A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

Daniel Chou 6D (below, left) took top honors 3-0 at the UMBC tourney last Sunday. “Some 34 players turned out to enjoy a day of go, friendship, and free pizza,” reports Gurujeet Khalsa. Hosted by the UMBC club there was also a strong showing from neighboring AGA collegiate clubs from Johns Hopkins University and the University of MD, College Park. Other 3-0 winners were: Zhangqi Luo (2D), Julian Erville (1D), Kasidet Hiranniramoi (5K), Brendan Berger (5K) and Hyungwook Lee (13K).
photos: (left) UMBC Club President Nathan Epstein congratulates Daniel Chou; (right) playing scene at the Skylight room UMBC Commons. Photos by Gurujeet Khalsa, TD

Just a few days left to sign up for the Young Lions Tournament, players must register by Wednesday Nov. 19th. The matches will take place on November 22 and 23 in the AGHS Tournaments Room on KGS. The first round will begin at 1 pm EST, and the second round at 4 pm EST. The second day will follow the same schedule. “This tournament is one of the biggest youth go events in America,” says AGHS Promotion Head Amy Su, “young go players will fight tooth and claw to emerge on top, will you be the one to lead the pride this year?” Anyone 18 or under may participate, and there will be prizes for the winners in multiple categories.  Visit the official Young Lions website for more information, to register fill out this form. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor

Watch your local team play this Sunday in the AGA City League. Games start at 3PM EST Sunday. Make sure to check out the latest GoPanda2 client as well; it has been updated recently and has new features.

November 22: Syracuse, NY
Syracuse Fall Go Tournament
Richard Moseson rmoseson@gmail.com 315-682-7720
Jim Gonnella jim_g_o@yahoo.com 315-492-9130

Get the latest go events information.

Learn How to Run a Tournament: Steve Colburn is well-known as a key member of the E-Journal’s Congress team and as the AGA’s sysadmin extraordinaire, but he’s also the chapter head of the Empty Sky Go Club in Rochester, NY. Colburn has now released a few videos on how to administer an AGA chapter, including how to run a tournament with OpenGotha, and how to update a chapter’s details with the AGA Membership Manager. Click here for his videos. Questions about how to update your information, sign up, or use the AGA website? Send them to operations@usgo.org and we’ll make more tutorial videos with your questions.

Cotsen’s New Facebook Page: The Cotsen Open has a new Facebook page. “Like” it and you’ll be the first to hear announcements when the 2015 Cotsen is scheduled as well as updates throughout the year.

Using Go to Study Culture: Bret Beheim, a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Anthropology Department at the University of New Mexico proposes go as “a model system in the study of cultural evolution” in “Strategic Social Learning and Evolutionary Arms Races in the Game of Go,” a Nov. 20, 2012 presentation of a paper he co-authored with Calvin Thigpen and Richard McElreath. The paper, drawing from “a large archive of Go games spanning the last six decades of professional play,” finds “evidence that changes in the frequencies of particular cultural variants are driven by social learning mechanisms such as frequency-dependence and success bias.”

EJ Copy Editor Wanted: With an increasing number of go news reports from around the world, the E-Journal has an opening for a volunteer copy editor. If interested, email journal@usgo.org

November 26 Deadline for Australian Go Congress Early Bird Rate: There’s limited space for international competitors at the first-ever Australian Go Congress, set for January 25-31, 2015 in Sydney (First Australian Go Congress set for 2015 in Sydney  7/13/2014 EJ). There’s an early bird rate for those who book and pay prior to November 26.

Strong Player Boosts Evanston Go Club: After many months of low attendance, things are picking up at the Evanston Go Club, reports organizer Mark Rubenstein. “We are fortunate to have attracted Bill Lin 7 dan to the club recently, and his presence has been a boost to attendance and interest. If you live in the area and have not been to the club in a while, now is a very good time to learn from the best!” photo courtesy Mark Rubenstein

Kiseido Releases Vol.3 of Road Map to Shodan: Kiseido has just released The Road Map to Shodan, Volume Three; The Basics of Life and Death by Rob van Zeijst and Richard Bozulich. The third volume of The Road Map to Shodan is a thorough introduction to the topic of life and death. It can be read by players who have just learned the rules, but it is also useful for players up to 1-dan or for any amateur player who needs to review the basics of life and death. Kiseido is also having a special 40% off clearance sale of Hyuga kaya table go boards.

