2009 American Go Yearbook
Transcription
2009 American Go Yearbook
2010 U.S. GO CONGRESS GOBASE.ORG GOGAMEWORLD.COM GOGOD GUO JUAN’S GO SCHOOL KISEIDO SCHAAK EN GO WINKEL HET PAARD SLATE & SHELL SMARTGO YELLOW MOUNTAIN IMPORTS AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK AMERICAN GO Yearbook 2009 Please patronize these Yearbook supporters: fine purveyors of quality go books, equipment, software and more! 2009 AMERICAN GO Y E A R B O O K PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID American Go Association P.O. Box 397 Old Chelsea Station New York, NY 10112-0397 WASHINGTON, DC PERMIT #3070 THE WORLD’S OLDEST BOARD GAME R E V I E W & I N S T R U C T I O N INSIDE: TOURNAMENT REPORTS, GAMES, RATINGS, INSTRUCTION, GO PLAYERS GUIDE TO THE WORLD & MORE Guide to Go Guide to Go Where to play Go in America — AGA CHAPTERS http://www.usgo.org for a full club listing Where to play Go in America — AGA CHAPTERS http://www.usgo.org for a full club listing AZ: Tempe Arizona Go Club William Gundberg 480-831-5567 [email protected] CO: Denver Fiery Rain of Go Stones Jasmine Sailing 303-388-4666 [email protected] HI: Honolulu Honolulu Go Club Sid Kobashigawa 833-2540 [email protected] MA: Boston Northeastern Univ. Go Club Joshua Warhurst 508-728-1351 [email protected] MT: Bozeman Gallatin Valley Go Club Pippin Wallace 406-582-8732 [email protected] AZ: Tucson Tucson Go Club Martin Lebl 520-850-9213 [email protected] CO: Longmont Longmont Go Club Aref Nammari 303-776-4200 [email protected] HI: Kaneohe Oahu Go Club Frank H. Alejandro 808-235-1567 [email protected] MA: Sharon Sharon Go Club David Hawkins 781-784-7782 [email protected] NE: Omaha Omaha go Stuart Shell 402-216-1235 [email protected] CA: Davis Davis/Sacramento Go Club Willard Haynes [email protected] DC: Washington NI_ME Thomas Giles 202-368-9955 [email protected] IA: Ames Cyclone go Club Kirk Moloney 515-294-6415 [email protected] MA: Somerville Massachusetts Go Association Peter Martin 617-629-0110 [email protected] NC: Cane Creek Middle School Go Club Jeff Long 828-628-0824 [email protected] Ca: Irvine Orange County Go Club Kevin Chao 949-466-1479 [email protected] DC: Washington Greater Washington Go Club Haskell Small 202-244-4764 IA: Cedar Rapids Cedar Rapids Go Club Jacob Uptain 319-329-5344 [email protected] MD: Baltimore Baltimore Go Club Keith Arnold 410-788-3520 [email protected] CA: Livermore LLNL Go Club Karl Nelson 925-424-4183 [email protected] DC: Washington 19 Squared Points Go Club Thomas Allen Giles 202-338-8301 [email protected] IA: Davenport Quad Cities Go Club Michael Dudzik 312-265-3061 [email protected] MD: Baltimore UMBC Go Club 443-392-6822 [email protected] NC: Charlotte Charlotte Go Club Greg McCall 704-358-6297 [email protected] CA: Oakland Bay Area Go Players Assoc. 510-501-2701 FL: Fort Myers Ft. Myers Go Club Joshua Frye 239-357-8811 [email protected] MD: Baltimore Hopkins Go Cllub Lisa Scott 816-651-6347 [email protected] NC: Durhan/Chapel Hill Triangle Go Group Paul Celmer 919-779-7925 [email protected] MD: College Park University of Maryland Go Club Stephen M. Mount 301-405-6934 [email protected] NH: Nashua Milford Go Club Peter Gousios 603-882-0543 [email protected] IL: Prospect Heights Northwest Chicago Go Club Kyung Han 847-296-2510 MD: Germantown XYZ Private Go Group Yuan Zhou 301-528-7259 [email protected] NJ: Caldwell Feng Yun go School Feng Yun 973-992-5675 [email protected] IL: Rockford Rockford Go Club Michael Hopkins 815-979-1148 [email protected] MI: Ann Arbor Ann Arbor Go Club Eric Jankowski 734-663-1675 [email protected] NJ: Freehold Rutgers Go Club Andrew Casal 732-740-7815 [email protected] IL: Schaumburg Schaumburg Go Club Daniel Smith 847-274-9742 [email protected] MI: Kalamazoo Kalamazoo Go Club Paul Miller 269-623-9981 [email protected] NJ: Hoboken Hoboken Go Club Larry Russ 201-216-5379 [email protected] KY: Louisville Louisville Go Club Asha Nagaiya 270-300-3418 [email protected] MN: Fairboult Rice County Go Club F. John Rowan 507-220-0825 [email protected] NJ: Princeton Princeton Go Club Rick Mott 609-466-1602 [email protected] LA: New Orleans Crane’s Nest Go Club Sean Moy 504-813-2804 [email protected] MO: Go Miners S&T Donald Wunsch 573-341-4521 [email protected] NV: Las Vagas Las Vegas Go Club James Schaefer 702-824-2898 [email protected] CA: San Diego San Diego Go Club Andrew Smith 619-669-8410 [email protected] CA: San Francisco Salesforce.com Go Club Benjamin Tsai 415-8431688 [email protected] CA: San Francisco San Francisco Go Club 415-386-9565 [email protected] CA: Santa Monica Santa Monica Go Club Christopher Hayashida 310-479-2892 [email protected] CA: Sunnyvale Sunnyvale Go Club Jean G. DeMaiffe 408-720-0738 [email protected] CA: Ventura Ventura County Go Club David Whiteside 805-647-8803 [email protected] CO: Boulder Boulder Kid and Teens Go Club Paul Barchilon 303-440-7124 [email protected] CO: Colorado Springs Springs Go Club Jim Michali 719-487-8816 [email protected] CO: Denver Colorado Go Center Eric Wainwright 303-460-0885 [email protected] FL: Gainsville Univ. of Florida Go Club Michael Dyer 352-514-3723 [email protected] FL: Melbourne Space Coast Area Go Assoc. George Lebovitz [email protected] FL: Miami Miami Go Club Joel Sanet 305-652-1137 [email protected] FL: Orlando Go Orlando Joshua Lee 305-308-6624 [email protected] FL: Sarasota Sarasota Go Club Larry Rabinowitz 941-922-1000 [email protected] FL: Tampa Tampa Go Club John Russell 813-385-1853 [email protected] GA: Atlanta Atlanta Go Club Jeffery J Kerlagon 770-992-0308 [email protected] GA: Reingold Go Players’ Association Greg Gibson 706-980-4924 [email protected] IL: Evanston Evanston Go Club Mark Rubenstein 847-869-6020 [email protected] IL: Peoria Bradley Go Association Roy Schmidt 309-677-3718 [email protected] LA: Shreveport Shreveport-Bossier Go Club Peter Haas 318-861-7829 [email protected] MA: Amherst Western Massachusetts Go Club Micah Feldman 413-587-3720 [email protected] NC: Cary Cary Go Club Owen Chen 919-468-2062 [email protected] MO: Southwest Missouri Go Club Tyler Keithley NY: Brooklyn/Manhatten 417-399-4318 Brooklyn Go Club [email protected] Jean-Claude Chetrit 718-638-2266 MS: Jackson/Ridgeland/Brandon [email protected] Mississippi Go Society Rez Johnson NY: Buffalo 601-732-2392 Buffalo Go club [email protected] David Daniels 760-468-4204 [email protected] TX: San Antonio San Antonio Go Club Levi Self 210-367-9759 [email protected] WA: Olympia Olympia Go Club Jason Baghoudarian 360-867-4086 [email protected] WI: Madison University of Wisconsin Go Club Dan Kastenholtz 608-255-6539 [email protected] UT: Salt Lake City Salt Lake Go Club Mike Wallstedt 801-558-4892 [email protected] WA: Seattle Seattle Go Center Jon Boley 206-545-1424 [email protected] WI: Milawukee Milwaukee Go Club Richard Hayes 414-967-1057 [email protected] VA: Blacksburg Blacksburg Go Club John Greiner 540-884-7010 [email protected] WA: Tacoma Tacoma Go Club Gordon Castanza 253-853-4831 [email protected] ISRAEL: Rosh Ha’Ayin Mind Go Club Shavit Fragman +972 (0)54 500453 [email protected] DAF Go League Latasha James [email protected] 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 8 contents AGA OFFICERS & COORDINATORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 AMERICA’S TEACHING PROFESSIONALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 10 US TITLEHOLDERS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 U.S. GO: THE YEAR IN HEADLINES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 MAJOR 2009 TOURNAMENTS & EVENTS US GO CONGRESS Takemiya Returns To U.S. Go Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Doubling Up With Live Pro Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kim Sweeps U.S. Open To Retain Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zhao Wins Congress Die Hard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A (Musical) Game Of Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . More Commentaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learning From The Professionals: Yilun Yang 7P . . . . . . . . . . New Player Database Launched . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Closer Look At Shusaku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shi Repeats As Redmond Senior Champion . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go is… 10 10 11 11 12 12 12 13 13 14 an ancient board game which takes simple elements—line and circle, Black and White, stone and wood—combines them with simple rules and generates subtleties which have enthralled players for millennia. Go’s appeal resides not only in its Asian elegance, but also in practical and stimulating features in the design of the game. Go’s few rules can be demonstrated quickly and grasped easily. It is enjoyably played over a wide range of skills. Each level of play has its charms, rewards and discoveries. A unique and reliable handicapping system leads to equal contests between players of widely disparate strengths. Go is uniquely flexible and rewards patience and balance over aggression and greed. An early mistake can be made up, used to advantage or reversed as the game proceeds. There is no simple procedure to turn a clear lead into a victory. Go thinking seems to be more lateral than linear, less dependent on logical deduction, and more reliant on a “feel” for the game, a “sense” of form, a gestalt perception of significant patterns. Beyond being merely a game, go can take on other meanings to enthusiasts: an analogy with life, an intense meditation, a mirror of one’s personality, an exercise in abstract reasoning, or, when played well, a beautiful art in which Black and White dance across the board in delicate balance. But most important for all who play, go is challenging and fun. 12 13 14 Cover photo: John Pinkerton 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 1 18 21 23 Jerry Shen Wins Redmond Cup Junior Division . . . . . . . . . . East Keeps Streak Alive Against West In Youth All-Stars . . . . Why We Play: A Few Of Our Favorite Thing About The Congress (And Go) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why We Go: Interview With A Congress First-Timer . . . . . . Kim Prevails Again In Man Vs Machine Rematch . . . . . . . . . By The Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Burrall Wins NAIM Board Auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crazy Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heard & Seen: Too Big To Die? Whose Move Is It, Anyway? It Takes A Village . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pair Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go Congress Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . US Go Congress Professionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . US Go Congress Photo Album . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Record EJ Team Covers Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 18 18 19 19 20 21 22 NORTH AMERICAN ING MASTERS Andy Liu Defeats 3 Pros To Win ’09 Ing Masters . . . . . . . . . 23 GAME HIGHLIGHTS: Ing Masters Final . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 North American Ing Masters Tournament Players . . . . . . . . . 25 WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP U.S. Slips To 15th In World Amateurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On Emotions, Philosophy And The Will To Win . . . . . . . . . 5 MINUTES WITH: Nicholas Roussos, Cyprus . . . . . . . . . . Michael Redmond Looks Ahead…And Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 MINUTES WITH: Edgardo Caceres Estrada, Guatemala. . . . WAGC BRIEFS: Congress Tour Group, An Alaskan in Japan, Franco-American Humor, Why to Play in Calcutta, Luxembourg’s Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IGF Making Big Moves In World Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GAME HIGHLIGHTS: Austria-U.S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . More WAGC Game Commentaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 MINUTES WITH: Csaba Mero, Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 28 28 29 29 30 31 32 33 34 WORLD STUDENT OZA & N.A. FUJITSU QUALIFIER Jie Li Runner-Up At World Student Oza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Jie Li Repeats At N.A. Fujitsu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Jie Li Falls To Hane Naoki In First Round Of Fujitsu . . . . . . 35 29 KOREA PRIME MINISTER CUP: LIVE FROM JEONJU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 COTSEN OPEN Jing Yang 7d Wins Cotsen Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Cotsen Game Highlight: Curtis Tang 7d - Dae Hyuk Ko 7d . . . 38 Ah, Youth: A Cotsen Tournament Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 JUJO JIANG GO TOURNAMENT Mingjiu Jiang Recaptures Jujo Cup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 37 2 NEW JERSEY & MARYLAND OPENS Andy Liu Wins NJ Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Daniel Chou Wins Maryland Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK INSTRUCTION Haruyama Isamu 9P on Questions From Actual Play . . . . . . . Kazunari Furuyama on Important, Fundamental Matters . . . . Yuan Zhou 7d on Amateur Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander Dinerchtein 3P on Piao Wenyao 5P - Gu Li 9P . . . Yilun Yang 7P’s Tsume Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go World: Yamashita Keigo 9P - Cho Chikun 9P . . . . . . . . . 42 43 44 45 46 47 45 B PRESIDENT’S REPORT Barack Obama ‘s American-Made Go Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Allan Abramson: “A Lifetime Pastime” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 THE GO PLAYERS GUIDE TO THE WORLD Tokyo: The Star Nine Go School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tokyo: The Shusaku Go Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tokyo: The Sunshine Go Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Japan: Pilgrimage to Honinbo Shuwa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spain: Go In Madrid & Barcelona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 51 52 53 54 YOUTH GO Sun Shines In U.S. Youth Championship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . U.S. Youth Place 5th At World Championship . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Burrall Wins Jujo Youth Tourney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zhang 3-Peats At Ing Youth Cup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . North America Prevails In Transatlantic Youth Match . . . . . . Zhao And Song Top NJ USYGC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frye Named Teacher Of The Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 55 57 57 57 58 59 A 49 PASSAGES/IN MEMORIAM Jin Chen 7d (60); “Way To Go” Author Karl Baker (60); Larry . Sigmond 2d and Landon Brownell 7d (60-61); Tom Trilling 1d (61); Jeff Boscole 2k (61) 52 SCOREBOARD: LOCAL EVENT PHOTOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62-67 RATINGS: ALL CURRENT MEMBERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 MOST GAMES/EVENTS: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69-70 WINNERS CIRCLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 GUIDE TO GO: WHERE TO PLAY GO IN AMERICA . . . . . . . . . . .Inside covers YEARBOOK ADVERTISERS GoBase.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 gogameworld.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 GoGod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Guo Juan’s Go School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Kiseido . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 68 Schaak en go winkel het Paard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Slate & Shell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11, 36, 48 & 54 SmartGo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 22, 40, & 57 US Go Congress 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 18, 78 Yellow Mountain Imports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Yutopian Enterprises. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 55 62 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 3 My Move Managing Editor Chris Garlock Assistant Editor William S. Cobb Associate Editors Paul Barchilon Terry Benson Roy Laird John Pinkerton Contributing Professionals Yilun Yang 7P Alexander Dinerchtein 3P Contributors Brian Allen Robert McGuigan Yuan Zhou 7d Design Lincoln Steffens Production Doyle Printing Landover, Maryland Database Manager Sam Zimmerman Website www.usgo.org Email [email protected] American Go Association P.O. Box 397 Old Chelsea Station New York, NY 10113-0397 by Chris Garlock, Managing Editor What a year for American go! See pages 10-11 for a quick overview of a month-by-month overview of the year. The big event of 2009, of course, was the 25th annual U.S. Go Congress, and we’ve devoted a whopping 16 pages (pp 12-27) to our recap of the E-Journal’s wall-to-wall coverage of that exciting event. Even with that much coverage, we still just scratched the surface of the year’s largest and longest go event, which attracts hundreds of go fans and professionals from around the world. Be sure to check out the fun and games at this year’s Congress, scheduled for July 31 – August 8 in Colorado Spring, CO, where we’ll repeat one of our popular innovations, live online pro commentary on the morning Congress top board. It may be overreaching a bit to claim Barack Obama as the first go-playing President of the United States, but Obama certainly demonstrated a high-level awareness of the game when he presented an American-made go set to Chinese Premier Hu Jintao during his November visit to China (page 50; catch up with our own President Allan Abramson, in his interview on page 51). American go continues to enjoy the fruits of a cadre of hard-working local volunteers who organize the dozens of local tournaments both large and small, as well as the various pro and other events throughout the year. We’re pleased to offer ongoing promotion and coverage of these events in the E-Journal, and to feature them in the Yearbook. Coverage of major events like the Cotsen and Jujo Jiang tournament begins on page 39. And don’t miss our photo album of shots from these events, beginning on page 64. The E-Journal has been covering the World Amateur Go Championships for several years now, and we were thrilled and honored to team up with our colleagues at Ranka in 2009 to provide enhanced coverage of this major amateur event. Seven pages of coverage – including game highlights -- begin on page 29. In addition to the WAGC, the United States sends representatives to several major world go events, and you’ll find reports on the World Student Oza, the Fujitsu and the Korean Prime Minister Cup on pages 37-38. Our wide range of instructional material continues to be a popular part of the E-Journal’s Member’s Edition, and samples from Haruyama Isamu 9P’s Questions From Actual Play, Kazunari Furuyama’s Important, Fundamental Matters, Yuan Zhou 7d on amateur kyu games, Alexander Dinerchtein 3P’s pro commentary, Yilun Yang 7P’s life and death tsumego puzzles, as well as commentaries from Go World all begin on page 44. Visit Tokyo’s Star Nine Go School, Shusaku and Sunshine go clubs in our Go Players Guide To The World (beginning on page 52), as well as taking a Pilgrimage to Honinbo Shuwa and exploring Go In Madrid and Barcelona. Youth go continues to be a vibrant part of the American go scene and our coverage on pages 57-61 is just the tip of a growing iceberg of strong young players who we’re sure will dominate our community for years to come. The EJournal’s Passages reports – obituaries for go players who have passed away -- are our hardest duty and 2009, and though we lost far too many good friends last year, we’re proud to be able to honor and hold the memory of Jin Chen, Karl Baker, Larry Sigmond, Landon Brownell, Tom Trilling and Jeff Boscole in these pages. Thanks, as always, to stalwart Assistant Editor Bill Cobb and the entire worldwide E-Journal and Yearbook team (see page 6), as well as the AGA leadership and volunteers (page 7) and our wonderful go vendors, who work so hard to help us enjoy and improve at this fascinating game. See you on the goban! NOTE: Technical issues have delayed our production of this year’s Yearbook CD; watch the E-Journal for updates on when it’ll be available. 