News / Articles

CLUB UPDATES:
      The KANEOHE GO CLUB in Oahu, Hawaii go club now meets at Starbucks - Kaneohe, reports organizer Frank H. Alejandro.  The club's first meeting at the new digs is from 7-9P tonight, February 21; the Starbucks in located in the Kaneohe Bay Shopping Center, 46-023 Kamehameha Highway in Kaneohe, Hawaii.  See Meetup for more info: http://go.meetup.com/179, and http://www.windwardchess.org
      The KALAMAZOO GO CLUB now meets at the D&W Food Center, 525 Romence Road in Portage, MI. The club meets Thursdays at 6P; Paul Miller 269-623-9981 or http://voltar.org/kgc/
      In WOODSTOCK, NY, an informal go club meets Thursdays at 7P at the library for games, analysis and instruction. Contact dcoon1@hvc.rr.com.

GO CLASSIFIEDS NOW ONLINE: The E-Journal's popular Go Classifieds are now online! Buy, sell or trade equipment, books and go materials, find a go teacher or find someone to play go with! The complete go classifieds are now online at http://www.usgo.org/resources/classified.asp  There's still no charge for listing; new classifieds run in the E-Journal and then online for four weeks, teachers and players run for three months. Send your information to journal@usgo.org

AGA SETS GUEST OFFICIALS POLICY: The American Go Association has adopted a policy for selecting non-player AGA representatives to attend overseas events as guest officials, reports AGA President Mike Lash. "The policy calls for the President to make an announcement annually inviting nominations," says Lash. "All nomi nations are required to be submitted to the President within 30 calendar days of this announcement. A list of all eligible people will be made available after nominations are submitted. Each year a new invitation will be made and a new list will be created in order to keep the opportunities open for interested members." Eligibility requirements include AGA membership and quality and length of service to the AGA; the full policy is available at http://www.usgo.org/Board/ApprovedDocuments/nonplayrep.pdf

"THE ART OF CONTEST" COMES TO DC: The Smithsonian Institution's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC will host the exhibit "Asian Games: The Art of Contest" February 26-May 15. Using both the paraphernalia of games and paintings, prints, and decorative arts that depict people playing games, the exhibition (which was previously at the Asia Society in New York City) explores the role of games as social an d cultural activities in the diverse societies of pre-modern Asia. The exhibition includes an interactive component consisting of sets of the major board games (chess, weiqi/go, and chaupur) along with newly invented games with Asian themes. Local go organizers are planning related activities; stay tuned for updates.

GATES OF GO CLOSING: Just a week left to enter in the E-Journal's "The Gates of Go" photo contest! Send us your go-themed photo of Christo and Jean-Claude's "The Gates" -- the biggest public art installation in New York City's history -- and you could be a winner! The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005" is on display through February 27 in New York's Central Park, a glowing river of 7,500 bright orange vinyl gates hung with saffron curtains winding through 23 miles of park paths. In keeping with Christo's elegant and simple design, our "Gates" contest guidelines are minimal: photos must include "The Gates" and must also relate in some way to the game of go. Digital photos only; deadline midnight February 27, 2005; email to journal@usgo.org Winners will be announced in the E-Journal, receive go vendor gift certificates and winning submissions will be published on the AGA website.

ONLINE UPDATING DEBUTS: Need to change your email address? E-Journal readers can now instantly update their contact information online! Never miss another action-packed E-Journal: just click on http://www.listlynx.com/MailUser1.asp and you'll not only be able to update your email address, but your mailing address and other contact info as well. The first time you access our online list manager, you'll have to have a password emailed to you, which you can change once you're logged in. NOTE: If you have multiple readers sharing one email address, you'll need to contact us at journal@usgo.org to get your password. We hope you find this new service useful, and welcome comments or suggestions on how we can continue to improve. Send them to us at journal@usgo.org

COMING UP IN FRIDAY'S MEMBER'S EDITION: A brand-new game commentary from Yilun Yang 7P, James Kerwin 1P on Getting to 1-kyu and Anton Ninno reviews a traditional Yunzi go set. Non-members can sign up now at http://www.usgo.org/org/application.asp  

THIS WEEK'S NEW CLASSIFIED HIGHLIGHTS: Local go club newsletters wanted; go players wanted in Brighton, CO. Check these out in Go Classified below!