Kaz’ Special Offer: “Buy 10, get 1 free plus more stuff”: Longtime EJ contributor Kazunari Furuyama is running a special teaching offer through December 23 for his Offline Lessons. Prepay for 10 lessons and you’ll get an 11th lesson free, plus you will receive 30 problems per lesson, as opposed to 25 when paying on a lesson-by-lesson basis. You’ll also receive five extra mini-lessons on countering various openings and he will give you another five extra mini-lessons on various themes of your choice.

SmartGo Kifu and the upgrade package are on sale for one week. For the next week, the go apps’ upgrade bundle will be $16 — if you bought Pro at $13, you can upgrade for just $3. And SmartGo Kifu (right) will be on sale for $15 (25% off). “Grab this chance before it’s gone,” says SmartGo author Anders Kierulf. “This is a rare opportunity, as SmartGo Kifu has only ever been on sale once before in its 4.5 years.” Kierulf revived the iPhone-only SmartGo Pro earlier this year to get users up-to-date, “and as soon as Apple allowed it, I added an upgrade package to give users a way to upgrade from Pro to Kifu. However, the numbers are in, and having multiple versions of essentially the same app is proving to be too confusing.” After next week, Kierulf will remove SmartGo Pro from the App Store; “SmartGo Kifu, which works on both iPad and iPhone, is the way forward,” he says. Read more about it here.

By Shawn Ray, Special Correspondent to the E-Journal

So last week the BIBA students went to watch the semi-finals of the Samsung Cup being played in Korea. It was a lot of fun and the students, including myself, got to study with the national Korean baduk team. These players are the top young professional players here in Korea, and we were able to make new friends and learn new strategies with them. Check out this photo of the national team, BIBA students and Kim Ji-Seok who joined in the review after finishing his game. We also had a lot of fun playing Ping Pong and Choku (Foot-VollyBall) with our teachers and other professional players.

It was definitely an amazing experience to be able to study with young Korean professionals and play some sports with them. It was also exciting to see the Samsung Cup semi-finals being played and explained to you by half a dozen other pros. I think the funniest thing I heard was when I asked who was winning in a certain game, and a pro friend of mine said “White, by a lot.” When I asked how much exactly she paused and replied, “3 or 4 points.” Once again goes to show how every point matters to a professional player when an amateur likely loses at least that many points in the endgame alone.

Anyway, it was a fun trip and all the students enjoyed it. To see more pictures and follow BIBA activity, you can like their page on Facebook.

Go Game Guru has bought Hinoki Press from founder Chris Greene, who started the go book publishing company in 2006 and has since published 18 go books. A long-time go player, Greene started Hinoki after retiring from his career as a programmer “because he wanted to give something back to the go community,” says GGG’s David Ormerod. “Chris’ contribution to the body of English-language go books is immense… Hinoki’s efforts made a lot of thought provoking material available in English for the first time.”

Because of his health, Greene no longer wants to continue running Hinoki. “It’s important to all of us that go books stay in print wherever possible and we bought Hinoki with the express purpose of keeping all 18 of its books in print,” says Ormerod. “We’ll continue to sell these books under the Hinoki brand name for the time being and will gradually build on Chris’ work with our own books – starting with our upcoming Lee Sedol vs Gu Li Jubango book.” For go players, Ormerod says “this also means that we’ll be able to provide you with go books at even better prices than before.”

After a several-year hiatus the UMBC Fall tournament returns this Sunday, sponsored by the University of Maryland Baltimore County Go Club. Registration starts at 10 AM on Sunday 11/16. There will be three rounds in sections of eight players. Free pizza and cash prizes. The tournament will be in the Skylight room at the top of the Commons building on the UMBC campus, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Catonsville,MD. Free to UMBC students and faculty. Pre-register with Tournament Director, Gurujeet Khalsa, by email at gurujeet@live.com or RSVP on the Meetup event or call 703-626-0777.

November 15-16: Seattle, WA
Weekend Workshop with Kuma
Brian Allen manager@seattlego.org 206-632-1122 206-545-1424

JUST ADDED: November 16: Catonsville, MD
UMBC Fall Tournament
Pre-register with Tournament Director, Gurujeet Khalsa, by email atgurujeet@live.com or RSVP on the Meetup event or call 703-626-0777.

Get all of the latest go events information.

