Here’s how this weeklong event (August 6-11) works: two groups of players play round-robin
(Sun/Mon/Tue) and the top two players from each group advance to the semi-final rounds. In the semi-final (Wed/Thu), each group’s #1 player and the other group’s #2 player play a best-of-three match. In the final (Thu/Fri), the winners from the semi-final play a best-of-three match.
On Sunday, the first two rounds were held. In Round 1, in Group A, Chen, Lin and Wang won, while in Group B, Kenny and Yoder won. In Round 2, in Group A, Chen, Garcia and Morse won, and in Group B, Yoder and Kenny won. So after two rounds, Chen leads 2-0 in Group A and Kenny and Yoder are 2-0 in Group B.
Round 3 starts at 9:30A PST (12:30 ET) on Monday: Albert Yen 8D and Justin Teng 6D will provide commentary on the AGA’s homepage. Round 4 is at 2:30p PST (5:30 ET): Paul Mendola 4k and Katie Oh 5k will comment; Paul is a popular streamer under the name MidnightTheBlue. Both will be local and sure to bring lots of fun reactions.
Their day jobs: The occupations of the players now competing in the 2023 NAGF ProQual are heavily weighted toward the technical, as one might expect from Go players, but also include a 
teacher and Amazon sorter. They range in age from 23 to 54.
Here’s what these top Go players do: Jeremiah Donley (26) is a freelance software engineer, Eric Lee (30) is a software engineer, Joel Kenny (31) is a software developer and Stephen Lin (26) is a Technical Solutions Engineer. Zhaonian Chen (33) is a Financial Analyst, Yinli Wang (54) is a part time teacher, and Nathan Morse (23) is unemployed. Edward Zhang (43) works in the financial services industry, Abraham Florencia (35) teaches math, Emil Garcia (36) is an insurance advisor, and Eric Yoder (29) is an Amazon sort center worker.
photos: top row: Chen, Donley, Florencia, Garcia. Second row: Kenny, Lee, Lin. Bottom row: Morse, Wang, Yoder, Zhang.
- Report/collages by Chris Garlock