WORLD GO NEWS

YUKI EVENS SCORE IN KISEI:  Yuki Satoshi 9P, the Kansai Kiin's first challenger for the Kisei in Japan, has evened up the current contest with Kisei Hane Naoki 9P at two games each. In the fourth game of the match on February 16th and 17th Hane was forced to resign after only 124 moves. www.go4go.net reports that the game started off peacefully, unlike the first three, but when Hane cut at move 69, Yuki found an exceptionally strong answer with move 76, separating one of Hane's groups. In the end Hane's dragon could find no way to survive and he resigned. You can download the game record at http://www.go4go.net/english/bytournament2.jsp?id=13 . John Power reports that Yuki was awarded the prize for the most outstanding player of 2004 by the Kansai Kiin in January, winning this award for the third year in a row and the seventh time overall.

CHOI SURPRISES IN KUKSU: Choi Cheolhan 9P surprised everyone, especially his opponent Lee Changho 9P, by sweeping the 48th Kuksu in Korea with a score of 3 to 0. Choi forced Lee into a complex fight in the final game, which ended when Lee found himself with a large dragon that had no place to run. You can download the g ame records at http://www.go4go.net/english/bytournament2.jsp?id=8 .

JAPANESE FUJITSU TEAM SETTLED: John Power reports that the Japanese Fujitsu Cup team has been finalized. There are three players who are seeded: Hane Naoki Kisei, Cho U Meijin Honinbo, and Yoda Norimoto Gosei. Five non-seeded spots were settled by a tournament that concluded on February 10th. The winners were Ishida Yoshio 9P, Yamashiro Hiroshi 9P, Yuki Satoshi 9P, O Meien 9P, and Nakaonoda Tomomi 9P. The preliminaries for the non-seeded spots involved thirty players in groups of six, so the successful players had to win three games to make it into the 18th Fujitsu Cup, a major international tournament.

YUN AND GU IN XINREN WANG FINALS: It's not surprising that current Mingren title holder Gu Li 7P reached the Xinren Wang New Pro tournament finals, but teenager Yun Jie 2P is something of a dark horse. The Xinren Wang New Pro tourn ament in China is restricted to players who are under thirty and no more than 7P. Yun Jie defeated Hu Yaoyu 7P, Wang Lei 4P, and Peng Quan 5P to reach the finals, which is a best-of-three-games match.  The prize for the winner is about $3,600 US. We regret that we don't have a source for downloading the game records. Gu Li won this title in 2003 and was second in 2004.

YOUNG LI SHEN WINS OXFORD TOURNAMENT: The Chinese teenager from London, Li Shen 6d, won the Oxford Tournament on February 19th, defeating two Wanstead players, Francis Roads and Alistair Wall, as well as Min Yang 4d of Oxford. There were 75 participants and several won three out of four games: Joonghoon Jo 3d of London, Paul Christie 2d of Bath, Harry Fearnley 2d of Oxford, David M. King 1k of Swindon, Matthew Reid 1k of Cambridge, Barry Chandler 3k of Reading, Nick Krempel 4k of Cambridge, Will Seerman 5k of Bath, Alex Parsons 7k unattached, and Stuart Patterson 15k of Leamington.

MANNI NG ALL SMILES IN CHESHIRE: Toby Manning 3d of Leicester won the open section of the Cheshire Tournament in Wilmslow on February 12th. Tony Atkins 3d of Bracknell was second.Tops in the handicap section was Jon Timms 8k of Liverpool, winning all five of his games. Also winning four games were George Leach 2k  of Liverpool, Chris Bruke 6k of Liverpool, and David Biddulph 30k of Stockport. You can see some photos at http://uk.geocities.com/kisekigo//cheshire05.html


YOUR MOVE: Readers Write

SEARCHING FOR FRENCH GO: "I am interested in attending the go camp in France in July," writes Jane Clark. "Do you know how I could get more information about this?" email her at jec35@omega.med.yale.edu

SIX-FOUR EQUALS FIVE-FIVE: "The first two rounds were held on February 4th and 5th in Beijing and resulted in a tie score of six win s and four loses for each team, with China going 3-2 in the first round and Korea doing the same in round two (New China-Korea Team Match Organized 2/7 EJ): Exactly how is this possible?" wonders Jonathan Turner. "By my maths I make it five apiece." NOTE: Jonathan's math is correct; we apologize for the error.