Inter Districts Tournament: The preliminaries for the Dutch Championships 2015, called INDIS, were recently held in October…click here for more on this and the reports below.

Badukmovies Goes to Japan: Badukmovies.com creators Peter Brouwer 6d and Kim Ouweleen 4d recently traveled to Japan for the Nihon Ki-in’s Summer Go Camp…

Oromedia Books on Sale at Het Paard: Amsterdam-based Go Shop Het Paard http://www.goshop-keima.com/ has put all remaining Oromedia books on sale…

Inter Districts Tournament: The preliminaries for the Dutch Championships 2015, called INDIS, were recently held in October. Dan and kyu players from all districts of the Netherlands battled it out in the European Go Cultural Centre in Amstelveen. Seven spots for the Dutch Championships were to be conquered by these brawlers. Zeno van Ditzhuijzen 5d scored a clean sheet with 8 victories out of 8 games, closely followed by Rudi Verhagen 4d on second place (who only lost to Zeno) and René Aaij 4d on third place losing only to these titans. Three players went through with 5 victories: Merijn de Jong 3d, Sjoerd Kuperus 3d and Kim Ouweleen 4d. This meant that one spot was left and SOS-points needed to decide the lucky person to take 7th place, which turned out to be Herman Hiddema 4d. These players will compete in the Dutch Championships in January 2015.
photo: The game between Zeno van Ditzhuijzen 5d and Sjoerd Kuperus 3d was quite the spectacle.

Badukmovies Goes to Japan: Badukmovies.com, the website with online go tutorials, was started in 2012 by Dutch go players Peter Brouwer 6d and Kim Ouweleen 4d. They work together with professionals from Korea and recently traveled to Japan for the Nihon Ki-in’s Summer Go Camp, recording some of the live lessons in Tokyo. Living legend Michael Redmond 9p discussed a game between his teacher Go Seigen and Kitani Minoru and many-time titleholder Ishida Yoshio 9p laid out a game played by Ichiriki Ryo, the young prodigy of Japanese go. These lessons are freely accessible on the website.
photo: Peter Brouwer 6d (left) and Kim Ouweleen 4d (right) in the Yugen no ma, the special title playing room in the Nihon Ki-in

Oromedia Books on Sale at Het Paard: With publishing company Oromedia out of business, Amsterdam-based go shop Het Paard has put all remaining Oromedia books on sale, including great series like 100 Tips for Amateur Players volumes 1, 2 & 3, Train like a Pro vol. 1 & 2 and Korean Style of Baduk.
- reported by Kim Ouweleen, special correspondent to the E-Journal

by John Power, EJ Japan Correspondent

Pair Go Celebrates 25th Anniversary: One of the biggest developments in go in recent decades has been the rise of Pair Go to worldwide popularity. The holding of the 25th International Amateur Pair Go Championship at the end of October also marked the 25th anniversary of the birth of Pair Go…click here to read more on this and all the following reports.
Korea Takes Lead in Nong Shim Cup: In the three-way team tournament, Korea ended this round with two wins to one each for Japan and China…
Iyama Makes Good Start in Oza Title Match: The 62nd Oza best-of-five is another title match in which Iyama Yuta is facing a younger challenger. The first game was held at the Yokohama Royal Park Hotel in Yokohama City on October 21 and the game was a fierce one, which is usually the case with Iyama, and featured some novel variations…
Iyama Wins First Tengen Game: The first game of the 40th Tengen title match was held on October 24, so Iyama was engaged in three concurrent title matches. Here his challenger is Takao Shinji, holder of the only top-seven title missing from Iyama’s portfolio, the Judan…
Iyama Yuta Defends Meijin Title: In the sixth game of the 39th Meijin title match Iyama took a territorial lead early in the game, then skillfully reduced a large moyo that Kono built…
Korea Wins O-kage Cup International New Stars Tournament: The O-kage (gratitude) Cup is a regional tournament for young players sponsored by an association of tourist shops in Ise City, the site of the famous Ise Shrine. The sponsors held an international tournament for teams from Japan, China, Korea, and Chinese Taipei on November 1 and 2…
Two Meijin League Places Decided: The Meijin is a conservative league, with only three out of nine places opening up every year. Two of the vacant seats were decided on November 6…
Fujisawa Wins Women’s Honinbo: The third game of the 33rd Women’s Honinbo title was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Ichigaya, Tokyo on November 7. Taking black, Fujisawa Rin 2P won by 5.5 points after 233 moves…
Radical Reorganization of Kisei Tournament: There will be complete overhaul of the Yomiuri Newspaper-sponsored Kisei tournament as of the 40th term (the 39th term will be completed with the best-of-seven title match starting in January 2015). The only thing that won’t change is the title match itself. Even with charts, it’s hard to understand the system, but I’ll try to explain it without them…

