News / Articles

International Go Symposium Kicks Off Saturday: Nolan Bushnell Keynotes, Online Streaming Available

The International Go Symposium kicks off a full schedule of presentations on the history and culture of the game of go at 9a (EST) Saturday morning in Washburn Hall at the US Go Congress in Black Mountain, NC. The Symposium – sponsored by the International Go Federation, the American Go Foundation and the American Go Association -- will also be streamed live online.  Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, the first computer game maker, will deliver the event’s keynote speech at 7:30p. photo: Symposium organizer Peter Shotwell (in flowered shirt) and Symposium Videographer Terry Benson (in cap) setting up Friday; photo by Chris Garlock

International Go Symposium Schedule for Saturday, August 4(the second and final day is Sunday, August 5); A = Attending Congress; S = Skype presentation 9:00    Chen Zuyuan  History  S The Evolution of Japanese Territory and Chinese Area Scoring Since the Tang Dynasty 9:45    Jacques Basaldua  Computer  S Advances in M-eval: A Multivariate Evaluation Function for Opening Positions in Computer Go 10:30  Peter Schumer  Teaching  A Design of a College Go Course 11:15 IsraelRodriguez Nava  Culture  S Cultural Considerations in the Spread of Go in Western Countries12:00-1:00  Lunch break   1:00  Bill Spight  Go Theory  S How to EstimateTerritory: Research into the Influence of Immortal, Partially Immortal, and Dead Stones, and the Estimation of Territory on the 3x3 Board 1:45  Francois van Niekerk  Computer  S New Work on MCTS Parallelisatio 2:10  Peter Shotwell  Culture A reading of the short version of "Historical Hypotheses and Facts About the Game of Go inVietnam," a paper by Konstantin Bayraktarov of Bulgaria 2:15  Peter Shotwell Culture Some Notes on the Possible Origins in Ancient Greeceand Rome(via Bactria) of the Tibetan Custodial Capture Game Mig Mang That Uses Go Stones and Boards  2:30  Dalsoo, Kim  History  A A Study of Flower (Star) Points in Go and Other Games 3:15  Kyle Blocher  Go Theory  A The Value of Moves: Sente, Gote, and Combinatorial Game Theory 4:00  Ichiro Tanioka  History The Origin of 19×19 Go-boards inChina 4:45  Dae-won Suh  Greeting 7:30  Nolan Bushnell  Keynote Speech Peter Armenia, Paul Celmer & Peter Freedman Moving Go From the Cultural Backgrouond to Center Stage