4 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 2010 US Go Congress July 31 - August 8 Colorado Springs, CO www.gocongress.org AGA OFFICERS AND COORDINATORS The AGA leadership is made up entirely of go-loving volunteers. They wish to share their enjoyment of the game with others and put in a lot of time and effort; we appreciate their work. Below is a list of contacts to find the department and person you are looking for. To find out how you can get involved, email [email protected] AGA BOARD OF DIRECTORS: NATIONAL COORDINATORS: Roy Schmidt (Central) (Chair) Paul Celmer (Eastern Region) Chuck Robbins (Eastern Region) Laura Kolb (Central Region) Andrew Okun (Western Region) Gordon Castanza (Western Region) Jie Li (At Large) Chapter Services: Arnold Eudell Community Outreach: John Goon Membership: Mark Rubenstein Pair Go: Allan Abramson Summer Go Camps: (open) Tournament Coordination: (open) Youth Coordination: Paul Barchilon Archivist: David Doshay Membership Database: Sam Zimmerman Tournament Database: Jonathan Bresler Elections Officer: Arnold Eudell Policy & Governance: Keith Arnold Rank Certification (open) Rules: Terry Benson EJournal Editor: Chris Garlock Webmaster: Steve Colburn AGA OFFICERS: President: Allan Abramson Secretary: Pauline Pohl Treasurer: Adam Bridges VP – Communications: C. Garlock VP – International: Thomas Hsiang VP – Planning: Chris Kirschner VP – Ratings: Phil Waldron 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 5 AMERICA’S TEACHING PROFESSIONALS FENG YUN 9P MINGJIU JIANG 7P JANICE KIM 3P www.fygc.com [email protected] 973-992-5675 Feng Yun, a former women’s world champion and China national women’s champion, teaches weekly go classes to over 100 students at various New Jersey locations, and holds winter and summer workshops in New Jersey and a summer workshop in China. Intermediate and advanced students also can schedule one-on-one online lessons. Students of all ages are welcome. Feng Yun was the American team coach for the World Mind Sports Games, a North American Ing Masters champion, and has represented the United States in the Toyota & Denso Cup World Go Oza and in various women’s international championships. www.Gomasters.com [email protected] Mingjiu Jiang 7P has been teaching go for more than 25 years to both children and adults. Recent accomplishments include winning the 2007 North America Ing Masters Championship and in 2008, he was the North America representative to the Fujitsu Cup, the Toyota/Oza Cup and the Ing World Cup. He teaches go on and off line. www.samarkand.net [email protected] Author of the award-winning, best-selling go series Learn to Play Go. 1984 Fuji Women’s Champion, 1985 World Youth Championship 2nd place, 1994 EBS Cup 3rd place. Teaches privately; all ages. MYUNGWAN KIM 9P [email protected] 213-210-1577 Myungwan Kim teaches go in Los Angeles area, where he runs a Go Academy in the Korean Go Club. He made the Final 8 in the 2005 Samsung World Championship, was a member of Bohae team in the 2004 Korean league of 2004, a 3-time runner-up in the BC Card Cup for rookies in 1998, 1999 and 2002, won the US Go Congress Open in 2008 and 2009 and was the first pro sent to the U.S. by the Korean Baduk Association. 6 YILUN YANG 7P [email protected] Chief instructor of the American Go Institute since 1986. Author of “Fundamental Principles of Go”; “Whole Board Thinking In Joseki”; “Ingenious Life And Death Puzzles”. Yang has taught hundreds of students worldwide via the internet and has annual workshops across the country. GUO JUAN 5P www.internetgoschool.com [email protected] Well-known to American go players through her regular workshops and lectures at the annual U.S. Go Congress, Guo Juan has lived in the Netherlands since 1990 and established Guo Juan’s Go School there in 1996. She regularly competes in top European tournaments and also teaches online, where she pioneered audio teaching systems. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK JAMES KERWIN 1P Minneapolis, MN 612-823-0699 [email protected] JENNIE SHEN 2P [email protected] A Chinese 2-dan professional living in Santa Barbara, California, Jennie Shen has been teaching go to children and adults since 2001, and welcomes new students of all levels. She offers both private and group lessons on KGS and is a frequent lecturer for KGS Plus, where you can find her lectures at http:// internetgoschool.com/ She has conducted go workshops throughout the United States. Major 2009 Tournaments & Events US TITLEHOLDERS 2009 N. A. Fujitsu Qualifier N.A. Student Oza Jie Li 7d N. A. Ing Masters New Jersey Open Andy Liu 7d Cotsen Open Jing Yang 7d Maryland Open Daniel Chou 7d US Youth Go Championship Senior Division Calvin Sun 7d US Youth Go Championship Junior Division Andrew Lu 6d WAGC Rep Eric Lui 7d US Open Myungwan Kim 8P US Pair Go: Jujo Jiang Tournament Hajin Lee 3P – Won Mingjiu Jiang 7P Jong Kim 5d Redmond Cup Senior Division Gansheng Shi 7d Redmond Cup Junior Division Jerry Shen 2d 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 7 U.S. Go 2009: The Year in Headlines Selected from reports appearing in the American Go E-Journal in 2009; details can be found elsewhere in the Yearbook or see the Yearbook CD for the complete original stories. JANUARY: USYGC Kicks Off In Tacoma; Ing School Teams Tourney Returns; U.S.-Canada Youth Team Match; Mingjiu Jiang Recaptures Jujo Cup; U.S. Sweeps Canada In Youth Friendship Match; Updated AGA Starter CD 5.0 Available. photo: Jujo Cup FEBRUARY: Eric Lui To Play For U.S. At 30th World Amateurs; Go Helps Bring In New Year In Hawaii; Philly To Host Yuan Zhou Go Workshop; Jin Chen 7d Dead At 22; Kerwin To Play Many Faces In Latest Computer-Pro Match; Outreach In Oakland; Small’s “A Game Of Go” Posted On YouTube; AGF Announces New Go Scholarship; New Studies Demonstrate Power Of Practice; NJ Open Online; Ing School Team Championship Begins; Computers Catching Up Faster; Starter CD Available For Browsing/ Download; Ing Grant Suspended. photo (above): NJ Open, by John Pinkerton; (right): Chicago Youth tourney by Mark Rubenstein MARCH: Andy Liu Wins NJ Open; “Way To Go” Author Baker Passes; Library Go Programs Spike; Jie Li Runner-Up At World Student Oza; USYGC Finals Moved Online; Boris’ Adventures In Baduk; Goclubsonline Offers Discounts; Go Congress Site To Launch This Week; Countdown To Ing Season Begins; New Importer Offers Discount; Free Go World Offer; AGF Announces New Scholarship; IMSA To Begin Planning 2nd World Mind Games; Go Foundation Newsletter Reports Progress In Schools, Libraries 8 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK APRIL: Princeton Trounces Rutgers In First-Ever InterCollegiate Match; Go Is Elementary At Sedgewick; Boulder Kids Go Club Turns Five; Poll Finds Strong Support For English Go Channel; Transatlantic Youth Match Set; Iowa Tourney Features Virtual Kerwin; Penn Go Participates In 2009 Philly Cherry Blossom Fest; Competition Heats Up For 1st Inter-Collegiate Match; Jie Li Falls To Hane Naoki In Fujitsu; Ing Masters Double-Header In Baltimore & Santa Monica; North America Prevails In Transatlantic Youth Match; Koszegi And Kim Propose U.S. Tour; Lui Leading In Online Ing Qualifier; Redmond Notches 500th Win, Mother Celebrates 80; Sigmond And Brownell Die; Seattle Holds Three Tourneys In Two Days; Youth Competition Heats Up In Redmond Cup; Marathon Outreach In Seattle; AGA Summer Go Camps. photo: Seattle Sakura Con by Brian Allen MAY: Go Featured On History Channel; Nominations Open For 3 AGA Board Seats; In The Mood For Go In Oakland; N.A. Ing Masters Final Push; EJ Expands Staff, Seeks Editors; U.S. Youth Field Set; Kerwin Workshops Set For Ohio & British Columbia; Bradley On Chess; AGF College Scholarship; USYGC Finals Broadcast Live; EJ In Japan; Congress Registration Goes Online; Frye Named Teacher Of The Year; Summer Go Camps Set In U.S. & Europe; AGF Offers Prints For Teachers; Honor Society To Hold Brunei-USA Friendship Cup; KGS Day At The NYGC; Janice Kim Go Workshop Set For July. photo: Joshua Frye JUNE: ’08 Yearbook In Mail; Feng Yun To Teach At U.S. Summer Camp; U.S. Go Congress Registration Tops 300; U.S. Go 2009: The Year in Headlines Smartgo Pro 1.3 Released; Ko Wins U.S. Samsung Cup Playoff; AGA Fields Full Slate For Board Elections; Hosts Sought For Chinese Foreign Exchange Students; American Lee Sweeps Freiburg; Janice Kim 3P Coming To SF; Netflix Contest May Turn On Go; Redmond Cup Finalists Set; Canada Leads U.S. 4-2 In Team Tourney. JULY: U.S. Congress Registration Passes 400; Ko To Represent N.A. At Samsung; ’09 Ing Field Set; Taylor Elected President Of Go Honor Society; Redmond On Computer Go; 361 Stones In Laos; San Diego Switches to Tuesdays; YMI To Release English Version Of Kid’s Go Series; DC Go Players Warm Up For Congress; Pros Plan Bi-Coastal Workshops In October AUGUST: Kim launches U.S. Open Defense; EJ Provides More Commentaries At Congress; AGA Board Election Results; Shi Repeats As Redmond Champion; Huiren Yang, Young Kwon, Xiliang Liu & Jianing Gang Upset In Ing; Takemiya Arrives At U.S. Go Congress; Price Upsets Zhou In U.S. Open Round 3; Andy Liu Beats Yilun Yang In Ing 3rd Round; New Player Database Launched; A Closer Look At Shusaku; Andy Liu 7d Upsets Feng Yun 9P, Heads To Ing Final With Mingjiu Jiang; Zhao Sweeps Congress Die Hard; Jerry Shen Wins Redmond Cup; Doubling Up With Live Pro Commentary; East Keeps Streak Alive Against West In Youth All-Stars; Andy Liu Defeats 3rd Pro To Win ’09 Ing Masters; Burrall Wins NAIM Board Auction; Kim Prevails Again In Man Vs Machine Rematch; A Few Of Our Favorite Things About The Congress (And Go); Kim Sweeps U.S. Open To Retain Title; Interview With A Congress First-Timer; U.S. Youth Place 5th At World Championship; Shen Evens Score In U.S.-Canada Team Tournament; Feng Yun To Teach Go Workshop; Chinese Pro Tours DC-Area Clubs; U.S. & Canada Tied In Team Go Tournament. photo: Cotsen Open by Chris Garlock SEPTEMBER: Hsiang To Rep U.S. At 2010 WAGC; Boston-Area Players Attend Xue Lei Workshop; AGHS Hosts Pair Go Tourney Online; Three Pros Hold West Coast Workshop In October; Canada Wins U.S.-Canada Team Tourney; $6,500 In Prizes Up For Grabs At Cotsen Tourney; Pros Offer Workshops Coast To Coast; Registration Opens For N.A. Student Oza Rep Tourney; Jing Yang 7d Wins Cotsen Open; Americans Join Amsterdam Blitz; AGF Newsletter Features Free Hikaru Manga For Library Programs OCTOBER: Ah, Youth: A Cotsen Tournament Report; Student Oza Qualies To Be Held Online; Pro Workshop A Big Hit In NorCal; Jen Donates Anime For Youth Tournaments; Waldron Steps Down As AGA Tournament Coordinator; Board Considering AGA Membership Issues NOVEMBER: U.S., Euro Player Databases Linked; Go School Updates; N.A. Fujitsu Field Set; Culture Day In Seattle; The Game Of Diplomacy Gets A New Board In Obama Gift To Hu; Jie Li Repeats At N.A. Fujitsu DECEMBER: Canada Bests U.S. In 2nd Youth Friendship Match; Feng Yun Holds Year-End Workshop; USYGC Calls For Qualifier Hosts; Write Your Own Go Grant. photos: (center): U.S. Go Congress by Chris Garlock; (left) Austin, TX tournament 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 9 Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS TAKEMIYA RETURNS TO U.S. GO CONGRESS: The legendary Takemiya Masaki 9P – originator of the famous “Cosmic Go” style – arrived at the U.S. Go Congress Tuesday, fresh from a major invitational match the previous week in China with fellow go legends Nie Weiping, Ma Xiaochun and Cho Hun Hyun. “It was a nice reunion of longtime go competitors,” Takemiya told the E-Journal in an interview Tuesday night translated by Yoshi Sawada. Takemiya said that while go-playing styles have changed a lot over the years, he doesn’t think the basics of the game have really changed from the masters like Dosaku and Shusaku, who he said were “the Beethoven and Bach” of the go world. “Their classical style is timeless,” Takemiya said. While admiring of the brilliance and power of modern go champions, Takemiya said “they all play the same style and I don’t see the romance, the fun, the excitement of the game.” As previously reported in the E-Journal, Takemiya took up dancing a few years ago – Wednesday night at the Congress he showed a video of him at a dance exhibition -- and he said that “now I’m in great shape physically and feel like my brain is getting younger.” Perhaps not coincidentally, he says “I started winning a lot of go matches recently,” and has begun to think about some new ideas about go, though nothing developed enough yet to share his thoughts on. As he did at last year’s Congress in Portland, Takemiya provided live commentary on Friday night’s Ing final match, which was also broadcast online on KGS. - Chris Garlock; photo by John Pinkerton DOUBLING UP WITH LIVE PRO COMMENTARY: The EJ Congress Team pulled off another historic first on Thursday morning when two professionals – Takemiya Masaki 9P (2nd from right) and Guo Juan 5P (right) – provided simultaneous live commentaries on two different top U.S. Open games. In recent years pros have commented on the evening Ing games, but this was the first year that they’ve done the U.S. Open games, and the first time ever for two at once. Photo by John Pinkerton 10 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 Tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS KIM SWEEPS U.S. OPEN TO RETAIN TITLE: Myung-Wan Kim repeated as U.S. Open champion after winning the final round Saturday against Yongfei Ge to complete his 6-0 clean sweep. U.S. OPEN WINNER GENEROUS IN VICTORY: The AGF’s Terry Benson reports that U.S. Open winner Myung-Wan Kim “once again donated $500 of his winnings to the American Go Foundation.” Photo by John Pinkerton ZHAO WINS CONGRESS DIE HARD: An undefeated Ricky Zhao 7d won Wednesday’s 4-round Die Hard tournament, topping a field of 113 players. This was the second-largest field in the event’s history; the largest field was 114 in 2005. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 11 Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS A (MUSICAL) GAME OF GO: Pianist/composer Haskell Small and pianist Matthew Bengtson performed Small’s A Game of Go at Saturday night’s opening ceremonies for the 25th annual U.S. Go Congress. The original composition is a setting for two pianos and a video of the famous sixth game, played on February 25, 1853, of the sanjubango between Ota Yuzo 7d and Honinbo Shusaku 6d. The music accompanies the development of the classic game, from opening through middle game, a couple of ko fights and the endgame. Small and Bengtson also performed a selection of classical piano pieces. - Chris Garlock; photo by John Pinkerton MORE COMMENTARIES: The 2009 U.S. Go Congress coverage included significantly more pro commentaries, with professionals providing live game commentaries during both the U.S. Open every morning and the N.A. Ing Masters in the evening. Online viewers tuned in daily on KGS starting at 9A and 7P EST. Photo: Myung-Wan Kim 8P comments on an Ing game Sunday night at the U.S. Go Congress; photo by Chris Garlock LEARNING FROM THE PROFESSIONALS: Yilun Yang 7P ‘s Sunday pro lecture took the class through an analysis of the fuseki – or opening game -- for three game styles: a territory game, a moyo game, and a “weird” game where Black made some very unusual moves. In each game he analyzed where the biggest potential existed on the board on successive moves. Alternative moves were discussed to illustrate which ones best realized that potential. Participants had lots of fun with the “weird” moves where Mr. Yang showed how to punish bad moves and not strengthen them. Meanwhile, in her lecture later that afternoon, Feng Yung 9P analyzed games that attendees recorded on the opening day of the Go Congress. Rather than just pointing out which moves the players should have made, Feng Yun asked about the intention behind the moves and then analyzed possible sequences that could achieve that intent. It was a great way to learn for dan and kyu players alike. - report/photo by Gurujeet Khalsa 12 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS NEW PLAYER DATABASE LAUNCHED: The American Go Association launched its brandnew Player Database -- http://agagd.usgo.org/ EasyPHP1-8/www/AGAGD/index.php -- Monday afternoon at the U.S. Go Congress. Programmer Jonathan Bresler and Tournament Coordinator Phil Waldron – who worked together to bring the project online -- hovered around the computer kiosk outside the main Congress playing room Monday night as players looked up their tournament records going back to 1991. “This is an exciting new historical tool for American go players,” said AGA President Allan Abramson. “Congratulations and thanks to Phil and Jonathan for all their hard work getting this project done.” Players can use the database “to see how they’ve progressed over the years,” says Bresler, noting that other features include showing who played – and a reconstructed crosstab of how each player did -- in over 1,300 tournaments. The database uses an adapted version of the code for the European Go Database, “which was generously shared by the Italian creators,” said Bresler. The database is also useful for analyzing player participation, Bresler said, pointing out that while it shows that nearly half the AGA members have never played a rated game and don’t identify with a local club, those members who do compete have gotten much more active in recent years. “Just 200 members were active in tournaments in 1991 but last year 1,400 were.” A CLOSER LOOK AT SHUSAKU: Monday evening, Japanese professional Sasaki Tadashi 8P gave an informative lecture on the famous Shusaku game that inspired Haskell Small’s “A Game of Go,” the composition for two pianos and video based on the famous sixth game, played on February 25, 1853, as reported on page 14. Mr. Sasaki is a scholar of the games of Honinbo Shusaku and his deep knowledge of the subject, as well as his humor, were evident in the able translation by Richard Dolen. Ota Yuzo was known as a fast player and rumors still persist that he liked to finish in time to enjoy beer with the sponsors of the sanjubango. At a couple of key junctures the players chose exciting variations rather than more solid, and possibly boring, lines. Apparently, even in those days, players had to keep sponsors happy, and this exciting game surely exceeded their patron’s expectations. - report/photo by Gurujeet Khalsa 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 13 Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS SHI REPEATS AS REDMOND SENIOR CHAMPION: Fifteen-year-old Canadian Gansheng Shi 7d (l) solidly defeated America’s top youth in the Redmond Cup Senior Division finals to successfully defend his title as the 2009 Redmond Champion. Shi lost only one game in the qualifying rounds, played earlier online, and he and 14-yearold Zhongxia Zhao 7d both qualified for the finals, winning a free trip to the U.S. Go Congress. Shi played black in the first round on Sunday, where he forced Zhao to resign, and remained unflappable throughout the game. Hundreds of people watched on KGS. “It was a good match up,” Shi told the E-Journal, “but I stayed calm.” Shi took white in round two Monday, but again forced Zhao to resign after killing a huge group in the center. - Paul Barchilon, Youth Editor; photo by Brian Allen JERRY SHEN WINS REDMOND CUP JUNIOR DIVISION: Elevenyear-old Jerry Shen 2d (r) won the Junior Division of the 16th annual Redmond Cup Wednesday evening at the U.S. Go Congress. Shen and runner-up Yunxuan Li 2d, 11, played a 3-game final, which was broadcast live on KGS, drawing hundreds of online spectators for each match. “I was scared going into the second match,” Shen, who lost the first round, told the E-Journal, EAST KEEPS STREAK ALIVE AGAINST WEST IN YOUTH ALL-STARS: On “and it looked like Yunxuan was going to Wednesday evening, while many U.S. Go Congress attendees were still enjoying their win, but he left a cutting point for me in day off, the top youth players in the nation squared off in the 4th annual Youth All-Star the endgame and then I won.” The final Tournament. While the East grabbed an early lead, winning the first three decisions, round was very close, but Shen held onto the West started edging closer for a possible upset, with Vincent Zhuang’s half-point a small lead throughout the endgame to nail-biter victory over Yang Xu, and Gansheng Shi’s comfortable win against Lionel close out the win. Shen is the younger Zhang. That left the last game -- the Captains’ Match – as the key to victory, as a West brother of two-time Redmond runner-up victory would give the team a Cherry Shen 6d, “She was very happy that tiebreak win. In this exciting I was successful this time,” a beaming Shen game Ricky Zhao was able told the E-Journal. Both contestants in the to successfully destroy a Junior and Senior Division received a free large amount of Daniel trip to this year’s Go Congress to play in Gourdeau’s territory and the finals, and will receive $300 for first eventually started a ko that and $200 