Pair Go Celebrates 25th Anniversary: One of the biggest developments in go in recent decades has been the rise of Pair Go to worldwide popularity. The World Pair Go Association has 70 member countries and territories, so it’s hard to believe the game was invented in Tokyo just 25 years ago. An international tournament was started immediately, so the holding of the 25th International Amateur Pair Go Championship at the end of October also marked the 25th anniversary of the birth of Pair Go. The rise of the game is mainly due to the vision and dedication of two people, Hisao Taki, its inventor, and his wife Hiroko Taki (right), its main promoter.
        The celebrations were held on a lavish scale and were a great success, culminating in a surprise appearance by one of Japan’s most powerful politicians at the farewell party. Besides the regular annual tournament and the international goodwill match and handicap tournaments that always accompany it, the sponsors organized a dinner party for some of the people who have helped popularize Pair Go, founded a new international tournament for students, and staged two commemorative Pair Go games among top-flight professionals from Japan, China, and Korea. On top of this, the Japan Pair Go Association also unveiled the Pair Go song, a professionally composed and performed song entitled “Pair Go, My Dream.” The main events of the weekend are described below.
        The first big event was a lavish dinner party held at the Hotel Okura Tokyo in the evening of Friday, October 24. The aim was to express gratitude to the Pair Go Promotion Partners who have helped to popularize Pair Go in Japan and around the world. Some 26 PGPPs and other guests had been specially invited to Japan to attend this party (and the tournament). All told, there were 86 guests, including your reporter (on a personal note, this was the first go party in Japan for a long time that I attended as a guest and not as an interpreter). Apart from the excellent meal provided by the head chef of the hotel, there were some unusual features at this party. At one end of the room, there was a string quartet playing music; at the other there were four booths for simultaneous interpreters handling English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This is the first time I have seen either a classical music group or simultaneous interpreters at a go function. The party was also interactive. The host, Hisao Taki, drew from a box the names of a number of people who were to join him on the stage and either ask a question about the future of Pair Go or say something about the game in their countries. The audience was supplied with handheld devices with which they voted their approval of the speakers. The most popular attracted 66 votes.
         On Saturday morning, the first round of the 25th IAPGC was held. In the early afternoon, the goodwill match was held, with some professionals taking part and teaming up with amateurs. In the late afternoon, two special commemorative games were held. After lots were drawn, Xie (Hsieh) Yimin 6P and Iyama Yuta 9P (Japan) were matched against Lee Hajin 3P and Cho Hoon-hyun 9P (Korea) and Zhang Xuan 8P and Chang Hao 9P (China) against Kobayashi Izumi 6P and Cho U 9P (Japan) (the last two teams are both husband-and-wife pairings). This was not a tournament, so the results are not important, perhaps, but just for the record the first-mentioned team won each contest. Live commentaries on these games were given by Ishida Yoshio 9P and Yoshida Mika 8P in Japanese and Michael Redmond 9P (left) in English.
        These events were followed by a welcome party in the evening at which the Pair Go song made its debut with a live performance.
        The Sunday is always the main day of this festival of Pair Go, as three large-scale handicap Pair Go tournaments (known collectively as the Araki Cup) are held in conjunction with the IAPGC. This year, however, there was also a new tournament, the 1st World Students Pair Go Championship, founded as one of the events commemorating Pair Go’s 25th anniversary. Eight teams from Japan, China, Korea, Chinese Taipei, and Thailand took part in a three-round Swiss-system tournament. (Next year, the tournament will be expanded and held independently on a different date from the IAPGC.)
        The weekend concluded with the usual lavish party (the word ‘lavish’ tends to come up often with Pair Go events in Japan), starting with the Awards Ceremony, proceeding to speeches by VIPs, and concluding with the drawing of lots for a large number of prizes donated by sponsors. The surprise guest referred to above was Suga Yoshihide, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, who is one of the top figures in the Abe government. As the chief spokesman for the government, Suga makes almost daily appearances in Japanese TV news programs, so he is almost as familiar a face as the prime minister. There was an audible gasp from the audience, followed by loud applause, when he appeared on the stage. Suga seemed to be well informed about Pair Go;  the main theme of his speech was how much better the Abe government’s policy of promoting gender equality in Japan would be going if they had followed Pair Go’s lead 25 years ago.
        Below are some of the results from the weekend’s play.
The 25th International Amateur Pair Go Championship
        Teams from 21 countries and territories participated. The winning team is the first ever to win the tournament in successive years.
1. Kim Sooyoung 6D and Jeon Junhak 4D (Korea): 5-0 (right)
2. Lin Hsiao-tung 6D and Lai Yu-cheng 7D (Chinese Taipei): 4-1
3. Tsuji Moeka 6D and Tsunoda Daisuke 8D (Japan): 4-1
        The top-placing Western pair was Klara Zaloudkova 3D and Jan Hora 6D of the Czech Republic in 13th place. Yiwen Ye 1D and Daehyuk Ko 7D of the USA came 16th. Click here for complete results, game records, the EJ’s November 6 report and Ranka’s report, which includes brief interviews with the players.

