included four former world champions who remained amateur: Sun Yiguo (1993), Li Daichun (2001), Hu Yuqing (2005, 2009), and Bai Baoxiang (2011). It also included 2010 WAGC runner-up Wang Chen, winner of the 120,000-yuan Chenyi Cup in 2011 and the Amateur Tianyuan in 2012 and ranked, along with Hu and Bai, among China's top four amateur players.

The Evening News Cup is both an individual and a team competition. Most of the players participate as members of three-person teams representing evening newspapers from all over China, their aggregate score determining their team's standing. The field (166 players this year) was divided into A and B blocks. An 11-round Swiss system in each block was followed by a two-round combined play-off for 1st to 8th places. The players played two games per day (one on January 8), with 85-minute time limits followed by 10-second-per-move overtime.

For the first five days block A was dominated by Wang Chen and block B by Hu Yuqing. Nobody could beat them. Wang downed Bai Baoxiang in round 7, and Hu defeated Qian Liuru, a rising teenaged star who contested the 2012 Chenyi Cup with Bai (Bai won), in round 6. On day six Hu remained invincible, winning block B with a perfect 11-0 score, but Wang lost twice, throwing block A into confusion: three players ended up with nine wins apiece and two had eight. SOS points sorted out the top three, putting Wang first, Jinglong Cup winner Li Ziqi second, and teenaged Cheng Honghao, master (mingren) of Anhui and Anqing in 2010 and 2011, third. Bai, who had lost to Cheng in round 10, squeaked into fourth place on a third-level tie-break.

In the semi-final round the next morning block B's No. 1 Hu defeated block A's No. 2 Li, but Block A's Wang, Cheng, and Bai prevailed over, respectively, the 2nd-, 4th-, and 3rd-place finishers in block B: Qian Liuru, eleven-year-old Wang Bo, and teenager Dai Zhitian. In the final round in the afternoon, Hu Yuqing won by resignation over Wang Chen to capture the cup, completing a remarkable week of thirteen straight victories against tough opponents, most of them about half his age. Li Ziqi beat out Qian Liuru for third place, Cheng Honghao beat Bai Baoxiang again to take fifth, and Wang Bo beat Dai Zhitian to take seventh.

On January 13 the top six finishers challenged strong professional opponents (Piao Wenyao, Jiang Weijie, Shi Yue, Tan Xiao, Nie Weiping, Xie He). Historically the amateurs, playing at handicaps ranging from even to two stones, have won more than half of these games. This year the amateurs took black with no compensation and the pros beat them on all six boards.

The team competition was won by a team representing the Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening News, no suprise since the team members were Hu Yuqing, Wang Chen, and 2003 World Student Oza Champion Ye Lingyun. Best woman was Zhao Guanru, who finished 35th in block A. Veteran world amateur champions Li Daichun and Sun Yiguo turned in good results by finishing 7th and 12th in block B.

The upcoming Spring Go Expo, scheduled for March 23-24 in Boston, MA, will now be held at Harvard’s Student Organization Center at Hilles (SOCH) on both days. The event will include a Chinese-American professional exhibition match between Andy Liu 1P and Chang Hao 9P, simultaneous games against professional players, a preview of the first feature-length documentary on go, “The Surrounding Game”, public teaching and demonstrations, a youth go tournament, and lectures on the relevance of go beyond the board.

“We urge everyone in the New England area to try to come to this unique event,” says organizer Cole Pruitt, “especially college students, for whom the ACGA can offer subsidies for travel and stay”. The Go Expo is designed to attract both die-hard players and newcomers alike, with many different kinds of activites throughout the weekend. Click here for the full schedule, as well as registration info; click here for the brand-new Expo flyer.