for second as an additional prize Gordeau could not handle, from the American Go Foundation. The giving the East their fourth Redmond Cup, named after Americanconsecutive championship born professional Michael Redmond title and denying the West 9P, remains the most prestigious youth its first taste of victory. The tournament in North America. tournament was organized - report/photo by Paul Barchilon, Youth and directed by Paul Editor Barchilon Ku. “Ricky” Zhao 7d (E) B hil and d Lawrence L K Full F ll results: l Board B d 1: 1 Zhongxia Zh defeated Daniel Gourdeau 6d (W); Board 2: Gansheng Shi 7d (W) defeated Lionel Zhang 6d (E); Board 3: Vincent Zhuang 4d (W) defeated Yang Xu 5d (E); Board 4: Jasmine Yan 5d (E) defeated Fong Chain “Gary” Wang 4d (W); Board 5: Michael Huang 5d (E) defeated Matthew Harwit 3d (W); Board 6: Kevin Shang 4d (E) defeated Nathan Harwit 2d (W). - Lawrence Ku; photo by Yang Xu 14 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS WHY WE PLAY: A Few Of Our Favorite Thing About The Congress (And Go) For 19-kyu Seth Bradley of Frederick, MD, it’s the Self-Paired Tournament. Andy Olsen 3d of Austin, TX got to meet the pros he’s been getting online lessons from. Debbie Siemon, who hails from Atlanta, GA, looks forward to catching up with old friends. Random interviews of a cross-section of new and returning U.S. Go Congress attendees revealed a range of favorite things about the 25th annual event. “To have more than 400 go players in the same room is like finding the Garden of Eden,” said Nick Sibicky 4d of Lynnwood, WA. He and Bradley were both Congress first-timers, while Siemon was attending her 23rd. Although Siemon, an environmental engineer, said she doesn’t get much of a chance to play go during the rest of the year, “It’s like language; you think you’ve forgotten it and then when you’re around it for a couple of days it all comes back.” New Yorker Marc Palmer, attending his 17th Congress, liked “being able to get game reviews from stronger players.” Newbie Bradley, mechanical engineer, says his favorite thing about the game of go is that, “The rules are so simple, yet the game is so complex.” Palmer, a building engineer who’s been playing for 35 years, says that the game is “an opportunity to test and maximize my mental potential,” although he ruefully says that his potential “seems to be shodan, at least for the past few years.” And Olsen finds the complexities of the opening fascinating, while Sibicky is is interested in the “different styles of play.” Olsen adds that go “is the most elegant game there is.” - Chris Garlock; photos by John Pinkerton; collage by Phil Straus a WHY WE GO: Interview With A Congress First-Timer Congress first-timer Larom Lancaster 13k sat down with me Sunday afternoon to share his impressions of his first Go Congress. For years I’ve been cajoling Larom to come to the biggest go party of the year, and I was very pleasantly surprised when he told me that he’d be coming. So I was curious. Why had he decided to make this his first Congress; The pros? The tournaments? The non-stop week of go? Nothing so exciting, he told me. He’d been on the fence every year, but he’d always had difficulty justifying the travel expenses and taking the time off. This year, though, the happy combination of Congress’ convenient location -- he lives nearby in Maryland -- and his recent redoubled efforts to improve, pushed him over the edge. So, after just one day, does he think he chose wisely? “Absolutely!” he said, with what looked to me like a definite tinge of regret for those wasted years. What’s he most looking forward to? Everything; the lectures, the reviews, the simuls, but mostly playing every morning in the strong US Open field. And by playing a lot of games in the Self-Paired he says “I’m really hoping to make single digit kyu.” I hope he makes it, and I’m looking forward to checking back in and seeing what he’s made of his first Congress. - Andrew Jackson 4d; photo by John Pinkerton 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 15 Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS KIM PREVAILS AGAIN IN MAN VS MACHINE REMATCH The Man vs Machine rematch Friday afternoon was anti-climactic, with Myeong-Wan Kim handily defeating Many Faces of Go, playing with a 7-stone handicap and running a 32-core processor. MoGo defeated Kim last year on 9 stones with an 800-core processor. Kim beat Mogo – playing with 7 stones on a smaller processor -- last fall at the Cotsen Open, narrowly defeating it at the very end. “Many Faces was very different,” Kim told the audience after the game. “It behaved more like a human, while MoGo was pure computer and very unpredictable. It was easier to play Many Faces -- though it may be the stronger program -- because I could predict what it was going to do. Many Faces made better shape, but MoGo had better reading. I’d really like to see both programs play each other and see what happens.” BY THE NUMBERS: 654: the number of people on KGS watching the top board of the fourth round of the North American Ing Masters tournament; 294: viewers watching live on EuroGoTV-US; 19: the number of EJ Team volunteers it took to record and broadcast the nine top boards; 3: the margin of victory by pros Mingjiu Jiang 7P and Yilun Yang 7P in their 4th-round games. GoGoD Encyclopaedia and Database Now with 60,000+ professional games, all in .sgf format, in the database and a wealth of information in the Encyclopaedia, on one standard computer CD, delivered to your door. The price is $40 for one copy or $50 for one copy and one update in a year’s time. www.gogod.co.uk or contact us at [email protected] 16 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS BURRALL WINS NAIM BOARD AUCTION Longtime go player and organizer Steve Burrall (2nd from left) won a fierce bidding battle in the auction for the board the North American Ing Masters final was played on, bidding a record $650 for the 2-inch thick katsura board donated by Shodan Imports. The money goes to the American Go Foundation, which provides support for youth go education in the United States, including scholarships to the annual go camps. The board was signed by both 2009 NAIM champion Andy Liu 7d and Mingjiu Jiang 7P, as well as Takemiya Masaki 9P. Last year’s auction winner, Andy Okun credited his 5-0 record in this year’s U.S. Open with practicing on his 2008 NAIM board. KISEIDO Go books and Go equipment Newest publications: 300 Life & Death Problems (K61) 300 Tesuji Problems (K62) 300 Joseki Problems (K63) 1-800-988-6463 www.kiseido.com 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 17 Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS Four Color Go at Crazy Go Night photo: John Pinkerton HEARD & SEEN: Too Big To Die? “You can’t kill this group,” Keith Arnold (l) told his opponent in an Ing tournament game, “it’s too big to die.” Said a bystander, “What is it, a bank?” Whose Move Is It, Anyway? “It’s my move.” “No, It’s MY move!” ”No, really, it’s my move.” Argument overheard between two 6-dans at the U.S. Open. It took two TDs two complete recounts of every stone played to determine whose move it really was. It Takes A Village: “The combined age of my last three – three! -opponents was 36 years,” lamented 50-something Debbie Siemon. photo: John Pinkerton REGISTER NOW for the 2010 U.S. Go Congress! July 31 - August 8, 2010 in Colorado Springs, CO www.gocongress.org 8 days of go...tournaments... ...professionals...lectures... ...tours of area attractions & much more! 18 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS Takemiya Masaki 9P (r) joined the fun at the annual Pair Go Tournament; double the concentration on the top board (below) photos by John Pinkerton GO CONGRESS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Congress Director: Todd Heidenreich; Congress Deputy Director: Gary Smith; Registrar: Sam Zimmerman; Deputy Registrar: Lisa Scott; Check-In Registrars: Helga Abramson, Samantha Fede, Minh Huynh, Peter Rogers, Ed Hsu; Treasurer: Ben Bernstein; Deputy Treasurer: Seth Bradley; GMU Liaisons: Gary Smith/Bob Ehrlich; Information Technology: Steve Colburn; Vendor Coordinator/Liaison: Todd Heidenreich; Merchandise Coordinator: Mike Samuel; Congress Handbook: Chris Garlock; Wednesday Tour Coordinators: Gary Smith/Todd Heidenreich; Prizes/Plaques/Awards: Todd Heidenreich / Mike Samuel; Banquet MC: Keith Arnold; Congress Help Desk Team: Carolyn Dyer, Ed Hsu, Minh Huynh, ; Transportation Manager: Todd Heidenreich / Gary Smith; Equipment Manager: Mike Lash; Equipment Team: Francis Larscheid, Neil Bernardo, Minh Huynh, Kuo Tan, Daniel Poore, Juan Pablo Quizon, David Reed; PRO TEAM: Coordinators: Allan Abramson and I-Han Lui; Translators: Neil Bernardo, Sung Chin, Daniel Chou, Matt Luce, I-Han Lui, Akane Negishi, Yoshi Sawada, Shigeru Takehara, Kuo Tan; TOURNAMENT DIRECTORS: Tournament Coordinator: Gary Smith; US Open: Chris Sira/ Jeff Shaevel; North American Ing Masters: Jeff Shaevel; Continuous SelfPaired: Max Peterson, Andrew Jackson; Die Hard: Juan Pablo Quizon/Neil Bernardo; North American Pair Go: Peter Rogers; Redmond Cup: Michael Bull and Paul Barchilon; Women’s Championship: Lisa Scott; Club Team Championship: Hal Small; 9x9: Todd Blatt; 13x13: Kuo Tan; Lightning: Ken Koester; Crazy Go: Terry Benson; EJOURNAL TEAM (see page 22); Youth Room Coordinator: Paul Barchilon; Youth Room Assistants: Shigeru Takehara, John Hogan 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 19 Major 2009 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS PROFESSIONALS Clockwise from below: Maeda Ryo 6P (with translator Yoshi Sawada, l); Yang Shuang 2P (with EJ Editor Chris Garlock, and Matt Luce); Lee Hajin 3P (with Phil Waldron 6D); Yilun Yang 7P; Mingjiu Jiang 7P; Huiren Yang 1P; Feng Yun 9P; James Kerwin 1P; Nakano Yasuhiro 9P; Yoshi, Takemiya Masaki 9P, Guo Juan 5P & Jennie Shen 2P (center photo). photos by John Pinkerton 20 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 Tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS PHOTO ALBUM photos by John Pinkerton & Chris Garlock 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 21 Major 2008 tournaments & Events US GO CONGRESS RECORD EJ TEAM COVERS CONGRESS: A record 39-person EJ team helped cover the 25th annual U.S. Go Congress this year, broadcasting top boards at the U.S. Open and the North American Ing Masters, including simulcasts of live pro commentaries, as well as daily E-Journal reports and a live video feed via EuroGoTV-US. Between the local audience at the Congress and the online audience, viewership surpassed 1,000 for several of the games. Special thanks to the professionals who gave so generously of their insights: Takemiya Masaki 9P, Feng Yun 9P, Nakano Yasuhiro 9P, Myeong-Wan Kim 8P, Sasaki Tadashi 8P, Maeda Ryo 6P, Guo Juan 5P, Lee Haijin 3P, Yang Shuang 2P, James Kerwin 1P, and translators Yoshi Sawada and Richard Dolen. Our core team worked incredible hours and overcame every glitch with aplomb and good humor: Akane Negishi (KGS admin), Steve Colburn (IT support, crosstabs and spirit coordination), John Pinkerton (Team Coordinator/photographer), Chris Burg (recorder, US Open/NAIM), Matt Luce (recorder, US Open/NAIM), Max Peterson (recorder, US Open/NAIM), Solomon Smilack (recorder, US Open/NAIM), Todd Blatt (simulcasts). Paul Barchilon coordinated our youth coverage, Phil Straus did photos and Photoshop magic, and our reporting team included Andrew Jackson, Laura Kolb and Lee Hunyh, while Gurujeet Khalsa handled website updates. Game recorders were: Brady Daniels, Calvin Lee, Daniel Poore, David Weimer, Frank Brown, Gordon Castanza, Huck Bennett, Jim Hlavka, Kenneth Elliott, Lawrence Ku, Matt Bengtson, Stephen Allen, Tom Bahun. Thanks also to Congress Director Todd Heidenreich and his Congress team, who gave the EJ Team their full support. This was an incredible group effort and I cannot thank these folks enough. It was an honor and a real pleasure to work with them. I look forward to doing it again in 2010 in Colorado! - Chris Garlock, Managing Editor; EJ Staff Team photo by Phil Straus. (L-R): Peterson, Daniels, Hunyh, Kolb, Burg, Ku, Lee, Colburn, Allen, Smilack, Garlock, Negishi, Dolen, Weimer, Pinkerton, Poore, Castanza, Straus. 22 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 Tournaments & Events ING MASTERS TOURNAMENT ANDY LIU DEFEATS 3 PROS TO WIN ’09 ING MASTERS Mingjiu Jiang 7P was the third pro to go down to defeat at the hands of Andy Liu 7d as the eighteen-year-old amateur won the 2009 North American Ing Masters tournament. Liu’s 5-point win over Jiang in the exciting final round capped his five-game sweep of the prestigious tournament funded by the Ing Foundation. His other wins were against Feng Yun 9P, Yilun Yang 7P, Eric Lui 7d and Xiao Han Huang 5d. Another record crowd turned out in person and online to watch the NAIM final as legendary go master Takemiya Masaki 9P provided running commentary, with the irrepressible Yoshi Sawada translating. U.S. Go Congress attendees crowded into the main playing hall as the E-Journal team simulcast the Board 1 game – as well as other top boards – to a worldwide audience of almost 700, as well as several hundred on EuroGo-TV-US. Chris Garlock; photo by John Pinkerton 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 23 Major 2009 Tournaments & Events N.A. ING MASTERS TOURNAMENT GAME HIGHLIGHTS: North American Masters Final White: Mingju Jiang 7P Black: Andy Liu 7d Commentary by Takemiya Masaki 9P As a result of winning this game, Andy Liu 7d became the 2009 North American Ing Masters champion. The complete game -- with comments by Takamiya Masaki 9P -- is on the Yearbook CD (2009_08_07 IngRd5Bd1MJiang-ALiu_Takemiya). Who’s Got The Better Position? Do you prefer the black or white position? See below for Takemiya’s analysis. Game Position 1 Overplay or Sharp Attack? Is the marked black move an overplay or a well-timed attack? See below for Takemiya’s view. Game Position 2 Game Position 1 Answer: Black’s position feels better, according to Takemiya. “White is really settled in the corner, but black gets lots of thickness so white feels not that good. ” Game Position 2 Answer: Takemiya liked this move, which simultaneously attacks White’s group on the side and strengthens Black’s group in the lower right. 24 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events NORTH AMERICAN ING MASTERS TOURNAMENT PLAYERS The North American Ing Masters (NAIM), the North American continental championship, matches thirty-two of North America’s strongest amateurs and professionals in a 5-round Swiss tournament to determine a champion. Sponsored by the Ing Foundation, this tournament is run each year at the US Go Congress and is one of North America’s most heavily contested events. Players are in seeded order. 1: Feng, Yun 9P 2: Yang, Yilun 7P 5: Jiang, Ming Jiu 7P 6: Li, Jie 7D 3: Koh, Juyong 7D 4: Chen, ZhaoNian 7D 7: Liu, Andy 8: Yang, Huiren 7D 1P 12: Liang, Jie 13: Zhou, Yuan 14: Gan, Jianing 15: Liu, Xiliang 7D 7D 7D 7D 19: Price, Gus 7D 20: Zhou, Xixiang 6D 21: Chao, Daniel 6D 22: Sedgwick, James 6D 26: Huang, Xiaohan 5D 27: Xu, Yang 6D 28: Lu, Ke 5D 29: Arnold, Keith 5D 9: Ge, Yongfei 7D 16: Liang, Richard 7D 23: Ku, Lawrence 6D 30: Lee, Eric 4D 10: Lui, Eric 7D 17: Kwong, Young 6D 11: Li, Cathy 1P 18: Zhao, Zhongxia 7D 24: Wang, Yinli 6D 25: Lebl, Martin 6D 31: Gourdeau, Daniel 4D 32: Jackson, Andrew 4D 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 25 !)- ),! >GJL@=K=JAGMKKLM<=FL xBGM>KG:MBHG:EG>PL xIE:R>K;BH@K:IAB>L xIKH?>LLBHG:E@:F>L xRHNKHPG=:M:;:L> x:G:ERL>?:<BEBMB>L xM><AGB<:E:KMB<E>L xIKH?>LLBHG:EIKBGM?:<BEBMB>L x:G=EHMLFHK> PPP@HHK@ >GJL@=;MJAGMKF=O:A= xHGEBG>;>@BGG>KL<HNKL> xIKH@K>LL;R>Q>K<BL> xHGEBG><H:<ABG@ xRHNKHPGAHF>I:@> x=:BERIKH;E>F xG>PL?HKG>P;B>L xMBIL?HKBFIKHO>F>GM x:G=EHMLFHK> GOBASE.ORG 26 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP U.S. SLIPS TO 15th IN WORLD AMATEURS U.S. representative Eric Lui 7d placed 15th at the World Amateur Go Championships (WAGC) i Shizuoka, Japan in i early June. in A Admitting that he was d disappointed – this w the first time was t U.S. has finished the o of the top eight out s since 2002 – Lui felt “ didn’t play well “I t first three days. I the p played better (in the f final round), but it wasn’t enough enough.”” Lui said a mi middle-game mistake in the final round against Japan’s Moriei Kanazawa 6d cost him his lead in the game. “You’ve got to take the win when you can,” Lui said. Japan won the game – which was the last to finish, at 6 p.m. – by just 2.5 points. China collected its 17th World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC), when Yu Qing Hu 8d completed his eight-game sweep of the 30th annual tournament. The 27-year-old IT company salesman confessed that he was “relieved that the tournament is over. I was feeling a lot of pressure from the fans in China and I’m very happy not to disappoint them.” Born in Shanghai, Hu learned to play at the age of 7 and said that the most important key to improving is “to really want to get stronger, to have the spirit and desire to improve.” Laurent Heiser 6d of Luxembourg was the highest-placing European, in 7th place, adding a sixth top finish to his WAGC collection. Canadian Juyong Koh 7d placed 10th, while Antii Tormanen of Finland won the Asada Fighting Spirit prize. The 2009 WAGC winners: 1st: Yu Qing Hu 8d (China); 2nd: Shin-Hwan Yoo 7d (Korea); 3rd: Nai San Chan 6d (Hong Kong); 4th: Kang-Ting Yeh 7d (Taipei); 5th: Moriei Kanazawa 6d (Japan); 6th: Jia Cheng Tan 6d (Singapore); 7th: Laurent Heiser 6d (Luxembourg); 8th: Thomas Debarre 5d (France); 9th: Ondrej Silt 6d (Czechia); 10th: Juyong Koh 7d (Canada). - reported by Chris Garlock; RESULTS: http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/amakisen/worldama/30/e/result.html photo by John Pinkerton GAME RECORDS: http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/amakisen/worldama/30/e/kifu.html E-JOURNAL TEAMS UP WITH RANKA A first-ever collaborative effort between the American Go E-Journal and Ranka Online provided extensive coverage of the 2009 World Amateur Go Championship games, with detailed commentaries by Americanborn pro Michael Redmond made possible by the IGF and Ranka. The AGA website http://www.usgo.org was updated throughout each day with photos, reports and game records. Ranka Online http:// ranka.intergofed.org/?p=2190 also provided extensive online coverage. Ranka Managing Editor Ivan Vigano (left), EJ Editor Chris Garlock and Ranka writer Pieter Mioch (right). photo by John Pinkerton Ranka Managing Editor Ivan Vigano (left), EJ Editor Chris Garlock and Ranka writer Pieter Mioch (right). photo by John Pinkerton 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 27 Major 2009 tournaments & Events WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP ON EMOTIONS, PHILOSOPHY AND THE WILL TO WIN You must “put yourself on the board,” yet “not bring your emotions to the board,” fourteen-year-old Matej Zakanj of Croatia said during traditional WAGC opening day press conference with selected players. “For me go has much to do with philosophy,” added China’s Yuging Hu. Asked how to improve, Hu quoted Fujisawa Shuko, who said that “To get stronger at go you must have a strong will to win.” Responding to the same question, Edgardo Caceres Estrada of Guatemala confided that while most of his students had not yet improved that much, “one of them now beats me, and that is enough.” 5 MINUTES WITH: Nicholas Roussos, Cyprus Nicholas Roussos and the Cyprus Go Association is living proof of the power of one. One night at the Rochester Institute of Technology coffee shop in 2002 – where the Cypriot was attending on a Fulbright Scholarship – Empty Sky Go Club member Jeremy Banzhaf (who now lives, works and plays go in Tokyo) invited him to drop by the go club’s meeting later that week. “I wound up staying until nearly midnight,” Roussos said, “I was hooked.” Legendary Rochester go organizer Greg Lefler then encouraged the newbie to attend a club tournament and “things really began to click into place” for Roussos. He returned to Cyprus “with a burning desire to have people to play with” and when the International Go Federation http://www.intergofed.org/ connected him with the sole other go player in Cyprus they knew about, the two began hosting meetings, using the AGA’s “Starting a Go Club From Scratch” http://www.usgo.org/ resources/startclub.html page, “An awesome resource that was a huge help to us,” Roussos says enthusiastically. “Sometimes I was sitting there by myself with my coffee and go book,” but as they taught new players and word spread, the club – which meets in the Oktana café in Nicosia --began to catch on, attracting European tourists who would drop in for a game. In 2003 the Cyprus Go Association http://www.cyprus-go.org/ was formed, in 2005 Cyprus joined the International Go Federation and in 2006 Cyprus began participating in the World Amateur Go Championship. There are now four clubs and about 30 members in the Association, with 15-20 active players, and the CGA holds two tournaments a year. “It’s a game for a lifetime,” Roussos says, “So I don’t worry, even when I get stuck.” 