The 1st World Students Pair Go Championship
1. Kim Hyun-Ah 6D and Park Moon-kyo 5D
2. Tsukada Karin 5D and Kebukawa Satoru 6D
3. Hu shih-Yun 6D and Chan Yi-Tien 7D

Korea Takes Lead in Nong Shim Cup: The Korean-sponsored Nong Shim Spicy Noodles Cup is a three-way team tournament among Japan, China, and Korea. The opening round was held in Beijing from October 21 to 24. Japan’s lead-off player, the 17-year-old Ichiriki Ryo, made a good start by winning the opening game, but he lost the next. Korea ended this round with two wins to one each for Japan and China. Note: click here for Go Game Guru’s report on this round, including game records and more photos. Results are: 
        Game 1 (Oct. 21). Ichiriki Ryo 7P (Japan) (W) beat Byong Sang-il 3P (Korea) by resig.
        Game 2 (Oct. 22). Tuo Jiaxi 9P (China) (B) beat Ichiriki by resig.
        Game 3 (Oct. 23). Kang Tong-yun 9P (Korea) (B) beat Tuo by resig. (photo at left)
        Game 4 (Oct. 24). Kang (B) beat Ida Atsushi 8P (Japan) by resig.
        The next round will be held in Busan, Korea, from November 28 to December 3 and the final round in Shanghai from March 2 to 6.

Iyama Makes Good Start in Oza Title Match: The 62nd Oza best-of-five is another title match in which Iyama Yuta is facing a younger challenger. In the Honinbo title match it was the 20-year-old Ida Atsushi 8P; this time it is the 23-year-old Murakawa Daisuke 7P (right) of the Kansai Ki-in, who is two years Iyama’s junior. The first game was held at the Yokohama Royal Park Hotel in Yokohama City on October 21. The playing room was a Japanese-style room on the 65th floor of the Landmark Tower, in which the hotel is located.
        The game was a fierce one, which is usually the case with Iyama, and featured some novel variations. Murakawa played a move that was too tight (86) and another move that was dubious (110), so Iyama took the lead. However, both players hallucinated in the endgame fighting. Iyama, playing black, made an attack inside Murakawa’s corner that wasn’t a threat; the latter could have switched elsewhere after Iyama’s fourth move in the corner, but he answered, so Iyama didn’t suffer for his misreading. Apparently, however, Murakawa would not have taken the lead even if he realized what was going on, because at this stage of the game a move elsewhere would not have been big enough to upset Iyama’s lead. The game became very close subsequently only because of slack play by Iyama, and at times it looked as if either player could have won.
        The game ended after 244 moves, with Iyama edging Murakawa by half a point. The second and third games will be played at the same venue, Kyoto, on November 18 and 20. ‘Bundling’ the games has become the practice recently because of the busyness of the tournament scene in the autumn.