ONLINE GO: 5X5 Go Solved?
By Dr. Roy Laird
      Go for the 5x5 board has been solved by the computer program MIGOS, reports the program's creator, Erik Van Der Werk, a professor at the University of Maastricht in Holland. At about a quarter of the full-board version, 5x5 go is miniscule, similar in scale to "solving" 2X2 chess. The fact that a programmer would even consider this a noteworthy challenge is itself a remarkable testament to the game's complexity. Van Der Werk's approach is described in detail in an article at the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NOSR) website at http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOP_68HC62_Eng
      However, let's pause to consider this claim. "Solved" by what criteria? Fukui Maasaki 8P, the author of "5X5 Go -- Hop, Step, Jump", Volume 2 of the popular Japanese "Super Go" series, has described some of the intricacies of the smallest of small-board go using more than 150 problems. To learn more about this book, go to http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/go/special/cameos/cameo7.html. Don't miss the eight other interesting "Cameos" at the bottom of the page!
      Has Mr. Maasaki had the opportunity to challenge MIGOS (MIni GO Solver)? Evidence to support the validity of Van Der Werk's claim is lacking in the NOSR article. MIGOS scored a bronze medal in 9x9 Go at the Ninth Computer Olympiad in Israel last summer, but what are the results against human opponents?  Tournament-winning computer programs can be easily defeated by talented children in the single-digit age range.
       The "solution," along with several interesting false paths and a "killer move" that "Cho Chikun missed" is shown on Van Der Werf's website, at http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/~vanderwerf/5x5/5x5solved.html Van Der Werk claims a 25-point win for Black; in other words, if Black plays correctly, White cannot live.  What do you think?
      Mahalo to Frank Alejandro for spotting this story, and good luck with your new club in Oahu!

GO CLASSIFIED

WANTED: Local go club newsletters. I'll gladly buy back issues and/or subscribe to current ones .  if your club has membership and dues arrangement for non-local or non-playing members, I'll pay that. Brian R. Mcdonald;  chiwito@alamedanet.net (2/21)

GO PLAYERS WANTED: CO: Brighton; Looking for players in town for Sat or Sun morning go. hendricksons1-scott@yahoo.com

BUY, SELL, OR TRADE equipment, books and go materials, find a go teacher, find someone to play go with! Complete go classifieds online at http://www.usgo.org/resources/classified.asp


CALENDAR OF EVENTS

February 26 & 27:  Princeton, NJ
New Jersey Open
Rick Mott 609-466-1602  rickmott@alumni.princeton.edu

March 5:  Sacramento, CA
Davis-Sacramento Go Club Quarterly Tournament
Fred Hopkins 916-548-8068  cfredhop@msn.com

March 6:  Chicago, IL
Remember the Alamo!< br> Bob Barber 773-467-0423  komoku@earthlink.net

March 6:  Seattle, WA
Monthly Ratings Tournament
Jon Boley 206-545-1424  jon@seattlegocenter.org
http://www.seattlegocenter.org/

March 6:  Boston, MA
Even Game Tournament (2 kyu and stronger)
Zack Grossbart 617-497-1232  zack@grossbart.com

March 17-20:  Germantown, MD
10th Annual Maryland Yang Workshop (FULL!)
Gordon Fraser 301-540-2640  gordon@wui.net

March 19:  Raleigh, NC
Spring Fuseki
Troy Hurteau 919-515-3318  jthurtea@ncsu.edu
http://clubs.ncsu.edu/go/springtournament/

March 19:  Ann Arbor, MI
Spring Tournament
Eric Jankowski 734-417-5547  erjank@umich.edu
www.umich.edu/~goclub

March 20:  Sunnyvale, CA
9th. Jujo Jiang Cup Youth Goe Tournament
Mingjiu Jiang 650-969-2857  mingjiu7p@hotmail.com
http://www.usgo.org/usa/jujoyouth.asp

March 26:  Baltimore, MD
3rd Annual Hopkins GO Tournament
Robert Ferguson robert.ferguson@gmail.com
http://www.jhu.edu/~hopkinsgo/3rdannual.html

June 25-28:  Hackensack, NJ
2005 NJ Yang Yi-lun 7p Go Workshop
John Stephenson 201-612-0852  jcs@wingsgoclub.org
https://www.wingsgoclub.org/YangWorkshop2005.asp

August 6-14: Tacoma, WA
21st US Go Congress
Steve Stringfellow 253-761-9466 congress@heffalumps.com
http://www.go2005.org

This is a digest of events for the next month only; for a complete listing see the Tournament Calendar on the AGA website: http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.asp
For the European Go Calendar see http://www.european-go.org/TOURNAMENTS/TListbyDate.htm

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