28 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2008 tournaments & Events WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP MICHAEL REDMOND LOOKS AHEAD… AND BACK “Frankly, it came as a bit of a surprise to me,” Michael Redmond 9P said of the flurry of media excitement over the American-born professional go player’s 500th win in April 2009. “I hadn’t really been keeping track and when a photographer showed up at the Nihon Kiin that day, I thought it was for another player.” Just 84 other professionals have achieved this milestone. Redmond, who had celebrated his 46th birthday the week before, told the E-Journal in an interview Wednesday at the WAGC that he’s just now “getting back into pro mode and working on my game” after a year spent developing and delivering a series of lessons for the NHK broadcasting network. He’s been immersing himself in Edo-era games – including the famous Castle Games studying games by his favorite players like Sanchi, the head of the Yasui House. “I really just want to spend a lot of time alone in front of the go board. There are a lot of interesting and high-quality ouses lost their fi financial support ” Redmond games from this period, which is the peak of the era, just before the go houses nancial support,” said. “Since they played without time limits, there was lots of time to study during adjournments, so there was a high level of middle game play and perfect endgames.” So perfect, in fact, that when an error is discovered in a game record from this period, “the first assumption is that it was a recording mistake.” Although the openings from this period are now considered too slow for modern play, Redmond says the strong middle and endgame are helpful because “those have always been my weaknesses.” Of course, he added with a smile, “It would have been ideal to do this kind of study twenty years ago.” Like any pro, he’d studied the games as an insei, “but I’m able to study them far more deeply now.” Redmond, who’s working to get back into the Nihon Kiin’s A League, said that “I think my style is changing to a less direct approach. I’m trying to have more patience, something I lacked in my earlier years. I try to experiment more and I’ve come to realize that experimenting is not a mistake. I play a better game if I let myself go. It was scary at first but now I’m getting used to it.” - reported by Chris Garlock; photo by John Pinkerton 5 MINUTES WITH: Edgardo Caceres Estrada, Guatemala “Go is a wonderful opportunity for creativity and variety,” says Edgardo Caceres Estrada of Guatemala. “It has endless possibilities.” Estrada, a doctor, is also fascinated with languages and has been working on a project involving the dozens of languages spoken by millions of Mayans living in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize. He created this poster of the phrase “Let’s Play Go” in 32 languages. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 29 Major 2009 tournaments & Events WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP WAGC BRIEFS: Congress Tour Group, An Alaskan in Japan, Franco-American Humor, Why to Play in Calcutta, Luxembourg’s Challenge U.S. Go Congress regular Shunichi Hyodo 7d dropped by the WAGC late in the week and reports that despite fears of the swine flu virus, his tour group will return again this year, although it’ll be smaller than in previous years...We bumped into Alaskan Brian Jones at lunch Friday: he founded the now-defunct Fairbanks go club and has been teaching English in Japan for the last two years…Because sixteen-year-old Thomas Debarre’s mother is American, some of the European players jokingly say that “When he loses, he’s American and when he wins, he’s French”…If you’re looking for go in India – where chess is hugely popular thanks to winning several championships – you’re better off in Calcutta, where there are two clubs these days, reports Mandish Singh 1d, India’s WAGC rep. Luxembourg’s Laurent Heiser had an amazing 5-year run at the WAGC from 1989-1993, placing 7th, 6th, 4th, 6th and 4th. Turns out a bet is behind the story. After meeting Imamura Toshiya 9P in Beijing and getting some lessons, Imamura “challenged me to do better the next time,” Heiser said, “so each year I’d arrive in Japan a week or two early and get lessons from Imamura and his friends.” Photo by Chris Garlock lots of Go at www.ymimports.com 30 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2008 Tournaments & Events WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIPS IGF MAKING BIG MOVES IN WORLD GO The International Go Federation elected a new President at its meeting during the 2009 WAGC, expanded the organization’s financial support base and moved ahead on plans to hold the 2010 World Amateur Go Championships in China. China and Korea have agreed to join Japan in financially supporting the IGF, “a major step that bodes well for the Federation and for world go,” IGF Director – and newly-appointed Vice President -- Thomas Hsiang (3rd from r) of the U.S. told the E-Journal. The IGF had a very successful year in 2008, adding the World Mind Sports Games to a roster of major events that now includes the World Amateur Go Championships, the Prime Minister’s Cup, and the Pair Go Championship. The 2010 WAGC will be held in Hangzhou, China, marking only the second time the 30-year event has ever been held outside Japan. While declining sponsorships will prevent the IGF from covering WAGC player airfares in 2010, all other player expenses will continue to be covered. The next WMSG is tentatively scheduled for 2013, with several cities – including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Adelaide and Moscow -- expressing interest in hosting the event. The IGF also announced that for the first time, go will be part of the 2010 Asia Games, an important development as this is an Olympic event. In a related report, Hsiang provided an update on the IGF’s work with the World Anti-Doping Agency, noting that WADA has classified go as a sport with a “low-risk” of doping, which Hsiang says “greatly simplifies testing” issues. In addition to admitting Macau as a member of the IGF, the Iberoamerican Go Federation and the World Pair Go Association were welcomed as members at the IGF meeting, where Nihon Kiin President Hideo Otake was elected to head up the federation, while Russia’s Victor Bogdanov was elected as a new Director, Maria Dolores Puerta was reelected as a Director, and Thomas Hsiang of the U.S. was appointed Vice President. -- reported by Chris Garlock, with special thanks to James Davies for translation/interpretation; photo by John Pinkerton Guo Juan’s Internet Go School Complete training program 30k – 7d Pre-recorded audio lectures for only 1 Euro Group classes & private lessons Study Go in China Workshops www.InternetGoSchool.com 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 31 Major 2009 tournaments & Events WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP GAME HIGHLIGHTS: World Amateur Go Championship White: Viktor Lin 5d, Austria Black: Eric Lui 7d, US Eric Lui 7d was the US representative to the WAGC in 2009. Eric ended up with five wins, placing fifteenth. The complete game with commentary by Michael Redmond 9P is on the Yearbook CD (2009_06_01_WAGC RD 7 US-Austria_Redmond.sgf). Michael Redmond 9P, originally from California, is the first Westerner to achieve the rank of 9P. Should Black Play at A or at B? It is Black’s turn. Should he play at A or at B? See below for Michael Redmond’s view. A B Game Position 1 Should Black Play at A or at B? In the game, Black played at A, but is that better than B? See below for Michael Redmond’s view. A B Game Position 2 Game Position 1 Answer: Extending a fourth time at A, which was Black’s move, is unusual, but not necessarily bad. It is usual in this situation for Black to push and cut starting at B. Game Position 2 Answer: Turning at B is more usual here. The game move at A looks like Black is trying to be fancy. Eric won this game by resignation. 32 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP Thanks to the collaboration between the American Go E-Journal and Ranka Online, the E-Journal published a number of detailed commentaries on WAGC games by American-born pro Michael Redmond, made possible by the IGF and Ranka. All the game commentaries are available on the Yearbook CD; here are a few highlights: U.S.-MEXICO: TOO DEEP? Top Nihon Ki-in professionals Michael Redmond and Wang Lih Chen take a look at the round two match between Mexico’s Emil Garcia Bustamante and Eric Lui of the U.S. The key point comes when Bustamente mishandles Lui’s deep invasion at A... FINLAND-NORWAY: OFF THE RAILS: After a professional-level opening, the 5th-round game between Antti Tormanen 5d of Finland and Norway’s Jostein Flood 4d goes off the rails. Michael Redmond 9P’s commentaryy explains how Flood extends in the wrongg direction, giving p Tormanen a chance to invade, but then the Fin then switches off with an incomprehensible move, which is followed by another directional mistake by Flood...CANADA-ROMANIA: CONJURING KO: The big question is this game is how a guy with no ko threats winds up with five against Mr Koh. After Canada’s Juyong Koh 7d creates a ko for life in Cornel Burzo 6d of Romania’s moyo, Burzo – who chose not to attack the group more severely-- manages to conjure up ko threats out of thin air....ITALY-MEXICO: THREE WEAK GROUPS: W When Cristiano Garbarini 1d of Italy creates three weak groups early in his 6th-round game against Emil Garcia Bustamante 4d of Mexico, it’s no surprise that one of them winds up in trouble...JAPAN-FRANCE: A QUESTION OF TIMING: Sixteen-year-old Thomas Debarre 5d of France misses a chance to attack JJapan’s Moriei Kanazawa 6d in the middle-game of their 6th-round game. Instead, his slack move permits Kanazawa to both reduce Debarre’s moyo and weaken his upperside group...U.S.-AUSTRIA: HOW MUCH IS THAT JOSEKI? The cost of joseki choices quickly becomes clear in the 7th-round game between Austria’s Victor Lin 5d and Eric Lui 7d of the U.S. Though Lin falls behind in the opening, he misses the chance to get back in the game when he plays a series of false ladder-breakers (see disagram above left).... FINLAND-KOREA: FIGHTING SPIRIT: When Shin-Hwan Yoo 7d of Korea looks to coast to an easy win over Finland’s Antii Tormanen, Tormanen generates a sharp double attack (diagram at right) that, even though it comes up short, shows why he won this year’s Asada Fighting Spirit prize. - reported by Chris Garlock 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 33 Major 2009 tournaments & Events WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP 5 MINUTES WITH: Csaba Mero, Hungary “I don’t believe in internet teaching,” Mero Csaba 6d said Friday morning as he sat outside the Kuretake Hotel, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette as he waited for the bus to the WAGC playing area. “Teaching is a face-to-face thing: you must see the eyes of the student.” The former insei is one of the top players in Europe, and certainly in his natïve Hungary where he teaches go. “I prefer spontaneous teaching, though I sometimes also have lesson plans,” Csaba said, smoke wreathing his close-cropped head as he took another sip of coffee. “When you’re doing lectures to people with a wide range of strength, it’s hard to do any real analysis. It’s more like stand-up comedy.” For more E-Journal reports from Japan, see The Go Players Guide To The World, Pages 50-53. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A heartfelt arigato gozaimasu to the 2009 WAGC EJ team, which included photographer John Pinkerton (far right), who always came up with the perfect shot for our reports, Jeremy Banzhaf, Kazunari Furuyama and Michael Simon, who helped with so much more than translation, arranging our visits to the Star Nine School, Shusaku and Sunshine go clubs, as well as Kaz’ impromptu go lessons. As always, Thomas Hsiang’s wise counsel and guidance were invaluable. John and I were incredibly privileged to be welcomed wholeheartedly onto the Ranka Online team: Managing Editor Ivan Vigano (far left) coordinated a huge amount of material from the team with good humor and unflappable equanimity; James Davies (second from left) quietly produces impeccable reports that draw on his tremendous wealth of go knowledge; Pieter Mioch (3rd from right, in back), whose nose for finding go stories – and ability to reproduce game commentaries from memory -- is phenomenal; and finally, Michael Redmond 9P (4th from right, front), whose depth of go knowledge and command of succinct game analysis is matched only by his patience with my endless questions and requests for just one more game commentary. Finally, kudos to the crackerjack tournament team from the Nihon Kiin – especially Ms. Mori and Mr. Hosono of the Overseas Office -- and the International Go Federation’s Yuki Shigeno, without whom this amazing event would be impossible. — Chris Garlock; photo by Jeremy Banzhaf 34 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events WORLD STUDENT OZA & N.A. FUJITSU QUALIFIER JIE LI RUNNER-UP AT WORLD STUDENT OZA U.S. rep Jie Li 7d lost out to Zhao Wei of China to take 2nd place at the World Student Oza, held at Nihon Kiin in Tokyo on March 3rd & 4th. Zhao defeated Li by resignation in the fourth and final round to win the Student Oza 4-0, topping a field of 16 top players. JIE LI FALLS TO HANE NAOKI IN FIRST ROUND OF FUJITSU JIE LI REPEATS AT N.A. FUJITSU Jie Li 7d, representing North America in the 22nd international Fujitsu Cup, was paired against Honinbo Hane Naoki 9P of Japan in the first round on April 11 and after a long battle was forced to resign (see game file on CD). Although Li can legitimately claim to be among strongest players in North America these days, he gets few chances to play against top Asian pros. Hane is definitely one such, having been Japanese Kisei twice, in 2004 and 2005, NHK Cup winner in 2006, and the current Honinbo. Twenty-year-old Kang Dongyun 9P defeated Lee Changho 9P by 2.5 points on July 6th to win the Fujitsu. - Bill Cobb; photo of Li by John Pinkerton Defending champion Jie Li repeated as tournament champion of the North American Fujitsu Championship tournament in November 2009. Over 600 observers tuned in to watch on KGS and Li thrilled kibitzers with an exciting third-round victory over professional 9-dan Feng Yun and a victory in the finals over Eric Lui. AGA 6-dan Daniel Chou played the role of spoiler when he defeated professional Huiren Yang of Boston by a slim half-point margin in the first round. Li will represent North America at the 2010 Fujitsu Cup. - Philip Waldron YEARBOOK CD? Production in ProgressStayed tuned! 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 35 Major 2009 tournaments & Events KOREA PRIME MINISTER CUP LIVE FROM JEONJU By Yuan Zhou 7d The matches at the just-concluded Korea Prime Minister Cup (KPMC) World Go Championship – the 4th annual -- were very exciting, with representatives from 68 nations fighting hard for their countries. I was pleased to finish fifth, the best result yet for the United States in this tournament. Held in Jeonju, Korea, the hometown of famous world champion Lee Changho 9P, the event — which ran October 23-27 — is well organized by the Korean Baduk Association and a special bonus was that Lee Changho himself attended. My only losses were to the Korean representative (on right in photo), who won the championship this year, and the Chinese Taipei representative, a 1-dan professional who was allowed to play because he didn’t officially become a pro until 2010. The match with the Korean representative was a very complicated game, and we were both down to our last byo-yomi period and one time we only had a couple seconds left on our clock. None of my games were easy, and the Europeans I played were all strong and played well. The New Zealand player I defeated in the last round would have placed 4th place if he had won; Canada’s Gangsheng Shi — this year’s Redmond Cup winner — also did well, finishing in 8th place. World Go Championship official final result (top 16 finishers): 1. Korea; 2. China; 3. Chinese Hong Kong; 4. Japan; 5. USA; 6. Singapore; 7. Chinese Taipei; 8. Canada; 9. South Africa; 10. Thailand; 11. Ukraine; 12. New Zealand; 13. Slovenia; 14. Serbia; 15. France; 16. Netherlands. Photo: Yuan Zhou, US (left) and Song Hong-suk, Korea PUBLISHER AND DISTRIBUTOR OF GO BOOKS IN ENGLISH WWW.SLATEANDSHELL.COM 800-653-7640 36 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events COTSEN OPEN JING YANG 7D WINS COTSEN OPEN Jing Yang 7d defeated a hard-charging Curtis Tang 7d to win the 2009 Cotsen Open in Los Angeles September 19-20. Yang – who helped cement the previous week’s Canadian win in the online U.S.Canada Team Tournament (Canada Wins U.S.-Canada Team Tourney 9/14 EJ) -- fended off the 16-year-old Tang in an exciting final-round showdown watched online by hundreds while Jennie Shen 2P provided live commentary. “Curtis was very tough,” said Yang, a computer programmer from Vancouver, who was in town to visit a friend he hadn’t seen in many years and seemed pleasantly surprised to have managed to win the tournament as well. Tang just returned from five years in Shanghai studying Chinese. “I haven’t played go in two years; been too busy studying, it’s so hard!” he told the E-Journal. Tournament founder Eric Cotsen led the record crowd of 165 in a standing and prolonged ovation for longtime teacher Yilun Yang 7P, who, as usual, was on hand for the entire tournament, providing game analyses, life and death problems and a live game online Sunday morning with Wang Runan 8P, the Chair of the Chinese Go Association and formerly one of the top three players in China. “Mr. Yang continues to inspire all of us,” said Cotsen. The Cotsen, one of the top events on the annual go calendar, features $6,500 in prizes – including a unique go club prize -- one of the largest and strongest fields, free lunch both days, refundable registration and – this is LA, after all – roving masseuses. First-place winners in the Open, A, B, and C divisions also received an official certificate from the Korean Baduk Association, courtesy of Myung-Wan Kim. Open winners: 1st: Yang, Jing; 2nd: Hong, Seung Hyun; 3rd: Tang, Curtis; 4th: Ko, Dae Hyuk; 5th: Koh, Juyong; 6th: Sun, Calvin. Cotsen Open sponsor: Eric Cotsen (below, right) ; Organizer: Casie Rizer, assisted by LaNida Cedeno, Patricia Wang & Alex Ledante; TD: Chris Hayashida; KGS support by Akane Negishi; onsite pro: Yilun Yang 7P; live KGS game commentary, Jennie Shen 2P; game recorders: Chris Garlock (Bd 1), Richard Dolen (Bd 2) & Joe Cepiel (Bd 3). - report/photos by Chris Garlock 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 37 Major 2009 tournaments & Events COTSEN OPEN GAME HIGHLIGHT White: Curtis Tang 7d Black: Dae Hyuk Ko 7d Jennie Shen 2P provided live commentary on this third-round game as it was broadcast on KGS; the game was recorded by Chris Garlock. Should Black Play at A or at B? It is Black’ turn. Should he play at A or at B? See below for Jennie Shen’s view. Game Position 1 Should Black Play at A or at B? In the game, Black played at A, but is that better than B? See below for Jennie Shen’s view. Game Position ii 2 Game Position 1 Answer: A (the game move) is a bit conservative; both Shen and MyungWan Kim 8P preferred the more aggressive B Game Position 2 Answer: Shen doesn’t like the game move at A, saying “it looks a little over concentrated to me.” She says the left side is more important’ “Black wants to jump ahead.” 