Iyama Wins First Tengen Game: The first game of the 40th Tengen title match was held on October 24, so Iyama was engaged in three concurrent title matches. Here his challenger is Takao Shinji, holder of the only top-seven title missing from Iyama’s portfolio, the Judan. The game was played at the Yumoto Sakakibara-kan inn in Tsu City, Mie Prefecture. Iyama (W) beat Takao by resignation after 188 moves. According to Go Weekly, Iyama dominated the game. He has held the Tengen title for three successive terms and won each title match 3-0, so this is an ominous start for Takao. The second game will be played on November 11. photo: Takao defeated Kono Rin 9P on Sept 26, earning the right to challenge Iyama.

Iyama Yuta Defends Meijin Title: The sixth game of the 39th Meijin title match was held at the Kami-Suwa Aburaya Inn in Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture, on October 29 and 30. Taking black, Iyama took a territorial lead early in the game, then skillfully reduced a large moyo that Kono built. The latter didn’t seem to make any really bad moves, but was outmaneuvered by Iyama. The final margin was 3.5 points in Iyama’s favor after 215 moves. This gave him a lead of 4-2, so he won the title for the second year in a row and the fourth time overall.
        Iyama faltered a little earlier in this match, with two successive losses, but this win was his fifth in a row, all played during October, in three different title matches, so he seems to be back in peak form. Not only did he maintain his sextuple crown, he is still on track for aiming at a grand slam next year. The Meijin is Iyama’s 26th title overall, which puts him in 9th place in the all-time rankings. However, the players in joint 7th place, Rin Kaiho and Yoda Norimoto, are a little ahead of him, with 35 titles each, so it could take him a year or so to catch up.

Korea Wins O-kage Cup International New Stars Tournament: The O-kage (gratitude) Cup is a regional tournament for young players sponsored by an association of tourist shops in Ise City, the site of the famous Ise Shrine. The 5th Cup was held on May 15 and 16 and won by Ichiriki Ryo 7P (see my report at the end of May). The sponsors held an international tournament for teams from Japan, China, Korea, and Chinese Taipei on November 1 and 2. Each team had two male and one female players, and the games played by the latter were also counted in a female tournament. The first-stage was an all-play-all league,  after which the top two teams met in the final and the bottom two in the play-off for third place.
        In the first stage, the Chinese team, led by the 17-year-old Ke Jie 4P, who is already the number-three-ranked player in China, won all nine of its games. Korea beat Japan and Chinese Taipei and Japan beat Chinese Taipei. In the final, however, Korea beat China to win the cup (Na Hyeon 5P beat Ke). Chinese Taipei beat Japan in the play-off for third. In the women’s tournament, Pak Chi-yeon 3P defeated Cao Youyin 3P in the final and Xie Yimin of Japan beat Su Shengfang 2P of Chinese Taipei.

Two Meijin League Places Decided: The Meijin is a conservative league, with only three out of nine places opening up every year. Two of the vacant seats were decided on November 6. Ko Iso 8P (B) beat Oba Junya 7P by resig and So Yokoku 9P (W) beat Yamada Akiyoshi 9P
by resig. Ko makes an immediate comeback after dropping out of the previous league and So makes his debut.

Fujisawa Wins Women’s Honinbo: The third game of the 33rd Women’s Honinbo title was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Ichigaya, Tokyo on November 7. Taking black, Fujisawa Rin 2P (right) won by 5.5 points after 233 moves. This gave her a 3-0 lead over the titleholder, Mukai Chiaki, so she took the title. At 16 years one month, Fujisawa set a record as the youngest player to win this title (the previous record of 17 years 11 months was set by Xie Yimin).
        It’s astonishing how quickly Fujisawa has developed. As the granddaughter of Fujisawa Hideyuki (Shuko), she attracted a lot of attention when she qualified as professional 1-dan in 2010, but few fans expected her to start winning titles so soon. In June this year, she set a record for the youngest woman title holder ever when she won a new tournament, the Aizu Central Hospital Cup, at the age of 15 years nine months, and already she is a dual titleholder. Actually, one could claim that she is now the top woman player. Xie Yimin also holds two titles, the Women’s Meijin and the Women’s Kisei, but in prize money they are both outranked by Fujisawa’s tiles (7,000,000 yen for the Aizu Central Hospital Cup and 5,800,000 yen for the Women’s Honinbo to 5,000,000 each for Xie’s titles). Fujisawa is having a good financial year for a third-year junior high school student.

