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Missingham Named Go Ambassador at World Mind Games

Joanne “Jiajia” Missingham (r) has been named Go Ambassador at the upcoming SportAccord World Mind Games, which begin next week in Beijing, China. Other ambassadors include Hou Yifan (chess), Sjoert Brink (bridge), Chan Chun Kit (Xiangqi) and Alexey Chizhov (draughts). Missingham will also participate in the North American Go Convention next February. Currently training in Taiwan, Missingham 6P was the runner-up at the first Bingsheng Cup Women’s World Championship in 2010. Her ranking in Taiwan Go Association has risen rapidly, putting her within striking range of top male Taiwanese players. Next year Missingham will be the only Taiwanese female playing in the Chinese Women’s A League, arguably the world’s top women’s go league. Missingham, born in Australia, lived in California for several years before moving to China in 2008 to study go, and joined the Taiwan Qiyuan in 2010. She's also known as an artistic performer, especially in music and calligraphy; click here for a video of her recent lute solo. Also famous for her philanthropy and battles against sexism, in 2011 she led a tremendous charity effort for Japan after the Fukushima earthquake and she led a protest against unfair rules on female players’ tournament fees in a tournament in Taiwan. Missingham will return to the U.S. and teach go in both New York/New Jersey and Washington DC during the North American Go Convention (NAGC) February 8-17, 2013. The NAGC website has been updated to clarify tournament schedule and locations, and information is also available in Chinese and Korean. While the two open championship tournaments, as well as the Pair Go and Blitz championship are all in the weekends of Feb. 9-10 and Feb 16-17, there are also rated games and teaching activities during weekday evenings 2/8, 2/12-2/15. The NAGC organizing committee has been joined by two ‘veteran’ U.S. Go Congress tournament directors, Sam Zimmerman and Christopher Sira. Pre-register before 12/25 to avoid the upcoming 10% price increase. - reported by Edward Zhang; photo: Missingham at the 2010 Bingsheng