38 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Major 2009 tournaments & Events COTSEN OPEN AH, YOUTH... By Eric Lee went to the Cotsen Open this year and last. Last year, Jang Bi and Dae Hyuk Ko ran wild uncontested, and there wasn’t really much to say about the rest of the field. This year, I think the word on everyone’s mind is YOUTH. Let’s start at the lower end. Jerry Shen. If I recall correctly, he played in either the 1k or 2k sections last year. This year, he played as a 3d and ended up taking second place in the 3-5d division, beating some of the opponents that beat me. I think in this one tournament, his rating and skill level passed me up. I’m pretty annoyed and looking forward to playing him in the same division sometime, but for now I’ll congratulate him. He’s also the under-12 Redmond Cup champion, and has a bright future at his age. Next up, in the 5d division, is Wang Fong-Chain, who I think is around 14 years old, and currently attending Arcadia High School. I had to play him in the first round of the US Open and the Die-Hard. I was beaten pretty easily, and no wonder, since this youngster went on to not only play in the Cotsen 5d section, but win it. Definitely a lot of potential, I think we’ll be seeing him in the youth scene more in the future. After that is, of course, Calvin Sun (r), the 12-year-old 7d youngster that everyone’s heard of, who seems to be making steady progress as he placed 6th this year in the tournament. It doesn’t look like he’s been getting rusty at all, and has been improving steadily, from what I can tell. This year, we saw a not-so-good show from both Cherry Shen and Andrew Lu, the former most likely because of high school pressures as she enters her senior year and has to do college applications soon, and the latter most likely because of what I like to call the ‘Korea effect’ where people go to Korea to study for a short amount of time, return to the US, and lose a bunch of tournament games. I think we’ll see better results from these two in the future. But really, the star of the show this year was Curtis Tang, who was playing in his first major AGA tournament in years, after having gone to China to study for several years. In the first two rounds, Curtis took care of both Andrew Lu and Wang Dong with ease, but everyone watched with bated breath as in Round 3, he faced none other than Dae Hyuk Ko, last year’s second place finisher, one of SoCal’s strongest players, who recently played in the Samsung Prelims and managed a victory over an active Korean 4p. Well, the game (on the Yearbook CD, with commentary by Jennie Shen) speaks for itself: as we reviewed the game at his house, my friend Zhou Yixian (who took 7th), yelled out, “This is SICK!” at the top right feidao* that had us just staring in awe. Curtis is definitely in the top class of players in the AGA, in my opinion. I’m looking forward to how he does in next year’s Jujo Cup in January, and in the US Open/ING next Congress. Our youth players aren’t too shabby. Makes me want to get stronger. I - This is an edited version of a post by Lee (“Violence”) that originally appeared on GoDiscussions.com photo by Chris Garlock * a Chinese word meaning flying dagger. “It’s like a trick play,” Lee says, “but it’s more like a prepared trap, where even the correct punishment still yields an even or close to even result; like someone throwing a dagger at you, if you were to dodge, you don’t gain that big of an advantage, but if you get stabbed, you’re in trouble.” 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 39 Major 2009 tournaments & Events JUJO JIANG GO TOURNAMENT MINGJIU JIANG RECAPTURES JUJO CUP Mingjiu Jiang 7P recaptured the Jujo Jiang Go Tournament title January 3-4 in San Francisco, CA. The tournament is named after Jiang’s brother, Jujo, the 9-dan professional who flew in from Korea to attend, bringing an entourage of strong Chinese amateurs from Shanghai. Seventysix players participated in the seventeenth edition of the event, held in the Hilton Hotel’s grand ballroom and supported by the ING Goe Foundation and the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco. To retake the title, Jiang’s defeated opponents included 2008 champion and runner-up Joey Hung 8d and Lu Wang 8d, who upset Jujo Jiang in Round 3. Reid Augustin and Ernest Brown directed. 40 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Photo: Round 4 Wang Lu (far l) vs Mingjiu Jiang (far r) and Jujo Jiang (near l) vs Joey Hung (near r) - Lawrence Ku, EJ West Coast Reporter Major 2009 tournaments & Events NEW JERSEY & MARYLAND OPENS ANDY LIU WINS NJ OPEN Andy Liu 7D (l) swept all five rounds -- defeating Eric Lui 7d by half a point in an exciting final round watched by over 450 on KGS -- to win the New Jersey Championship at the New Jersey Open in Princeton, NJ. 113 players – including contingents from the Feng Yun Go School and Stony Brook University -- turned out for the 50th annual event, held February 28-March 1, with nearly 50 joining or renewing their AGA memberships. - report/photo by Chris Garlock; KGS broadcasting by EJ game recorder John Pinkerton DANIEL CHOU WINS MARYLAND OPEN GoGameWorld.com presents professional go games, commented by various professionals, including top-notch Chinese professionals such as Chang Hao 9P, Ma Xiaochun 9P and Wang Lei 8P. Some games are commented by players themselves, who tell you what they are thinking while making some particular moves, explaining whether this is a good or bad move and what the winning/losing move of the game is. These in-depth comments are so valuable, whether you are a serious player or Go fan -- whatever your playing level -- we are confident that you will enjoy the professional commentary and improve your Go skills as well. Daniel Chou 7d won the 36th Maryland Open, held May 23-24 in Baltimore, MD. Chou led a field of 55 players, the “lowest turnout in a decade,” reports organizer Keith Arnold. Stephen Tung 1k was the Kyu Champion, Blair Chisholm 7k won the Fighting Spirit Prize Rochester’s Empty Sky Go Club won the Greg Lefler Award, and Sam Zimmerman was the TD. GoGameWorld.com debuted in October 2002. So far we already have more than 2200 professional commented games in the collection plus over 300 new commented games per year. GoGameWorld membership fee is just $30 for a year! As a member, you can view our commented games online or download commented games in SGF format and replay them in your favorite SGF editors. Besides commented games, GoGameWorld.com also hosts personal profiles for almost all active professional players and all worldwide tournament titles/ statistics, free for all visitors. Come visit us at http://www.gogameworld.com and become a member for just $30 per year! If you have any questions, please drop us an email at [email protected]. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 41 Instruction QUESTIONS FROM ACTUAL PLAY By Haruyama Isamu 9P Translated by Robert McGuigan With the permission of the Nihon Kiin, Robert McGuigan has been translating a series of studies from a book by Haruyama Isamu 9P, the author of Basic Techniques of Go, called 80 Questions for Geting Strong at Real Play. These run as occasional attachments to the E-Journal. This is an abridgement of 2009_07_13_Haruyama48.pdf on the Yearbook CD. Question Diagram: Black pushed with 1 and 3 in Diagram 1, and I expected the moves through White 10. I thought this would be really good for Black. In fact White made the diagonal jump to 4 in Diagram 2. What is a good way for Black to respond to this move? Answer: Essentially, White is suffering. Just about any way Black plays will lead to a good result. Explanation: In this shape naturally White would be suffering. Instead of making a hanging connection at A or a shoulder hit at B in Diagram 2, White has played elsewhere. After the slide to White 4 in Diagram 2, there are many courses of action for Black that lead to good results. 1 A 5 B 2 4 3 9 8 7 6 10 4 2 5 3 1 Diagram 1 4 A 2 B 3 1 Diagram 2 Diagram 3: If this were an even game, rather than push on top my feeling is Black should squeeze White from below with Black 1 here. This is good for Black. After White 2 and 4, Black cuts with 5. Now if White gives atari at A, Black plays at B. Diagram 3 Diagram 4: Now, what are we to make of White’s slide to 4 in Question Diagram 2? With the diagonal extension of Black 1 here and the moves following through White 6, Black captures two stones. This is the most common response. Even though White’s attachment at A remains, this result is good for Black. 3 2 5 1 4 6 Diagram 5 42 Diagram 5: After Black 1, White will probably jump down with 2. Black shows spirit with the cut at 3, and White 4 and 6 gets his head out. This was White’s aim in playing 2. However, even though White gets out he has no base for his group. Furthermore, Black gets a thick shape with the moves through Black 5. This is good for Black. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Instruction IMPORTANT, FUNDAMENTAL MATTERS By Kazunari Furuyama Kazunari Furuyama is a former insei and popular go teacher in Japan. He writes a series of lessons that run as occasional attachments to the E-Journal. This is an abridgement of #2009.03.23_kaz#18 on the Yearbook CD. Common Amateur Mistake 38 1 3 2 3 5 Diagram 1: White 2 is a common small mistake. It could be good in a different situation. Diagram 2: Black 3 is a common moderate mistake. It doesn’t affect any of the white stones. 5 4 Diagram 3: White 4 and Black 5 are also common mistakes. 4 3 5 Diagram 4: If Black wants to aim at the marked stones, he should push at 5 as a leaning attack. Diagram 5: If Black wants to aim at Diagram 6: After Diagram 2, the marked stone, he should push at White 4 is the correct shape. 5 as a leaning attack. 4 3 3 2 8 7 5 6 Diagram 7: This is the followup. Because the marked stones are strong, White 8 is possible. Diagram 8: White 4 is a common moderate mistake. It doesn’t affect any of the white stones. Diagram 9: After Diagram 1, Black should push at 3 so his stones are stronger than in Diagram 2. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 43 Instruction ON AMATEUR KYU GAMES By Yuan Zhou 7d White: Anonymous 4k Black: Anonymous 4k Yuan Zhou 7d regularly does game commentaries for the E-Journal on both kyu and dan amateur games. This is a game between anonymous 4ks. The complete game with commentary by Yuan Zhou 7d is on the Yearbook CD (2009_03_30_anonymous4ks_yuanzhou. Is Black 19 a Good or a Bad Move? See below for Yuan Zhou’s view. 19 Game Position 1 Should Black Play at A or at B and Why? A In the game, Black played at A, but is that better than B? See below for Yuan Zhou’s view. B Game Position 2 Game Position 1 Answer: Black 19 is a very slow move. There is no danger for Black here. If White extends to 19, Black can hane. It is very important for Black to play 19 on the mid-right-side star point. Game Position 2 Answer: Black should play at B because it is bigger than A—four points in sente. 44 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Instruction PRO COMMENTARY By Alexander Dinerchtein 3P White: Piao Wenyao 5P Black: Gu Li 9P Alexander Dinerchtein 3P, who is a Russian pro, presents commentaries on both pro and amateur games on his web site Go4Go.net. His commentaries also appear occasionally in the E-Journal. This one is the final of the 4th International Toyota-Denso World Oza on January 6, 2009. The complete game with commentary by Alexander Dinerchtein 3P is on the Yearbook CD (2009_01_26_qu-piao_dinerchtein.sgf). Should White Play at A or at B? It is White’s turn. Should he descend at A or attach at B? See below for Dinerchtein’s answer. B A Game Position 1 Who Wins? One player resigned at this point in the game. Was it White or Black? What is the difference in the scores of the two players? See below for Dinerchtein’s answer. Game Position 2 Game Position 1 Answer: White chose to descend at A, allowing Black to get B. It would be better for White to play at B. Game Position 2 Answer: White resigned here. If my count is correct, White is behind by 5-6 points. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 45 Instruction LIFE & DEATH (TSUME-GO) PUZZLES By Yilun Yang 7P Life and death (tsume-go) puzzles by Yilun Yang 7P were a regular feature of the E-Journal in 2009. Here we show some example problems. You’ll find the solutions on page 76. Hard Puzzle from 2009_03_02 What is the best way to attack White’s corner? Easy Puzzle from 2009_02_02 What is Black’s best defense? Easy Puzzle from 2009_05_11 How should Black attack the corner? Hard Puzzle from 2009_10_12 Black must do something with his two inside stones. Easy Puzzle from 2009_07_06 How should Black attack the corner? 46 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Hard Puzzle from 2009_11_16 Any chance for the black group? Instruction COMMENTARIES FROM GO WORLD 32nd Kisei Title Match, Game 5 White: Yamashita Keigo 9P Black: Cho Chikun 9P This commentary by Imamura Toshiya 9P was published in the Autumn 2008 issue of Go World, #116, and published in the E-Journal by permission. The complete game with commentary is on the Yearbook CD (2009_03_30_Kisei_yamashita-ch0_goworld116.sgf). Is White 12 a Good Move? What Is Its Purpose? White has just invaded with 12. What is White aiming for? See below for Imamura’s analysis. 12 11 Game Position 1 How Do You Judge the Overall Situation? Is One Player Ahead? White has just played the marked stone in the lower left corner. How do you judge the balance in the game? Is it even or does one player have the advantage? See below for Imamura’s view. Game Position 2 Game Position 1 Answer: The aim of White 12 is to take sente. White is worried that if he simply plays an extension on the right side, Black will switch elsewhere. By sacrificing 12, White gets to play first in the top right corner. Game Position 2 Answer: White’s marked stone starts the large endgame, but Black has the lead and White doesn’t seem to have any chance of staging an upset. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 47 PRESIDENT’S REPORT BARACK OBAMA ‘S AMERICAN-MADE GO BOARD THE GAME OF DIPLOMACY GETS A NEW BOARD IN OBAMA GIFT TO HU in the United States. The board was handmade of Hawaiian koa, selected and crafted by North Carolina master carpenter Frank Salantrie – a 3-dan go player and longtime member of the American Go Association -and has the presidential seal engraved on the back, along with President Obama’s signature. The jade weiqi stones included in the President’s gift were donated by professional go player Feng Yun, the former a member of the China National Weiqi (go) Team, who is now a United States citizen. The stones were presented to her many years ago in recognition of her contributions to the team in China, and she said she was “honored to give them to the President to present to President Hu and the Chinese people as an expression of continuing friendship between the United States and China.” Feng Yun is a former women’s world champion, one of only three women ever to be awarded a 9 dan title, the highest rank in professional weiqi. Feng Yun teaches weiqi in the United States to players of all ages, and in the summer takes American players to China to study together with Chinese students. Feng Yun currently resides with her husband and two children in Bridgewater, New Jersey. The bowls containing the stones were made by a West Coast glass blower who is a favorite of the Obama family. - Chris Garlock; photos by Peter Armenia When U.S. President Barack Obama met with Chinese premier Hu Jintao in last November, he presented Hu with a go set that included an American-made go board and a set of Chinese jade stones contained in glass bowls from the West Coast of the United States. Beyond the simple political symbolism of an ancient asian game seamlessly melding Chinese and American craftsmanship, the choice of a go set – rather than, say, a Chinese chess set – gently raises timely geopolitical issues. “Perhaps this gift expresses the president’s respect for China’s long history,” suggests American Go Association President Allan Abramson. “And that the traditional Western competitive model has room for the cooperation and balance so prized in go and China.” Whatever the political, diplomatic and economic ramifications, the gift set the world go community abuzz as word spread. Invented in China over 2,500 years ago, go is the world’s oldest continually-played board game, played by nearly 30 million worldwide. Considered one of a handful of classic board games – along with chess and checkers – go was included in the first-ever World Mind Sports Games in Beijing in 2008, and the high-profile presentation of a go set by an American President was seen as a watershed moment in the history of the game SLATE & SHELL SUPPORTS TEACHING PROGRAMS AND CHAPTER ACTIVITIES WWW.SLATEANDSHELL.COM 48 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK For more information contact [email protected] PRESIDENT’S REPORT INTERVIEW WITH ALLAN ABRAMSON “A LIFETIME PASTIME” American Go Association President Allan Abramson is a man on a mission. “I want to see our membership double and redouble, to 10,000 members,” Abramson told the E-Journal in an interview. “That’s what we need to gain critical mass and build our financial base and network of volunteers.” Abramson, appointed in 2008 by the AGA Board of Directors to succeed Mike Lash, is a longtime local club organizer in Northern Virginia who’s served on the Board, including a stint as Chair. A former chess devotee, Abramson rose to the International Master level before retiring from the game in his early 20’s, when “I had to choose between turning pro or giving it up.” He’s been playing go for 35 years, learning from a colleague in San Diego and then getting serious about the game at the legendary San Francisco Go Club. “At first I didn’t think that go would compare with chess, but I soon realized that it was even more complex, and I found myself attracted to the game’s focus on harmonious balance.” After retiring from the Environmental Protection Agency after a 34year career, Abramson has been able to devote more time to hobbies like gardening and go, though the 3-dan says that “These days it’s hardly any study and mostly organizational work for the AGA.” Although AGA membership has actually dropped in recent months – down over 200 members from a record high of 2,440 last May – Abramson says “I have a long perspective,” noting that the organization’s 75th anniversary is coming up in 2010. Although go has become more widely-known in recent years, “We have a long way to go in terms of fitting into American culture the way chess and bridge have,” he says, pointing out the game’s appearance in a Domino’s TV ad (though he says the ad sends the wrong message). He also points out that this year’s U.S. Go Congress – scheduled for August 1-9 at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus – will be the historic 25th and says he expects record turnout, with nearly 100 players from Japan, Korea and China already expected to join pros and hundreds of U.S. players. Abramson, a former youth soccer coach, likens go to soccer, “which everyone once said would never catch on in America; now hundreds of thousands of kids play it across the country.” He says that the explosion of youth go in the United States is a very hopeful sign for the future of the game in America, as is the growth of E-Journal readership, and adds that go “sells itself; Americans are games players by nature and once people start playing they’re generally hooked for life. I like the slogan ‘A lifetime pastime’.” - interview/photo by Chris Garlock WHERE’S THE YEARBOOK CD? Due to technical and production issues, the Yearbook CD was not completed in time to be included in the year’s Yearbook. Watch the E-Journal for updates on when the CD will be available. We apologize for any inconvenience. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 49 The Go Players Guide to the World TOKYO The Star Nine Go School By Chris Garlock In a small house on a hill in the Tokyo suburb of Tsunashima two young boys sit motionless. Outside, the warm May afternoon beckons, but they are oblivious. They are students at Isamu Takekiyo 4P’s Star Nine go school http://starnine.homepage.jp/ , where 20 youngsters aged 7-15 study go. While some hope to eventually turn pro, many do not, and are just there to learn the game, “and get some mental training,” teacher Kazumori Nagayo told me during a visit to the school in May. Nagayo, attired in the standard black Japanese suit, looked on as his students intently played visitors, including our guide Michael Simon 5d and his friends Toshiya Yatagawa and Kenji Murakawa, who are members of Simon’s “go mame” group of go buddies. The school was founded in 2006 and has attracted a cross-section of youngsters, some brought in by Hikaru No Go and some who’d been introduced to the game by a family member, usually a father or grandfather who plays. The young go players attend the school several times a week - except for the senior student, an 18-yearold who lives in the house - studying a combination of 50 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK pro games and problems. Intensity of study is the only distinction between the possible pros and those destined for a lifetime of amateur play. Admission to the school “is not about strong or weak,” Nagayo says, “but about spirit and whether they can concentrate.” There are over 500 schools like this across Japan, he estimates, many participating in interschool tournaments. “I would like to be a pro, if possible,” says 11-year-old Inoue Harunori, a shy but self-possessed 3-dan. “But who knows? We will see.” Ten-yearold Imai Mikio 4k says “I’d like to be 6-dan,” but his eyes really light up when he talks about his baseball video games and playing soccer. Outside the house on the hill, crows caw and wheel in the blue sky, oranges hang heavy from a tree out back and an inviting spring breeze rustles through the bamboo and tugs at the curtains. But the boys have returned to the gobans and all is still except the click of stones on the boards. - Garlock was in Japan to cover the 30th World Amateur Go Championships. Photos by John Pinkerton. Thanks to Michael Simon for translation assistance. The Go Players Guide to the World TOKYO The Shusaku Go Club By Chris Garlock It’s hard to imagine where else you’d find a 24-hour go club besides Tokyo, the city that never sleeps. “We’ve had people collapse and have to be carried away after 48 straight hours of playing,” says Aoto Kuwahara, owner of the legendary Shusaku Go Club. “They just keeled right over at the board.” Kuwahara started the club in 1982 when his good friend Fujisawa Shuko 9P said Kuwahara could use his name to promote the club, which quickly became a popular hangout for professionals. Perhaps not surprisingly for a go club linked to a notoriously alcoholic go player, the club became famous for hard-drinking go playing, as well as for gambling. Go proverbs rendered in Shuko’s famous calligraphy hang in both of the rooms of the club, on the 5th floor of a building five minutes from the Shinjuku train station in central Tokyo. Like Bogart’s Rick’s Café in Casablanca, everybody comes to the Shusaku, in the heart of the fabled Shinjuku district, home of the Golden Gai warren of tiny drinking establishments where generations of writers and artists have gathered. “Professionals, politicians, bums, transvestites; everyone’s equal here,” Kuwahara says. Go stones litter the floor beneath go boards patinaed with thirty years of play and smoke, a thin haze of which pervades the club, yellowed with timelessness. But winds of change are stirring at the Shusaku. Membership is down f h h off 60 in the h club’s l b heyday, h d and d to just 26, from a high the club now offers an extensive food menu as well as regular visits by a fortune-teller in an effort to bring in more paying customers. There are now just a few dozen go clubs left in Tokyo, Kuwahara says, down from more than 200. The Hikaru No Go surge of interest peaked several years ago, although with the series set to air again soon, there are hopes it’ll spark another wave. Kuwahara learned the game well over half a century ago, when a old man, perhaps hoping to distract a young boy from the horrors of war, taught him as the Japanese retreated from China. “You can play go your whole life,” Kuwahara said, pipe smoke wreathing his head and glowing in his grey hair and moustache. “Go keeps you from going senile,” and, chimes in his daughter, Kyoko Bohno, who’s been serving a steady stream of small cups of green tea and coffee, along with bottles of beer, “the more you drink the stronger you get.” The Shusaku Go Club is located at Tokyo Shinjuku-ku Kabukicho 1-24-2; telephone 03-3232-8755. - Photos by John Pinkerton. Thanks to Kaz Furuyama and Jeremy Banzhaf for translation assistance. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 51 The Go Players Guide to the World TOKYO The Sunshine Go Club By Chris Garlock If the Sunshine Go Club has none of the disreputable charm of classic smoky go dives like the Shusaku, it does have at least one thing those clubs increasingly lack: members. Over 450 belong to the club, located on the 9th floor of the Sunshine Building in Tokyo’s east Ikebukuro neighborhood. Once the site of the infamous Sugamo Prison, the Sunshine Building now draws throngs of shoppers and tourists to its indoor mall and other attractions like Namjatown, a rooftop aquarium, shops, a food court, and weekly displays of foods and goods from around Japan and the world. Flooded with natural light from a wall of windows overlooking the complex of buildings owned and managed by the Sunshine real estate company, the club has been open a dozen years and manager Seizo Nakazono 8d credits low membership fees, a non-smoking policy and regular lessons with pros and top amateurs as top draws for the healthy membership. Nakazono is a former insei 52 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK who didn’t make pro and went to work for Sunshine, which eventually asked him to open and manage the club as part of their range of cultural attractions in the complex. He’s proud that the club is home for an unusual number of female and young players, as well as foreigners, which has helped to mitigate the drop-off in membership and attendance many clubs in Japan have seen as the overall population of go players has declined in recent years. Fridays and Saturdays are especially busy at the club, as local university players come to train, and pros give regular lessons. Precise and serious in his immaculate suit, Nakazono is quietly passionate about the game. “It’s fine to play go as a hobby,” he told me Sunday. “But if you want to get strong it must be more than just playing for fun.” After quitting playing for five years after his insei training ended, Nakazono returned to amateur play and won a number of top Japanese amateur titles, including the amateur Meijin and Honinbo, and placed 5th in the 2004 WAGC. “To climb Mount Fuji you must go at your own pace,” he told me Sunday. “If you try to run up the mountain, you’re only going to get in trouble.” - Photos by John Pinkerton. Thanks to Kazunari Furuyama and Jeremy Banzhaf for translation assistance. The Go Players Guide to the World JAPAN Pilgrimage to Honinbo Shuwa By Chris Garlock After the conclusion of the 30th World Amateur Go Championships in Shizuoka, Japan, EJ photog John Pinkerton, translator Jeremy Banzhaf and I boarded a shinkansen, or bullet train, for the first leg of a threeand-a-half hour pilgrimage to the birthplace of the legendary Honinbo Shuwa (1820-1873), the fourteenth head of the Honinbo house and the pre-eminent player of the day. In Mishima, we switched to a local train that rumbled through countryside dotted with vegetable gardens, rice paddies, and tea fields to the hot spring resort town of Shuzenji, on the Izu Peninsula. There, we boarded a bus that wound its way up into the Toi mountains, the narrow two-lane road twisting and turning like an eyeless group as we rose into the clouds and the mountainsides fell away hundreds of feet into bottomless ravines lined with towering stands of bamboo. Descending into the seaside town of Toi, we passed an old gold mine and as the road rose again the bus dropped us outside the Saifukuji temple. Just off the road, we found the monument to Shuwa, an oversized goban carved from stone with a huge marker rising from the board, on which a game position was laid out in stones carved from marble. Highlights of Shuwa’s illustrious career were etched into nearby marble marker. Cars whispered by on the road below, a mountain stream burbled nearby and cool salty ocean breezes rustled in the trees. Up the lane we met the temple’s head monk, Tomosumi Hirosawa, who delayed his noon appointment to give us a quick tour. Next to the temple, a small museum houses a collection of artifacts of local history and native sons, including Shuwa and Fuji Film founder Osaguchi Miyakichi. Though Shuwa’s ashes are at the HonmyoJi Temple in Tokyo’s Sugamo neigborhood and his board and stones are at the Nihon Kiin, his spirit and memory are kept alive here where he was born. Shuwa’s stern visage gazes down at the Edo-era board and problem books, seeming to silently reproach me for not studying enough. When Hirosawa can no longer keep his guests waiting, he urges us to “please try hard at go,” and turns us over to an assistant, who shows us Shuwa’s ancestral home. The modest house is next door to the temple and when major tournaments are held in the area, the professionals come to pay their respects, although the house is now uninhabited and slowly returning to nature. The shinto gate at the front of the house is long gone, and the yard and stairs in front of the house are overgrown with weeds, but in a small pool beneath an ancient palm, koi still lazily swish their golden fins in murky water dark with last year’s fallen leaves. A bird cries in the distance and unripe plums crunch underfoot as we walk where the master once strolled, perhaps with his most famous student, Shusaku, whose birthplace in Innoshima I visited seven years ago on my first visit to Japan. After winding our way back through the mountains, we stop in at the Hakoyu onsen in Mishima for one last hot soak before heading to Narita Airport and home. The famous spas have been around for hundreds of years and, immersed in the volcanically-heated water, we consider the possibility that Shuwa himself stopped by for a contemplative soak. Like so many things in go – and life -- it’s possible. - Photos by John Pinkerton. This is an edited version of the original report, which can be found on the Yearbook CD; pphotos by John Pinkerton. Thanks to Jeremy Banzhaf for travel coordination and translation assistance. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 53 The Go Players Guide to the World SPAIN Go In Madrid & Barcelona By Todd Blatt In Spain on a pleasure trip with my friend Colleen, I stopped by the Madrid go club on a Friday evening. I knew the club was in Plaza de España, but didn’t remember exactly where in the plaza it was, so I ducked into an internet cafe and looked up the address from the Madrid Club mailing list and found the club on Google Streetview. After locating the place, and listening for stones clicking, I found the room. Minutes later, I was sitting with a couple dozen players on the 3rd floor of what seemed to be a restaurant that was closed for the evening. Since I arrived so late, I didn’t get to play, but I met a few people, including a Mr. Mikami, a former insei in Japan. He’s been in Spain for 35 years and is very strong. The Madrid club ends at 10pm, just in 54 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK time for dinner, and we went to a Chinese place. The way the meal worked was that everyone made suggestions, and people voted on what the table wanted. We sat around telling silly jokes, most of which didn’t work in English, but a few of the people spoke English very well and translated for me. The club members were generous enough to treat their visitor to the meal and after dinner, around 1 or 2 am, we headed over to a local bar and hung out there pretty late. Madrid bars close at 4am, and clubs close at 6am. I spent the next few days in Madrid, and Tuesday night, we flew to Barcelona. The main Barcelona go club meets on Tuesday nights, so I missed it, but Fridays and Saturdays other members meet informally at a different restaurant and hang out and eat. I went to this club from 10-12 Friday night, and after that, met up with my friends at the beach. The 10-day trip was amazing, and I can’t wait to go back. - Blatt runs the University of Maryland Go Club Youth U.S. YOUTH GO CHAMPIONSHIP SUN SHINES IN US YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIP The senior division of the US Youth Go Championship went down to the wire in early June, with the top three players competing in a playoff series to decide the national champion and US representative to the World Youth Goe Championship. In the first-round game, Chicago native William Zhou lost to Ricky Zhao of New Jersey, who proceeded to face Calvin Sun in the championship game. After a tense and well-fought game, the game count showed Calvin Sun to have won the game by a single point. - Phil Waldron US YOUTH PLACE 5TH AT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Twelve-year-old Calvin Sun 7d and 11-year-old Andrew Lu 6d both placed fifth in their divisions at the 26th World Youth Go Championship (WYGC) held in midAugust in Changzhi, China, and sponsored by the Ing Foundation. “It was the most exciting WYGC I’ve been to, far beyond what I expected,” Sun told the E-Journal. Competing nations included the US, Canada, Ukraine, China, Japan, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, Russia, France, Singapore, and Israel. The Senior Division is for youth aged 12-17 and the Junior for 11 and under. “My first game was against Korea,” Sun reports, “the Korean player was not paying attention and smacked down stones a second or two right after I played. Soon, he made a huge mistake and I was leading by about twentyfive points. I guess I was a little too cautious in the second half of the game and I ended up losing by seven points. The second round, on Day 2, was against Japan. Our go strengths were about equal and it was a really tough game but I made some small mistakes during yose and lost by three points. That afternoon, I played Thailand’s rep, the weakest player in the senior division, who was white and played tengen on his first move. It was an easy win for me. “The third day, a day to relax, the whole group of competitors -- along with referees, translators, and family members -went on a trip to a scenic mountain. After a completely tiring hike, we went back to the hotel for a fun partynight. Round four the next day was against Thomas Debarre, who has represented France for the past three years. I was losing in territory so I decided to kill a dragon and won by resignation although he had some chances to turn the tables in what was a really interesting game. My fifth round was against Singapore who also had two wins and two losses. He had beaten Chinese Taipei in the second round; Taipei defeated Japan and Japan beat me, so I was a bit nervous. I was losing in territory but he slacked off when he was leading and I found my chance and killed two groups, causing him to resign. On the fifth day the semi-finals were held, as well as a lecture about the top game in the senior division played by China and Korea. The lecture was presented by Nie Weiping’s son Kong Ning Wen and a Chinese pro, Mrs. Chen. It was an interesting battle with a forty point exchange flying across the board. The final result was still close, with China winning by just one point. -Paul Barchilon with Calvin Sun; photo: Calvin Sun (r) vs. Lou Yuxiang (l) at the WYGC, Andrew Lu (Junior Representative) can be seen in the rear at left. Photo courtesy Calvin Sun 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 55 The Company "Het Paard" is founded more than 20 years ago. The owners, Marianne Diederen and Peter Zandveld are both go players. "Go"is the main part of the business. Though the our company is small by all measures, we are the largest go traders outside Asia. The shop We run a general games store specializing in mind games and puzzles. Our go department is Europe's most extensive. You will find almost all English language go books in print, and also a good selection of Korean Books. Worth a visit when you are in Amsterdam. World wide cooperation in publishing and distributing go books At the moment we import go books from Kiseido, Yutopian, Good Move Press, Slate and Shell, Hinoki, Oromedia to the Netherlands and ship them to almost all European countries. Additional to that we have joint ventures with Kiseido and Oromedia for the publication of books. 56 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Youth JUJO YOUTH TOURNAMENT MATTHEW BURRALL WINS JUJO YOUTH TOURNEY Matthew Burrall 7d (l) won the 13th Jujo Jiang Youth Tournament, held March 29 in Sunnyvale, CA. Burrall won all his games, including a close match against Hugh Zhang, to capture the championship title and top a field of 88 youth players from all over the Bay area, and from as far away as Davis. Youth players ranging from 7d to 30k -- and even some beginners playing on 13x13 boards -- competed at the Chinese Cultural Center in Sunnyvale. Mingjiu Jiang 7P and Reid Augustin 5d directed. - reported by Lawrence Ku; photo by Ernest Brown. For complete Winners Report, see the Scoreboard section of the Yearbook CD. Zhang 3-Peats At Ing Youth Cup Hugh Zhang 6D captured the ING Cup Youth Goe Tournament for the third consecutive year, winning all four of his games November 8. The 12th annual ING Youth attracted over 100 youth players, with more than 70 in the 19x19 section and over 30 in the 13x13 section at the Chinese Cultural Center in Sunnyvale, CA. Mingjiu Jiang and Reid Augustin directed the tournament. - Lawrence Ku 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 57 Youth TRANSATLANTIC MATCH/NJ USYGC NORTH AMERICA PREVAILS IN TRANSATLANTIC YOUTH MATCH: Over 800 online spectators turned out April 19 to watch the inaugural TransAtlantic Youth Match http://www. usgo.org/tournaments/TransAtlanticYouth/, which brought together twenty players from nine different countries for an online friendship tournament between North America and Europe. Notable results included three-time Junior Redmond Cup champion Calvin Sun’s victory over European Youth Champion Ali Jabarin in the morning session (see attached game record), in contrast to the afternoon session where French strongman Thomas Debarre dispatched Senior Redmond Cup champion Gansheng Shi. By the end of the series Team North America secured enough games to earn a 6-4 victory and congratulations from EGF organizer Ales Cieply, who expressed optimism for the future: “We hope there will be more interaction between North American and European players.” 18 year-old AGA youth organizer – and EJ reporter -- Lawrence Ku conceived of the event as a way of making new go friends: “I have always wanted to get to know European players better, but as I was unable to attend the European Go Congress in the past few years. I thought that the best way to meet other young players was through a friendship match online.” - Philip Waldron ZHAO AND SONG TOP NJ USYGC Zhongxia (Ricky) Zhao 7d, and Forest Song 2d took first place in their divisions at the United States Youth Go Championship (USYGC) in New Jersey. Both boys had perfect records, despite a strong playing field of high dan kids. The qualifier was held at the Feng Yun Go School, in Piscataway, NJ, on April 11, and drew 27 kids. “The tournament was great, although four rounds in one day was a bit tiring” Zhao told the E-Journal. “Feng Yun kindly took the time to review my last game with Michael Huang, so I had an opportunity to learn as well,” he adds. A novice tournament with 16 players was held after the junior division tournament concluded in mid-afternoon. Paul Matthews was the tournament director for both events. 58 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK - Paul Barchilon; photo: top boards in the Senior Division at the Feng Yun Go School. Foreground: Michael Huang (l) versus Zhao Zhongxia (r); background: Xu Yang Xu (l) versus Jasmine Yan (r). Photo by Paul Matthews. youth TEACHER OF THE YEAR FRYE NAMED TEACHER OF THE YEAR The American Go Foundation (AGF) named Florida middle school teacher Joshua Frye 2009 Teacher of the Year. Frye teaches mathematics at Lexington Middle School in Fort Myers, and has been introducing go to kids since 2002. He began with an after-school program, and also teaches go as part of his math classes. “Go has become such a passion for many of our students that Mr. Frye was asked to teach it as an elective in our school,” writes Assistant Principal Cherie Allison; “he has four fulltime classes of students that are learning the fundamentals and the history of the game of go. We are an International Baccalaureate (IB) application school and go has fit in perfectly with our global curriculum.” Frye received 11 nominations for the Teacher of the Year award, from students, parents, administrators, and fellow teachers. The prize is an all-expenses paid trip to the Go Congress, courtesy of the AGF. “If you were to visit our school, you would find students carrying go boards in their backpacks- just waiting for a chance to play,” says Katie Riemenschneider, IB Coordinator at Lexington Middle. “He has a waiting list to get into his classes, and he teaches hundreds of students each year how to play go. The students are infected with his enthusiasm for math, go, and cultural knowledge,” she adds. “Mr. Frye is teaching our kids to think rather than just react,” writes “Proud Go Mom” Linda Ponader, “this is a public service that we should all recognize and support. The benefits of his teaching will continue to influence our children for years to come. He has given his students/our kids, and our society a true gift. Thanks to Mr. Frye, I have three sons who love to play the game of go!” The Teacher of the Year Award has become quite competitive in recent years, and many excellent teachers are finding themselves on a waiting list for the honor. “We had a great crop of teachers this year,” says AGF President Terry Benson, “and the board decided to give an honorable mention prize this year to Su Co Chon Duc, of Massachusetts, as well.” Also nominated were Ke Lu of Boston, and Jasmine Yan of New Jersey. “What an honor it is to be given this award,” Frye told the E-Journal, “I’m truly grateful to the AGF for recognizing my work in promoting youth go. Go has tremendous benefits in the middle school classroom and I’m ecstatic that I get to witness it daily. I have seen what you can do with minimal motivation to start a go program, and watched it spread within our community. The more I learn about go, the more I’m humbled and realize how much more I have to learn.” -Paul Barchilon, Youth Editor. Photo: Frye with his number one student, his son Cater, two years old at the time; Frye’s go class. 