Radical Reorganization of Kisei Tournament: There will be complete overhaul of the Yomiuri Newspaper-sponsored Kisei tournament as of the 40th term (the 39th term will be completed with the best-of-seven title match starting in January 2015). The only thing that won’t change is the title match itself. The Kisei was launched in 1977 with the most complicated system among Japanese tournament at the time. It was simplified a little in its 10th term, then changed to the current system, a knock-out tournament leading to two six-player leagues and a playoff to decide the challenger in its 25th term. It has now been changed to a very complicated system, featuring, for the first time in the go world, leagues in four stages. Even with charts, it’s hard to understand the system, but I’ll try to explain it without them.
        First, there is a preliminary tournament with about 400 players in it, including four amateurs, the top four place-getters in the Net Kisei Tournament. The top 16 go up to the C League (a five-round Swiss System for 32 players), of whom the top six are promoted to the B1 and B2 Leagues (eight players each), of whom the top four join the A League (eight players), of whom the top two join the S League (six players). (These promotions take place the following term.) The challenger is then decided by an irregular knock-out tournament known as a “paramasu” (Paramas?). The number one player in the C League plays the number one player in the B League (there will be a play-off between the B1 and B2 winners); the winner plays the number one player in the A League; the winner plays the number two player in the S League; the winner then plays a best-of-two match with the number one player in the S League, but the latter is given a one-win advantage to start with (that is, he needs to win only one of the two games).
        For the 40th term, the members of the S, A and B Leagues have already been decided. The top three players in each of the 39th League have been seeded into the S League (two of the names are not known exactly: they will be the loser of the upcoming title match and the loser of the play-off to decide the challenger). The other six members of the two leagues are in the A League. The other members of the A and B Leagues were chosen on the basis of their results in the Kisei tournament in the last three years.
        This is an extremely complex system. The big innovation is that 62 players will get to play in leagues instead of just 12. Also, in theory, an amateur could become Kisei.

The 2014 Samsung Cup semifinals finished on November 7 in Daejeon, Korea with Korea’s number two player Kim Jiseok 9p (left) to face defending champion Tang Weixing 9p. Kim’s rise to the top included solid wins against the top Chinese player Shi Yue 9p. Meanwhile, Tang was forced to play three intense games as himself and Korea’s top player Park Junghwan 9p trapped each other in many complicated territory battles.
Though Kim and Tang have played four other games together (Kim in the lead at 3-1), the 2014 Samsung Cup finals will be Kim’s first appearance in an international final. The match will take place on December 9 through December 11 in Xian, China. For more information about the semifinals including photos and game records, please visit Go Game Guru.
–Annalia Linnan, based on a longer article by Go Game Guru 

Ukraine: The Kharkiv Championship 2014 finished on November 2 with Oleksandr Hiliazov 1d in first, Anton Boreiko 4k in second, and Lenid Shumakov 5k in third. Germany: Also on November 2, Jonas Welticke 5d (left) took the NRW-Meisterschaft 2004 in Duesseldorf while Barbara Knauf 3d came in second and Bernd Radmacher 5d placed third. Finland: Juri Kuronen 6d bested Jusso Nyyssonen 5d at the Finnish Championship League in Helsinki on November 2. Javier-Aleksi Savolainen 5d was third.
– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV

Out of print go books from OroMedia are available at steep discounts but they’re going fast. Go Game Guru is currently selling out of print gobooks from OroMedia at discounts of more than 50% off. OroMedia, based in Korea, was the publisher of more than 20 go books in English, as well as other Korean language books and magazines. The company went out of business in 2013, and Go Game Guru has purchased their remaining stock. “Because we were able to buy these books at a discounted price, we can offer much lower prices to customers than usual,” says Go Game Guru’s David Ormerod. The majority of the books are priced at $10 or less, and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Seven of the books are already out of stock; click here for an up-to-date list of all the books on sale.

The Washington Post included an article on go on November 4th, reporting on a tourney held in Arlington, VA. “Frederick Bao studies the yellow board that sits on the table between him and Sarah Crites,” wrote Jennifer Huget in her article. “Clasping a white ‘stone’ between the pad of his middle finger and the nail of his index finger, he makes his move, tapping the stone onto the board. Then he quickly slaps the palm of his hand on one end of a clock that also sits on the table.” The full article is here. NOVA Go Club member Gary Smith notes “while Sarah Crites, 13k and Frederick Bao,1d did not meet in the tournament, the photo in the Post was of a practice game during registration.” -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.  Photo and quotes courtesy of The Washington Post.