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Evanston Go Club Says Goodbye to Arlington Heights Go Club

The Evanston Go Club's regular quarterly tournament at the Arlington Heights Go Club on March 16 was its last there. "Sadly, this is the last tournament we will have there, as they are closing next week," reports local organizer Mark Rubenstein. "Mr. Yong Yu, the owner of the club, has graciously offered us his space for our tournaments for the last three years. His club is the only one in the Chicago area that was open seven days a week. We wish Mr. Yu well, and thank him for his generosity." This was also the first Chicago tournament that was not directed by the legendary Bob Barber. "Bob has run four tournaments a year for the past 20 years!" says Rubenstein. He has now turned over the reigns to Rubenstein, who directed last weekend's tournament. "The Chicago go community is indebted to Bob, and we want to publicly thank him for all he has done over the past 20 years," said Rubenstein. "We intend to keep running tournaments every quarter. The challenge now is to find a venue." Rubenstein designed and built custom tournament software using FileMaker Pro, and debuted it at this tournament. The software imports the TD list from the AGA, and uses that data to enroll players in the tournament and verify their AGA membership status. "It automatically pairs the first round based on ranks, then enables the TD to quickly and easily pair players in subsequent games, self-paired style," says Rubenstein. The software keeps track of each player's availability, sets the proper colors and handicap for each game, calculates each players' winning percentage, and manages all the financial aspects of the tournament. It also generates a text file of the results, suitable for sending to the AGA for entry into the ratings database. "The database made it so easy to manage the tournament, I was able to be the TD and play four games myself!" said Rubenstein. Winners for the day (each with 4-0 records) were: Albert Yu 6d, Steffen Kurz 3k and Tim Torres 10k. - photo: Albert Yu 6d plays Bogdan Dobresku 5d; photo by Mark Rubenstein