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 59 passages IN MEMORIAM JIN CHEN 7D Jin Chen 7D died on January 26th. The 22-year-old go player had recently begun work at Microsoft, and died after falling from the 28th floor of the Lincoln Square office complex in Bellevue, where Microsoft’s sales force leases space. “This is a huge loss to the go community and our thoughts go out to Jin’s family, friends and colleagues,” said American Go Association President Allan Abramson. A fiercely competitive top amateur, Chen left a legacy of dedication to teaching go. He inspired and delighted young players at the West Coast Go Camp, where he taught from 2005 to 2008. Chen was a regular at the annual U.S. Go Congress and competed internationally as well, winning the right to represent the US at the World Student Oza Championship in 2007, where he finished 9th. He competed in the Redmond Cup for five years running, and was described by organizer None Redmond as “a special young man with great fighting spirit, and also a special mentor to younger children.” Longtime friend Jon Boley set up a Facebook page for friends to post their memories of Chen, and his co-workers at Microsoft created a memorial website for him. “He would wake up at six a.m. to give a ride to some girl he didn’t know, just so that she could play go,” writes Xingshuo Liu. “If he could, he would have spent all of his time on go.” - Paul Barchilon, EJ Youth Editor; photo by Barbara Burrall “WAY TO GO” AUTHOR KARL BAKER “The Way to Go” author Karl Baker passed away on February 16. Likely the most-published book on go ever written in English, over 70,000 copies of “The Way To Go” -- first issued by the American Go Foundation in 1986 -- are now in print. Baker (at right, with Terry Benson) completed extensive revisions to the 60 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK seventh edition in 2008, updating it to feature AGA rules. “Karl was a mainstay of the go community in Ashland, Oregon,” wrote 2008 Congress Director Peter Freedman. “He was an organic gardener, a ping pong and tennis player, taught for the Oregon Commission for the Blind, was an avid motorcycle rider, and just a helluva sweet guy.” His wife Ann told the E-Journal that Baker “endured, mostly with humor and always with patience, a five-month medical nightmare following a diagnosis of colon cancer. His passing was peaceful. He knew that he was dying and he was happy and unafraid. Until he slipped out of consciousness he was lucid, present and clear. He asked me to write a letter to send out to all of you. When I asked what he wanted me to say, he said ‘Tell everyone that I just loved knowing them.’” The print edition of The Way to Go is available for free from AGA Chapter Services <chapterservices@ usgo.org>. - Paul Barchilon; photo by Roy Laird LARRY SIGMOND 2D AND LANDON BROWNELL 7D The American go community lost two members over two days in mid-April. 58-year-old Laurence Sigmond 2d died on April 22 after being hospitalized recently for heart problems and nineteen-year-old Landon Brownell 7d died in a car crash early on the morning of April 21. “Either of these losses would have been painful; together they’re a terrible blow,” said American Go Association President Allan Abramson. “Our sympathies and thoughts go out to Larry and Landon’s families and friends. They’ll both be missed.” Brownell learned go when he was twelve, and became a dan level player almost immediately, reaching 7 dan by the age of 16 without ever having a formal teacher. He won the Senior division of the Redmond Cup in 2007, and was a master player in chess as well and was the 2006 National High School Champion. Sigmond helped resurrect the Philadelphia passages IN MEMORIAM Go club in the 1980’s, reports Phil Straus. “We had Jim Kerwin workshops at his house, and I fondly remember playing with him and professionals on my roofdeck.” - Chris Garlock, with reporting by Paul Barchilon; Larry Sigmond photo by Phil Straus; Landon Brownell photo by John Pinkerton. TOM TRILLING 1D Longtime LA area go enthusiast Tom Trilling 1D (at left in photo) succumbed to cancer in May. Trilling “was a stalwart who played regularly with the South Bay Ki-in and often at other local clubs and attended every local event he could, including a pro workshop only weeks before his death,” reported Andy Okun. “He loved playing go,” said son Andy Trilling, “and it was a source of great support, comfort and distraction, especially during his final weeks.” Trilling played since the early 60’s, says Richard Dolen, but his work in the aerospace industry kept him from regular participation in those days, although “he was enthusiastic about the game, and we would occasionally meet at the Seinan Go Club, behind the barber shop in the Crenshaw area.” When the South Bay club organized a sister city go visit to Nagoya, Trilling went along and got special team t-shirts that “contributed much to the spirit of the events.” Added Bob Terry, “I do not think that I have ever met anyone who loved go as much as Tom Trilling.” On a 1995 trip to Nagoya, “we played some VIPs at city hall. I played a member of the Japanese Diet and Tom played the mayor. We all won that day, but the rest of the matches on the trip were much more difficult. We played teams from other countries at various venues in Nagoya. In the end, the Chinese team came in first, but our team was the best of all the Western clubs that participated. At the closing ceremony, Tom Trilling was beaming from ear to ear. And yet he still managed to slip away into the hallway of the building where someone had a go board and he played one game after another there. I was busy enjoying the lavish buffet that had been furnished, eating the best caviar that I have ever tasted, but all that Tom could think of was go!” JEFF BOSCOLE 2K Longtime Seattle-area go player Jeff Boscole 2K passed away in August. Local go organizer Chris Kirschner remembers that Boscole was one of the regulars at the Last Exit on Brooklyn coffeehouse, an earlyy hotbed of Seattle go. “His unexpected death may have been caused by a brain aneurysm, according to a friend,” reports Brian Allen of the Seattle Go Center. “Jeff recently attended the Ryo Maeda workshop on August 9-10, and seemed in good health. I especially remember his sincere and public thanks to Maeda Sensei at the end of the first session. We will miss him.” Adds Gordon Castanza, “he was always willing to engage anyone about the finer points of go. He was especially active in supporting youth go and kyu players.” photo by Michael Alford 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 61 scoreboard 2009 EVENTS Local chapters and clubs organize dozens of go tournaments, workshops, lectures and other events each year. Tournament results are reported each week in the American Go E-Journal -- send your reports and photos to [email protected] -- and can be found on the Yearbook CD. Here’s a selection of photos from the events held across the country in 2009. left: Boulder CO USYGC by Paul Barchilon (3/7-8) right: Rocky Mountain Winter Go Tournament Boulder, CO (1/31) below: New Jersey Open Princeton by John Pinkerton (2/28-3/1) 62 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK scoreboard 2009 EVENTS right: Chicago Spring Handicap & Youth Qualifier Tournaments by Mark Rubenstein (3/14) below: Vermont tourney by Peter Schumer Middlebury, VT (3/14) right: Carolina Spring Tourney by Bob Bacon (3/21) below left: Jujo Jiang Youth Tournament by Ernest Brown (3/29) below right: Sedgwick Elementary School by Yuzhuo He (3/31) 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 63 scoreboard 2009 EVENTS right: Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival by Peter Nassar (4/4) below left: Seattle Sakura-Con by Brian Allen (4/17) below center: Boulder Kids and Teens Go Club by Paul Barchilon (4/5) above: Univ.Central Fla Tourney (5/9-10) left: 2009.04.26 Miami Ichimura Japanese Gardens by Alex Feldstein (4/26) 64 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK SCOREBOARD 2009 EVENTS right top: 2009.05.24 Happy Cup Youth Go (5/24) right bottom: Ryo Maeda at the Seattle Go Center (8/9-10) left bottom: Chicago Tournament, by Bob Barber (6/20) left middle: Ed Zhang’s Chinese Go Party by Chris Garlock (7/25) left top: Santa Monica Coffee Cup by Andy Okun (6/13) 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 65 SCOREBOARD 2009 EVENTS left: Xue Lei 4P Go Workshop in Boston (9/1-6) middle left: Xue Lei DCBaltimore workshops (8/25) top left: Rocky Mountain Fall Go Tournament, by David Weiss (10/24) above: Let’s Go tournament Middlebury, Vermont, by Peter Schumer (9/26) 66 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK SCOREBOARD 2009 EVENTS below, middle: Sasaki workshop Alhambra, CA, by Terry McIntyre (11/8) below, bottom: Bunka no Hi Culture Day in Seattle, by Brian Allen (11/1) left: UT Cicadas Sing tournament, by Andy Olsen (10/24) 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 67 Kiseido Publications for 2010 Graded Go Problems for Dan Players The Graded Go Problems for Dan Players series is a translation of a best-selling Nihon Ki-in collection for aspiring dan players. It is designed to provide low-kyu and low-dan players with the essential grounding in the basics of life-and-death, tesuji, joseki, the opening, and the middle game that are needed to develop deep and accurate reading as well as the intuition needed to compete as high-level dan players. The problems start at around 5-kyu and, over the course of the series, work up to 7-dan. These are not problem books that one can skim through in an evening or two. Each problem requires serious thought, especially in Volumes 4 and 5, to obtain the maximum benefit from them, which is to acquire the ability to make an exhaustive analysis of a position. This means that you must not engage in one-sided reading where you only consider your own moves but neglect to look for your opponent’s strongest resistance. Books in the Graded Go Problems for Dan Players series: K61 — Volume 1: 300 Life-and-Death Problems (5-kyu to 3-dan) K62 — Volume 2: 300 Tesuji Problems (5-kyu to 3-dan) K63 — Volume 3: 300 Joseki Problems (1-dan to 3-dan) K64 — Volume 4: 300 Life-and-Death Problems (4-dan to 7-dan) (Summer 2010) K65 — Volume 5: 300 Tesuji Problems (4-dan to 7-dan) (Autumn 2010) K66 — Volume 6: 300 Joseki Problems (4-dan to 7-dan) (Autumn 2010) K67 — Volume 7: 257 Opening and Middle Game Problems (1-dan to 7-dan) Mastering the Basics, Volume Seven Attacking and Defending Moyos by Richard Bozulich and Rob van Zeijst Mastering the Basics is a series of books that will cover every aspect of the game. Emphasis is on basic principles and each volume contains hundreds of problems to drive home these principles to the reader. Attacking and Defending Moyos (frameworks of potential territory) follows this same format. Part One contains example games, showing how pros build moyos and how they attack and defend them. Part Two presents more than 150 full-board problems illustrating the various techniques used in building, attacking, and defending them. (Summer 2010) Books in the Mastering the Basics series: K71 — Volume 1: 501 Opening Problems K72 — Volume 2: 1001 Life and Death Problems K73 — Volume 3: Making Good Shape K74 — Volume 4: 501 Tesuji Problems K75 — Volume 5: The Basics of Go Strategy K76 — Volume 6: All About Ko K77 — Volume 7: Attacking and Defending Moyos (Summer 2010) The 21st Century Dictionary of Basic Josekis, Volumes 1 and 2 by Takao Shinji 9-dan An English translation of the Japan Go Association’s latest joseki dictionary. Published in February 2010, it contains all the basic josekis found in older editions as well as the latest variations developed in China, Japan, and Korea. Volume 1: Available late summer 2010 Volume 2: Available late 2010 For precise dates of publication and to order, go to Kiseido’s online shop at http://www.kiseido.com/online_f.htm and follow the links. 68 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Ratings All current members who played rated games as of 4/1/2010 Ratings are updated continuously: check your latest rating at http://www.usgo.org Kim, Myung Wan Feng, Yun Jiang, Ming Jiu Liu, Zhi Yuan [Andy] Li, Jie Yang, Yilun Rhee, Tae Young Yang, Jing Jiang, Zhu-jiu [Jujo] Ge, Yongfei Chen, ZhaoNian Ko, Dae Hyuk Lui, Eric Wang, Lu [Jeffrey] Koh, Juyong Yang, Huiren Li, Cathy (Chen Shuo) Hung, Joey Huang, Kevin Hsiang, Thomas Y. Tang, Curtis Feng, Zipei Liang, Jie Kim, Chaelim Shou, Minshan Zhou, Yuan Ngai, Kwok Sul Hong, Seung Hyun Rhee, Young Shi, Gan Sheng Tu, Xinyu (Carson) Sun, Calvin Zhang, Jian Yi Wu, Changlong Xiao, Qiang Song, Lian-Pu Guo, Jing (Jimmy Creeks) Ha, Soo Ihl Liu, Xiliang Liang, Richard Zhou, William Zhao, Xudong Zhao, Zhongxia (Ricky) Liu, Xingshuo Wang, Rui Mao, Jerry Xie, Chao Morris, Trevor Chen, Bill Hu, Thomas Phipps, Ned Burrall, Matthew Gu, Jason Zhou, Yixian Wang, Dong Bai, Yuchen Min, Hong-yu Xu, Renjie Cheng, Wei Price, Guthrie Qin, You Min Li, Song Guo, Wangzi Tang, Wenhua Zhang, Hugh Cui, Jinhe Zhou, Xun Kwon, Young K. 10.06 9.71 9.65 9.38 9.37 9.23 9.03 8.98 8.97 8.81 8.66 8.64 8.62 8.62 8.59 8.58 8.55 8.51 8.40 8.38 8.34 8.33 8.27 8.26 8.11 8.03 8.03 7.99 7.83 7.82 7.80 7.72 7.60 7.56 7.56 7.50 7.49 7.41 7.39 7.36 7.34 7.27 7.26 7.25 7.25 7.25 7.21 7.18 7.15 7.14 7.14 7.13 7.08 7.08 7.07 7.04 7.01 7.00 6.99 6.99 6.97 6.92 6.91 6.88 6.88 6.87 6.82 6.80 Jinno, Shohei Gourdeau, Daniel Gan, Jianing Chou, Daniel Zhang, Lionel Roberts, Gary Cheng, Wayne Sedgwick, James Park, SeJoon Mizusawa, Shuma Zhuang, Guozhong Hyodo, Shunichi Yi, Yun-Bo Zhao, Kevin W. Zhang, Mian Wang, Jun Zhang, Rongrong Wang, Yinli Sato, Akio Emsenhuber, Anton Zhang, Zhiyuan (Edward) Lee, Calvin Cai, Junzhang Ku, Lawrence Wu, Jianming [Jimmy] Zhou, Yao Lu, Andrew Feng, Wenyi Choi, Charles H. Jhirad, Nicholas Peterson, Maxwell Bai, Taeil Xu, Dairong Shen, Cherry Hamilton, Robert Liu, Peng Han, Kuo-Ruey Shou, Guo Xiang Ma, Dong Huang, Andrew Kawaguchi, Masahiro Zhou, Xin Ding, Haoning Yao, Jin Bull, Michael Boley, Jon Waldron, Philip Zhao, Ju Lee, Hyang Mi Qian, Bo Pine, Steven Liu, Yong-Xin [Vincent] Zhang, Tony Kelly, Brett Zhong, Yu Chang, Huan-Min Kin, Koryu Rosenblatt, Gregory Shen, Gary Dobrescu, Bogdan Gurevich, Alex Choe, Solomon Kim, Hyo Myung Chen, Walter Yu, Erwin Givens, John S. Kim, Eddie Chao, Kevin 6.80 6.74 6.73 6.73 6.71 6.69 6.69 6.67 6.63 6.62 6.59 6.58 6.58 6.57 6.53 6.48 6.47 6.47 6.41 6.39 6.37 6.37 6.37 6.37 6.33 6.33 6.33 6.30 6.30 6.25 6.25 6.25 6.24 6.20 6.19 6.18 6.16 6.16 6.13 6.11 6.10 6.09 6.08 6.07 6.02 6.01 6.00 6.00 5.98 5.88 5.85 5.84 5.81 5.80 5.79 5.76 5.73 5.72 5.72 5.71 5.71 5.71 5.69 5.68 5.67 5.64 5.61 5.59 Chen, Tianbing Chen, Yi Jin Wang, Fong Chain (Gary) Hong, Michael Huang, Xiaohan Lin, Evan Hua, Hong Quizon, Juan Pablo Stevens, Kory Kim, Won Jong Zhuang, Vincent Lim, Ducksoo Chen, Owen Zhang, Zheng (Eric) Lu, Ke Xu, Yang Zhang, John Shih, Jack Lockhart, William Feldman, Micah Y. Zhang, Feng Liu, Bing Tan, Eric Liu, Chen-Chang Kuang, Jeff Henckell, Karsten Trinks, Daniela Chen, Mengmeng Burrall, Steven F. Xu, Gang Tan, Mingdong You, Zhiping Lebl, Martin Wang, Yi Kuo, Kuan Chu Koguchi, Hirouyuki Shang, Kevin Chen, Wan Yu Yeo, Sung Arnold, Keith L. Huang, Michael Li, La Pelrine, Kellin Yan, Jasmine Lee, Joshua Roads, Francis M. King, Frederick Yu, Shi Ming He, Sean Ring, David Stephenson, John C. Blocher, Kyle David Kim, Michael [Gyung-Ik] Mathisen, Ryan Matsumoto, Mamoru Lechasseur, Jean-sebastien Wu, Ming Teh Zhang, Yue Park, David Gourdeau, Francois London, Philip Han, Changyu Zhou, Kevin Nguyen, Long Lee, Eric Lu, Jing Yamaguchi, Iwao Shieh, Justin 5.58 5.55 5.55 5.54 5.47 5.46 5.45 5.41 5.41 5.40 5.35 5.33 5.32 5.30 5.30 5.29 5.29 5.24 5.19 5.19 5.17 5.16 5.15 5.15 5.15 5.14 5.12 5.10 5.06 5.04 5.01 5.00 4.90 4.88 4.88 4.88 4.86 4.86 4.85 4.82 4.78 4.77 4.77 4.76 4.75 4.70 4.66 4.64 4.63 4.60 4.58 4.52 4.51 4.51 4.50 4.50 4.48 4.46 4.46 4.42 4.39 4.37 4.35 4.34 4.34 4.33 4.30 4.30 Buss, Jonathan Guo, Zhi Qiang Short, Daniel Huang, Zhijian Zhang, Tina Shen, Jerry Kirschner, Christopher Arinkin, Dima Jackson, Andrew Briscoe, Andrew Sibicky, Nick Lin, Eric Yang, Jimmy Chen, Wei 4.29 4.27 4.27 4.26 4.23 4.22 4.22 4.21 4.21 4.14 4.11 4.10 4.08 4.08 Bennett, Huck Chen, Albert Rohlfs, Jeffrey Hoshi, Isamu Peng, Haijiang Luo, Moulun Shi, Ming Senesac, James Liu, Jianbo Xi, Yuanxin Allen, Patrick Luo, Ming [Michael] Kramer, Justin Harwit, Matthew 4.07 4.06 4.05 4.03 4.01 4.01 4.00 4.00 3.97 3.87 3.84 3.82 3.81 3.81 MOST GAMES/EVENTS 2009 (TOP 50) Name Schrag, Roger Castanza, Gordon Horn, Jeff Dyer, Kelsey Huang, Vincent Khalsa, Gurujeet Louderback, Allen Shen, Jerry Chiu, Linden Huang, Xiaohan Phoon, Joey Teng, Justin Zhou, Yixian Brown, Frank Lebl, Martin Phillips, William W. Zhang, Sammy Conyngham, Jim Kurz, Steffen Lui, Eric Chin, Kabe Chin, Kevin Doughty, Herb Kolb, Laura Lee, Richard Mooyman, Peter J. Baum, Leonard Phoon, Marcus Celmer, Paul Heck, Gus Lancaster, Larom Lu, Andrew Nderitu, Gikuyu Takehara, Keiju Takehara, Yukino Wu, Eric Fang, Kevin Li, Yunxuan Rohde, David Thompson, Bill Lu, Jerry Okun, Andrew Huang, Barbara Jackson, Andrew Johnson, McLeod Zhang, Henry Zimmerman, Samuel E. Chou, Daniel Haldeman, Kurt Lee, Eric Metcalf, Wanda Qu, Larry Scott, Lisa Games 63 59 57 54 49 47 42 42 41 39 39 38 38 37 37 37 37 36 36 36 35 35 35 35 35 35 34 34 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 32 32 32 32 31 31 30 30 30 30 30 29 29 29 29 29 29 Events 14 20 10 10 11 11 7 13 9 11 9 9 10 12 7 3 11 7 6 8 8 8 8 6 7 11 6 8 9 8 8 11 8 8 8 8 9 8 7 11 9 9 7 7 6 7 8 7 8 6 6 6 7 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK State CA WA CA VA CA MD CA CA CA CA VA MD CA WA AZ MI CA TX MN MD VA VA CA IL NJ WA NJ VA NC MA MD CA MD VA VA NJ CA CA IL WA CA CA NY DC MS CA PA VA VA CA MA CA MO 69 Ratings Lockhart, Benjamin Qu, Hongya Hershberger, Matthew Alison-Mayne, Cooper Leahy, Brian Kim, Dae Woong Lin, Bin Gan, Nianci (Neal Sawka, Greg Zhou, Mian Sellon, Tyler Weimer, David L. Shi, Lei [Rocky] Duan, Zheng Daniel Hudnall, Christopher Li, Min Yong Sun, Stephen Holleran, Andrew Cushing, William Yang, Xinlin Sobieski, Jonathan E. Kierulf, Anders Choi, Sang Il Robbins, Charles G. Kupon, Austin Sim, Andrew Bengtson, Matthew Xiang, Qian Lee, Chun-Kyu Myers, Bob Nelson, Alexander Blake, Nicholas Larson, Josh Horowitz, Stuart Thek, John J. Davis, Ian Zhou, Hang Small, Haskell Hop, Jonathan Salantrie, Frank Olsen, Andy Teng, Justin Beck, Jared Li, Sihao Zhang, Peter Bernstein, Ryan Tan, Kuo Hung Ito, Shingo Song, Forest Lloyd, Harold Schattke, Robert Lin, Sheng Li, Quan Bang Chi, Ren Guan Simon, Burt Levenick, Jim Zhang, Tao Pronovost, David Wu, Steven Garlock, Chris Baker, Lucas Probst, Alex Qiao, Jinglu Phipps, Joanne Abramson, Allan Dawson, John Weiss, David Anderson, Paul Nayfack, Nicholas 70 3.80 3.79 3.79 3.79 3.78 3.78 3.76 3.76 3.72 3.71 3.71 3.69 3.69 3.67 3.67 3.64 3.64 3.64 3.59 3.58 3.57 3.57 3.56 3.56 3.56 3.54 3.52 3.52 3.51 3.50 3.49 3.47 3.46 3.46 3.43 3.38 3.38 3.37 3.37 3.36 3.35 3.35 3.34 3.32 3.27 3.26 3.21 3.21 3.19 3.19 3.17 3.17 3.16 3.16 3.15 3.11 3.11 3.09 3.08 3.07 3.07 3.05 3.04 3.04 3.03 3.01 2.99 2.98 2.96 Sanet, Joel S. Su, Eric Guo, Albert Su, Roger Harriman, John Steven Osman, Eric Sullivan, Shaun Kato, Kaoru Dyer, Michael Li, Yunxuan Cain, Jeremy Fan, Jiwei Whitlow, Jeffery Barthropp, Stuart Kim, Inbok Wu, Tianying Qiao, Ting Straus, Phil Muldowney, Robert S. Suzuki, Fumio Nakajo, Mitsuru Harwit, Nathan Burg, Chris Kim, Richard Koester Jr., Kenneth M. Bates, Jason Tanaka, Yoshio Kim, Kevin Luce, Matthew Tabata, Tom Vel, Sudhir Mao, Yunfei Sears, Eric Willerth, Marc Yin, Alan Xu, Robin Baldridge, Ethan Lapidus, Saul Xu, Caohua Lin, Brandon Chamberlain, John Gillis, Edward Ray, Shawn Oyakawa, Tyler Siemon, Debbie Hendrick, John K. Hlavka, Jim Wainwright, Eric Yavich, Aleksandr Bernardo, Neil Chalmers, Richard M. Hayashida, Christopher Waschipky, Robert Pasini, Jose Miguel Kawabata, Kei Simmons, Joshua Kwahk, Han Fodera, Michael Drange, Theodore M. Hearn, Bob Bustamante, Richard McCarthy, Michael Lakis, Erik Burrall, Kristen Li, Jason Weiland, Charles Chen, Leishan Moore, John Takehara, Keiju 2.94 2.93 2.91 2.86 2.86 2.85 2.83 2.83 2.83 2.79 2.78 2.76 2.75 2.73 2.72 2.70 2.65 2.65 2.64 2.64 2.63 2.62 2.62 2.58 2.57 2.56 2.54 2.54 2.51 2.50 2.49 2.49 2.46 2.45 2.43 2.43 2.42 2.42 2.42 2.42 2.41 2.39 2.38 2.36 2.31 2.30 2.28 2.28 2.28 2.28 2.27 2.26 2.26 2.25 2.24 2.20 2.20 2.17 2.16 2.15 2.12 2.12 2.11 2.11 2.10 2.09 2.08 2.07 2.07 Herman, David A. Xing, Larry (Lei) Ma, Jianxiong Li, Wei Qing Armitage, Benjaman Wang, Zhijian Tse, Hong Wallstedt, Michael Cornell, Dewey G. Luo, Xian Wu Bahun, Tom Schmittberger, R. Wayne Chang, Kevin Saxner, David Ye, Aaron Wu, Victor Hestnes, Odie Peterson, Raymond Tsukamoto, Masaya Wong, Siang Kai (Mark) Spector, Martin B. Xu, WeiGuo Klemm, James Anuzis, Michael Chen, Ronghao Backues, Mark Wilkie, Clayton C. Chen, Kaishuo Huang, Chun Yen Womack, Hal Brown, Ernest Liu, Daniel Liu, Jian Gehrkin, Jonathan Hsieh, Lester Huynh, Lee Gross, Samuel Zhang, Xiaoshan Takahashi, Yoko Celmer, Paul Cho, James Palmer, Marc Searcy, Hughes L. Daniels, Brady Wolf, Oliver Benson, Terence G. Nybo, Kristian Dudzik, Andrew Park, Anthony Li, Shi Kang, Alex Horn, Jeff Kang, Victor Byrne, David Poore, Daniel Wahl, Troy A. Fu, Matthew Baghboudarian, Jason Kington, Tim Fujita, Go Hunley, Ray W. St. John, Peter Fang, Justin Hsieh, Pao Yuan, Fuping Nelson, Wayne B. Prairie, Alexander Gilston, Mark Zhou, Xin-Li 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 2.06 2.06 2.06 2.03 2.03 2.03 2.01 2.01 2.01 2.00 1.98 1.97 1.96 1.95 1.95 1.93 1.93 1.92 1.90 1.89 1.88 1.87 1.86 1.86 1.84 1.83 1.82 1.82 1.82 1.81 1.81 1.81 1.78 1.78 1.77 1.76 1.74 1.72 1.72 1.72 1.71 1.70 1.69 1.68 1.68 1.67 1.67 1.62 1.59 1.57 1.55 1.53 1.53 1.51 1.51 1.48 1.48 1.47 1.47 1.47 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.44 1.43 1.43 1.41 1.41 Lee, Seong-Min So, Christopher Fujimoto, Takemi Sawada, Yoshi Wu, Xiaoping Fang, Alex Branlund, Eric Lai, Wai Kin ( Sam) Wilkins, Don Haynes, Willard Searcy, Lanny Ogg, Karen Nderitu, Gikuyu Tellier, Shane Shiba, Belmont, Jeremy Shin, Woo 1.37 1.36 1.36 1.35 1.34 1.33 1.32 1.30 1.29 1.29 1.29 1.28 1.27 1.27 1.27 1.25 1.25 Zhang, Sammy Sugita, Shoichi Felcan, David Chi, Tim Zhang, Lisa Schrader, Robert Downes, Edward R. Char, Wai-to S. Foxx, Richard Younger, Phillip Umetani, Hiroshi Stout, Erik Uhl, Steve Lai, Irving Arrand, William Scott, Lisa Wang, Andrew 1.25 1.23 1.22 1.22 1.21 1.20 1.19 1.17 1.16 1.13 1.13 1.11 1.11 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.09 MOST GAMES/EVENTS 1991-2009 (TOP 50) Name Robbins, Charles G. Barberi, Steve Sudhoff, Horst Arnold, Keith L. Lebl, Martin Zimmerman, Samuel E. Kurz, Steffen Maia, Joseph Frankel, David M. Horn, Jeff Small, Haskell Pickett, James M. Zhou, Yuan Conyngham, Jim Schmitten, George Metcalf, Wanda French, Charles C. Ingram, C. Louise Lui, Eric Palmer, Marc Zawacki, Chester Osman, Eric Burrall, Matthew Garlock, Chris Celmer, Paul Lui, I-Han Burrall, Steven F. Baum, Leonard Schumer, Peter Mott, Rick Blagrove, Anthony Straus, Phil Arrand, William Eudell, Arnold Benthem, James A. Zhou, Xin-Li Carter, James Casey, Eva W. Benthem, Adam Henzel, H. Alexander Williams, Russ Phipps, Joanne Schneider, Ira H. Small, Elizabeth H. Keener, Robert W. Pohl, Pauline Burrall, Karoline Peterson, Lars D. Pierce, Franklin Gilston, Mark Games 1164 1015 843 812 803 733 661 659 651 648 625 610 606 583 554 549 531 528 525 502 497 483 477 477 464 457 445 424 414 410 403 397 395 393 392 389 386 381 378 377 376 373 365 364 361 355 351 350 347 346 Events 319 135 32 160 69 153 86 123 65 130 147 84 136 99 100 106 110 90 126 105 43 101 113 110 111 100 109 66 83 99 101 85 101 90 52 94 53 87 35 89 44 64 43 82 16 80 81 83 69 35 State PA PA GER MD AZ PA MN NJ MI WA DC MD MD TX WA MA PA NC MD NY IL MA CA MD NC MD CA NJ VT NJ VA PA NH MD MI MD TX MA MI VT TX CA TX DC MI IL CA NJ FL Ratings Howard, John Shainok, David Chang, Wenzhong Cheng, Lei Liu, Colin Ronan, Mark Okun, Andrew Chou, Kevin Elchert, Ken Chiu, Linden Barber, Robert J. Dombro, Quentin W. Shen, Jie Samuel, Michael Yang, Huan Goerss, Michael Wanek, Michael One, Kunio Whang, Sung Kyu Thacker, Andrew Blake, Ken Saltman, Bill Andreasen, Michael Abell, John Barberi, Steve Wolf, Ross Hubbard, Andrew Wu, Jian An, Terence Sollish, Robert Evenson, Kent Tung, Stephen Li, HaoXuan (Henry) Tayek, Ray Blatt, Todd Marrow, Owen Chalmers Allison, Donald Lin, Eric Dows, David A. Phillips, William W. Rivera Jr., Fernando Laing, Mark Lim, Bryan Christopher Major, Matthew Zhou, Afa Peters, Glenn Newmiller, Jeff Fang, Kevin Gundberg Jr., William Wang, Xiquan Harris, David Chen, Shi Wu Frankel, David M. Pohl, Pauline Lin, Yen-Chun (Josephine Hoak, Joshua Wuest, Christopher Carlton, David Burzillo, Anthony Kaniuk, Geoff Penner, Mark M. Gross, Jonathan Wei, Yun Furuyama, Yuji Mallory, Matt Goldenberg, Ryan Yee, Karl Borggren, Nathan Chin, Kabe 1.08 1.06 1.06 1.05 1.04 1.02 1.02 1.01 -1.00 -1.03 -1.04 -1.04 -1.06 -1.08 -1.08 -1.08 -1.10 -1.12 -1.13 -1.14 -1.14 -1.17 -1.18 -1.19 -1.23 -1.24 -1.25 -1.28 -1.28 -1.29 -1.29 -1.30 -1.30 -1.30 -1.31 -1.32 -1.33 -1.33 -1.33 -1.36 -1.38 -1.38 -1.39 -1.40 -1.40 -1.43 -1.44 -1.45 -1.45 -1.47 -1.47 -1.47 -1.47 -1.47 -1.50 -1.51 -1.52 -1.53 -1.54 -1.54 -1.55 -1.56 -1.57 -1.57 -1.58 -1.59 -1.60 -1.62 -1.63 Tabaniag, Jay Sorenson, Robert Yoon, Seokwoo LaBarbera, Michael Barchilon, Paul Dinhofer, David Fang, Hawren Bakker, Feite Nakata, Yoshitomo Pinkerton, James Cameron, Chris Salts, Jamie Wright, Nathaniel Smith, Daniel Wu, Jinhong Bird, Isaiah Cheng, Joey Shieh, Alex Petrescu, Adrian Foss, Bjorn Fix, Ryan Bernadsky, Boris Liang, Jonathan Cai, Duo De Huang, Edric Akeyama, Koichi Simon, Richard Nakajo, Kyoko Michali, James Nelson, Jeremy Urban, Justin Zaytsev, Anatoly Stark, Chester Matson, David Cotsen, Lloyd Eric Richards, Norman Brooks, Clark Toister, Yigal Pongracz, Gregory Hamaguchi, Masaaki DeVeyra, Aeones Schaefer, Kagen Carlson, Lucas Scammon, Chris Cai, Rui Xin Wilks, Stuart Cordingley, Robert Peterson, Max Johnson, Justin Zhou, Jie Schumer, Peter Person, Chris Zhang, Luke Fukuda, Frank K. O’Malley, Robert Izak-Damiecki, Arthur Schenck, Louis Parson, Devante Milner, Shane Lampert, Roger Siratanon, Jun Aylsworth, Tim Haler, Eric Pruner, Matt Kolb, Laura Feldman, Ian Dew, John Danaher, Henry Mizuno, Shigetami -1.63 -1.64 -1.64 -1.66 -1.67 -1.67 -1.68 -1.68 -1.71 -1.75 -1.77 -1.77 -1.78 -1.78 -1.80 -1.81 -1.81 -1.82 -1.88 -1.88 -1.90 -1.93 -1.93 -1.95 -1.95 -1.97 -1.98 -1.98 -1.99 -1.99 -2.00 -2.00 -2.01 -2.02 -2.04 -2.06 -2.07 -2.07 -2.08 -2.09 -2.15 -2.15 -2.16 -2.17 -2.17 -2.19 -2.20 -2.21 -2.22 -2.23 -2.27 -2.27 -2.28 -2.29 -2.34 -2.34 -2.34 -2.37 -2.38 -2.38 -2.38 -2.40 -2.43 -2.45 -2.46 -2.47 -2.47 -2.48 -2.51 Rabinowitz, Larry Brandt, Theodore Kenyon, Anthony W. Kirby, Brian Flamm, Matthew Harris St-onge, Marc Yoon, James Top, Daniel Tsay, Alex Payette, James Wu, Eric Langley, Brandon Luk, Franklin Williamson, Glenn Qiu, Tong Maia, Joe Dyer, Kelsey Rueckriemen, Rolf Luff, William Kenyon, Brian Heck, Gus Vanderlaan, Zachary Sprang, Todd Hsiao, Tim Bridges, Adam Stoner, Cye Du, Xiaoling Brown, Richard L. Zhao, Kelley Bretherick, Steven Miyama, Miyoko Huang, Corey Winters, Jordan Hutchins, Preston Chin, Ching-Sung Baver, Derek Krafick, Dakota Fienup, James R. Li, James L. Tewahade, Yaphet Polzin, Oliver Chappell, David Zhang, Henry Weg, Eric Chan, Louisa Mott, Cullen Armenia, Peter Zhang, Jingjing Aspinall, John Kane, Leonard Benyowitz, Joel Chao, Jack deCourcelle, Donald A. Li, Sean Schwartz, Michael A. Solberg, Richard Miller, Matthew Tunzi, Joshua Traibush, Victor Kurz, Steffen Alexis, Philippe McLaughlin, Ian LeJeune, Larry Conyngham, Jim Jankowski, Scott Davila, Efrain Feiveson, Eric Nguyen-Vu, Anton Chow, Matthew -2.53 -2.55 -2.56 -2.57 -2.58 -2.63 -2.64 -2.65 -2.67 -2.67 -2.69 -2.70 -2.72 -2.72 -2.73 -2.74 -2.75 -2.76 -2.78 -2.78 -2.80 -2.81 -2.82 -2.82 -2.82 -2.83 -2.84 -2.86 -2.89 -2.93 -2.94 -2.98 -2.98 -3.02 -3.02 -3.04 -3.04 -3.06 -3.12 -3.12 -3.14 -3.15 -3.18 -3.20 -3.20 -3.21 -3.22 -3.22 -3.22 -3.24 -3.27 -3.30 -3.32 -3.34 -3.36 -3.37 -3.38 -3.41 -3.42 -3.43 -3.43 -3.45 -3.47 -3.48 -3.48 -3.48 -3.50 -3.50 -3.50 Baum, Leonard Huang, Sam Bensen, Paul Suson, Andrew Sailing, Jasmine Hogan, John M. Ye, April Garrett, Zack Shang, Andrew Elliott, Kenneth Chan, Jay Laird, Roy Eaton, Joe Wan, Raymond Warren, Kyle Townsend, Damon Van, Randy Yao-Chiang Le, Robert Sprechman, Daniel Eudell, Arnold Matthews, Paul G. Mueller, Andrew Ye, Jack Huang, Xiao (Alan) Feng, Yijun Wells, Chris Warzinski, David Cain, Collin Hu, Albert Balwit, Fritz Gu, Brian Hoshi, Takashi Bibbs, Brian Huang, Sida Nassar, Peter N. Harris, Ronald L. Shrewsberry, Eric Li, Xu Ming Guan, Raymond Craig, Joseph Warzinski, Kim White, Ronald G. Mooyman, Peter J. Qiu, Kathy Uptain, Jacob Hsu, Sheehan Aronson, Brian Takehara, Yukino Palumbo, Matthew Mount, Steve Mercado, Ramon A. Jain-Sharma, Vishank Spitz, David Rubenstein, Mark McDaniel, Kenneth Arnon, Yoram Schwarz, Klaus Puchtel, Max Doughty, Herb Li, Henry Milling, Chris Malveaux, Mike Curtis, Robin Gum, Josh Cai, Jack Pojman, Paul Reid, Eric Russ, Larry Dyer, Landon -3.51 -3.52 -3.52 -3.52 -3.53 -3.54 -3.58 -3.59 -3.60 -3.60 -3.61 -3.62 -3.62 -3.62 -3.63 -3.63 -3.64 -3.66 -3.66 -3.67 -3.68 -3.69 -3.69 -3.70 -3.71 -3.71 -3.71 -3.71 -3.72 -3.73 -3.74 -3.75 -3.76 -3.77 -3.80 -3.81 -3.81 -3.81 -3.84 -3.86 -3.86 -3.87 -3.88 -3.88 -3.91 -3.93 -3.94 -3.97 -3.98 -3.98 -3.99 -4.03 -4.04 -4.06 -4.09 -4.09 -4.10 -4.10 -4.14 -4.15 -4.17 -4.17 -4.19 -4.19 -4.20 -4.20 -4.22 -4.25 -4.27 Bartels, Larry Park, Nathan Pearson, David Grguric, Samuel Wong, Chi Stevenson, David Chan, George Chin, Kevin Shaw, Nathan Chen, Jerry Kline, James Friedman, Simon Grant, Ryan Chang, Alice Clapp, Gordon Xu, Chuck Henzel, H. Alexander Murphy, Jeff Backus, Eric Jacobs, Paul Toyoda, Hiroshi Plotz, Michael Heitmann, Ray Casey, Eva W. Ban, Dong-Hun Nelson, Tom Johnson, Eric Ravin, Lihu Ben-Ezri Jacob, Bart Dougherty, Michael Vizzarro Vallejos, Pedro Lu, Xujun Fredrickson, James Swanson, Eric Martin, Peter Wu, Kevin Yang, Diana Carter, James McLellan, Jeffrey J. Armstrong, Harry Desouza, Alex Pfaff, Jason Huang, Vincent Lock, Eddie Launchbury, John Ching, Justin Wynn, Peter Zhang, Jeffrey Yo, Jung Sok Taylor, Abe Metcalf, Wanda Gold, Karen Cobb, William S. Zhao, John Q. Lee, Ed Fede, Samantha Mott, Rick Moses, John D. Wall, Philip J. Panicucci, Ted Lee, Kyu Ha Jain-Sharma, Niraek Bowie, Lee Anne Berlekamp, Elwyn R. Hendricks, Ryan Batchelor, Egl T. Connell, Adam Li, Lisha Louderback, Allen 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK -4.27 -4.28 -4.29 -4.29 -4.34 -4.34 -4.35 -4.36 -4.36 -4.37 -4.37 -4.38 -4.41 -4.43 -4.44 -4.44 -4.45 -4.46 -4.46 -4.47 -4.48 -4.49 -4.51 -4.51 -4.51 -4.53 -4.56 -4.56 -4.57 -4.61 -4.62 -4.62 -4.63 -4.63 -4.64 -4.64 -4.65 -4.65 -4.65 -4.66 -4.66 -4.66 -4.66 -4.67 -4.67 -4.70 -4.71 -4.73 -4.73 -4.74 -4.74 -4.75 -4.78 -4.78 -4.80 -4.82 -4.83 -4.83 -4.83 -4.85 -4.91 -4.92 -4.93 -4.93 -4.97 -4.97 -4.98 -4.99 -4.99 71 Ratings Shimura, Takao Key, Tyler Harker, Wesley H. Bui, Sony Tracy Jr., Philip E. Mikula Jr., Alfred Nutzman, Philip Li, Baifu Burrall, Karoline Colburn, Steve Palmour Jr., Evans Zimmerman, Samuel E. Zoroglu, Demir Preuss, Jason Swarzman, Danny Heidenreich, Todd Meyer, Robert Jessen, Jared Miller, Jeffrey Xu, Larkin Harvard, Alexei Ma, Vincent Jordan, Karen Runyan, Christopher Donatz, Michael Blank, Justin Massey, Ryan B. Spencer, Joseph Pierce, Aaron McNelis, Nick Nyquist, Jonathan Leinbach, Braden Lapidus, Carrie Mangual, John Cunningham, Cory Schenthal, Kevin Justin Guffin, Josh Fraser, William E. Yang, Haisong Su, Amy Terpstra, Theodore B. Greene, Kevin J. Tomak, Steven Goldman, Neal Rohde, David Campbell, Greg Greechie, Richard Yoo, Daniel Koch, Lance Pickett, James M. Colladay, Donald Chan, Chi-Hung Wong, Howard Lee, Eric Goldman, Jacob Shimomura, Takao Clark, Calvin Chau, Alex Rogers, Steven Greenberg, Gabe Gilman, Robert D. McCann, H. Gilman Hardy, Richard Lee, Joseph Jan, Joseph Sanders, Corey Pedersen, Norman P. Bresler, Jonathan M. Young, Bruce 72 -4.99 -5.00 -5.00 -5.01 -5.01 -5.01 -5.01 -5.02 -5.03 -5.03 -5.06 -5.06 -5.07 -5.08 -5.09 -5.10 -5.14 -5.15 -5.19 -5.20 -5.22 -5.23 -5.25 -5.26 -5.28 -5.29 -5.30 -5.31 -5.32 -5.33 -5.33 -5.34 -5.35 -5.36 -5.36 -5.36 -5.36 -5.37 -5.38 -5.40 -5.42 -5.42 -5.42 -5.43 -5.44 -5.44 -5.48 -5.48 -5.48 -5.51 -5.52 -5.59 -5.60 -5.60 -5.61 -5.62 -5.62 -5.62 -5.63 -5.66 -5.70 -5.71 -5.72 -5.72 -5.72 -5.73 -5.76 -5.77 -5.79 Ehrlich, Robert Wilson, George Mowshowitz, Avi Huang, Kuan-Lun Yue, Vincent Ambrose, Dan Crowl, Roland W. Hwang, Albert Swigert, Jason Schumm, Thomas Blue, Shawn Speck, Darrell McIntyre, Terry Zhou, Andy Saniee, Bijan Jacoby, Adam Hogrefe, Jared Zumstein, Heath Crumb, Matthew Hommerding, Mark Martin, Nathan Swanson, David Thomson, Carrie Hellinger, Jason Sato, Akira Xu, Eddie Dolev, Kfir Au, Tom Lipofsky, Barton Herrmann, George Ty, Michael Liu, Howard Lerner, Ben Cha, Tai-An Hamers, Allen D. Zamora, Carlos Allen, Stephen Walters, Rex Greiner, John A. Drake, Peter Hsieh, Chengau Hartman, John David Ohashi, Yoko Shin, Michael Burrall, Julie Manning, Christopher Kovitz, Jordan Lash, Michae l Rosenblum, Steven Cai, Henry Decker, Michael Timms, Benjamin Vogel, Jeffrey Cheyne, Rob Gipson, John McCarthy, Thomas Cole, Sean Nazif, Zaher A. Garcia, Bryant Liu, Xiao Qu, Larry Tsujimoto, Yoshinori Bacon, Bob Cary, Jack Bender, Erik Clark Park, Chui S. Ray, William Field, Martin Felice, Robert -5.79 -5.79 -5.80 -5.80 -5.81 -5.81 -5.83 -5.83 -5.83 -5.84 -5.84 -5.84 -5.84 -5.85 -5.85 -5.85 -5.89 -5.89 -5.89 -5.90 -5.91 -5.92 -5.93 -5.93 -5.95 -5.97 -5.98 -5.98 -5.99 -6.00 -6.00 -6.00 -6.02 -6.03 -6.05 -6.07 -6.10 -6.11 -6.15 -6.15 -6.17 -6.18 -6.22 -6.23 -6.24 -6.28 -6.29 -6.32 -6.32 -6.34 -6.35 -6.42 -6.43 -6.45 -6.46 -6.47 -6.47 -6.48 -6.49 -6.49 -6.54 -6.54 -6.55 -6.56 -6.57 -6.57 -6.57 -6.60 -6.61 Moleda, Spencer Daye, Alex Wasiqi, Joseph Reed, Sean Reed, David Shin, Brian Crumpler, Ken Friedenbach, Ken Day, Peter Chiles, Bill Wilson, Zachary Ngoy, Ryan Gonnella, Jim Key, Rachel Sun, Geng Yeh, Raymond P. Min, Seun Guy Abentroth, Nicholas Kellogg Jr., Ogden Ellis Ruder, John Peters, James Richards, John Holden, William F. Caldeira, Edward Brown, Frank Liang, Victor Brady, Zarathustra Kim, Ilhee Okuma, Brad Young, Corey Takasumi, Koji Parry-Hill, Jeremiah Gang, Joshua Sharvy, Ben Knauer, James Hambelton, Chris Forrest, Chris Fraser, Mark Pierson, Burton E. Wu, Brian Wheeler, Dennis Wei, Matthew Angerman, Chris Greer, Todd Capps, Jonathon Klockow, Dennis Cram, Don Heinich, Mike Zimmerman, Robert C. Demoss, Dan Daniels, Kevin Kokosenski, Michael Hunter, Ryan Linz, Laurie Schrag, Roger Khripkov, Dmitriy Hardman, Dennis Wu, Tiffany Sherrill, Jace Glekel, David Wu, Jeff Guth, Stephen Donboch, Jared Bailey, Bruce W. Phoon, Joey Tewahade, Aichan Van, Eric Chen, Andrew Brix, Phillip 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK -6.63 -6.65 -6.65 -6.66 -6.68 -6.68 -6.72 -6.74 -6.75 -6.76 -6.76 -6.79 -6.80 -6.80 -6.81 -6.84 -6.85 -6.90 -6.91 -6.92 -6.94 -6.96 -6.96 -6.99 -6.99 -7.00 -7.01 -7.01 -7.02 -7.02 -7.03 -7.04 -7.05 -7.07 -7.08 -7.11 -7.13 -7.13 -7.16 -7.16 -7.19 -7.21 -7.23 -7.23 -7.24 -7.28 -7.29 -7.32 -7.35 -7.36 -7.36 -7.36 -7.37 -7.37 -7.38 -7.38 -7.40 -7.41 -7.41 -7.42 -7.47 -7.47 -7.51 -7.51 -7.54 -7.55 -7.59 -7.60 -7.60 Olson, Joel Hlavka, Eileen Burns, Zachary Enyeart, Peter Lou, Jingbo Furth, Caleb Hershhorn, David Corey Moakley, Eric Feliccia, Jesy Gonnella, Ben Nguyen, Tu Yuan, Jonathan Pratap, Nick Chisholm, Blair Hurd, Joe Cheng, Andy Wiersema, Cody Button, Tim Daland, William C Hutachinda, Paramesh Leung, Alan Liaw, Grace Boehm, William Do, Minhat Sun, Yanchen Inwood, Matt Brochet, Art Miller, Paul Hawley, Matthew Gaty, Cynthia Halderman, Nicholas Passolt, Gregor Barilas, Pedro Bates, Robert Meoz, Benjamin Ward, Russell Hellum, Uffe Wong, Albert Reeves, Sean Casal, Andrew Wiggins, Dylan Eller, Eric Blackburn, Paul Horwitz, Daniel Sarry, Jonathan Moore, James Lear, Ryan A. Higgins, Graham Gow, Owen Valdes, Carlos Tsai, Alex Head, Jeff Stern, Elliot Nishimura, Mark Hockman, Lucien Strohm, Jed Huang, Yu Hsin Dietze, Bill Jackson, J.T. Williams, Jeffrey Huang, Barbara Rice, Joshua Ingram, C. Louise Ruggles, Nicholas Bernhardt, John Lee, Christopher Fitzpatrick, Wilhelm Keech, Brandon Lewis, Philip -7.61 -7.62 -7.62 -7.63 -7.63 -7.66 -7.70 -7.71 -7.75 -7.75 -7.76 -7.78 -7.78 -7.81 -7.81 -7.83 -7.84 -7.85 -7.86 -7.87 -7.87 -7.90 -7.92 -7.92 -7.92 -7.93 -7.93 -7.96 -7.96 -7.97 -7.97 -7.98 -7.98 -7.99 -8.00 -8.00 -8.01 -8.06 -8.06 -8.09 -8.10 -8.13 -8.14 -8.17 -8.17 -8.18 -8.19 -8.19 -8.22 -8.23 -8.25 -8.26 -8.27 -8.28 -8.29 -8.30 -8.31 -8.31 -8.32 -8.33 -8.33 -8.35 -8.36 -8.40 -8.41 -8.50 -8.51 -8.52 -8.53 Irgang, Mark Yaromenk, Vladimir Wu, Joshua McCusker, Michael Fox, Lawrence Hanson, Earl Brown, Mike Schaefer, James Waggoner, Michael Werner, Ross Alexander-Leist, Casey Wiley, Micah D’Andrea, G. Nicholas Hsieh, Leon Knox, Warren Nguyen, Tung Schmitten, George Alt, Greg Yon, Anthony Serebryany, Igor Williams, Tyson Kahn, David Pai, Daniel Walters, Joseph Imperiale, Larry Muskovitz, David Osoba, Dammy Eclipse, Larry Lu, Jeffrey Frye, Joshua White, Roy Hong, Andrew Hernandez, Jessvan Khalsa, Gurujeet Canavan, Gerry Chen, Yeh (James) Huang, Zongli Zhai, Jingxi Allen, Ashley Colakoglu, Gulsen Hogarty, Dave Tang, Kevin Li, Albert Thomas, Chuck Small, Rachel Chenault, Ray Willis, Jared Su, Gabriella Davis Jr., Daniel Allen Miller, Amanda Dority, Mike Anschultz, Reese Larscheid III, Francis E. Rofe, Amanda Lentczner, Mark G. Lee, Wei Kotler, Mitchell Wiegand, Paul Pelayo, Jorge Xu, Diana Lebovitz, George Fresquez, Gary Blagrove, Anthony Schurter, Terri Berhane, Ezana Abrams, Scott Jacobsen, Nathan Allen, Brian Yen, Alex -8.54 -8.55 -8.56 -8.57 -8.57 -8.57 -8.59 -8.62 -8.62 -8.62 -8.64 -8.64 -8.64 -8.65 -8.66 -8.68 -8.68 -8.69 -8.72 -8.72 -8.74 -8.74 -8.74 -8.76 -8.81 -8.81 -8.82 -8.84 -8.84 -8.88 -8.90 -8.92 -8.92 -8.94 -8.95 -8.98 -9.01 -9.02 -9.03 -9.04 -9.06 -9.06 -9.06 -9.08 -9.08 -9.08 -9.11 -9.11 -9.11 -9.14 -9.14 -9.21 -9.22 -9.22 -9.22 -9.23 -9.23 -9.24 -9.25 -9.26 -9.27 -9.27 -9.29 -9.29 -9.31 -9.31 -9.31 -9.34 -9.35 Ratings Van Gorder, Neil Maquieira, Hector Beitzel, Jeff Anand, Sathya Norman, Matthew Cowles, Tim Willard, Ellen Kadakia, Tania Hughes, John Garza, Gilbert Hyatt, Danielle Sun, Stanley W. Luo, Daisy St-onge, Xavier Rees, Roderick Dupont, Brett Herbert, Tommy Long, Jason Alonzo Litke, Matthew Lalonde, Sebastien Lee, Albert Chen, Jesse Ingham, Steve Hong, Joyce Livieratos, Vin McCants, Edward Baldwin, Fred D. Robert, Kerby Check, Ivan Warhurst, Joshua Dela Cruz, Rhea Smith, Patrick O’Brien, Kevin Strommen, Alexander Fogie, Nathan Luc, Jonathan Chow, Priscilla Olson, Chris Lee, John Chen, Jonathan Novacek, Dave Hildebrand, Kurt O’Connell, Jeffrey Chiu, Harrison Wilkinson, John Tweet, David Sharpe, Natalie Li, Jiayue Keeler, Robert E. Young, Kyle Cheng, Yan Johnson, James Feller, David Belarmino, Joseph Edey, Marion Kudryashov, Roman Sancak, Yasin Hsu, Lance Shirley, Michael Huy, Jonathan Q. Lunsford, Sean Basom, Edward Reynolds, Ronald Chiang, Justin Wang, Matthew Sherrill, Blaine Liu, Raymond Carpenter, Mikael Sargon, Cyris -9.40 -9.44 -9.44 -9.45 -9.45 -9.47 -9.49 -9.50 -9.51 -9.53 -9.54 -9.58 -9.60 -9.63 -9.63 -9.66 -9.66 -9.74 -9.74 -9.74 -9.77 -9.80 -9.81 -9.82 -9.83 -9.86 -9.87 -9.88 -9.90 -9.93 -9.93 -9.96 -9.98 -10.01 -10.03 -10.07 -10.07 -10.12 -10.12 -10.14 -10.17 -10.17 -10.18 -10.19 -10.19 -10.22 -10.23 -10.25 -10.27 -10.29 -10.29 -10.32 -10.34 -10.42 -10.45 -10.48 -10.49 -10.52 -10.54 -10.54 -10.56 -10.57 -10.59 -10.61 -10.62 -10.69 -10.71 -10.73 -10.73 Goertzel, Zarathustra Liao, Austen Yip, Rae DiMattia, Vincent Knuttinen, William Lai, Anthony Odhner, Josiah Li, Arthur Giglio, Justin Whiteside, David E. Hogins, Jonathan Postert, Anthony Avakov, Alexei Michmerhuizen, James King, Jake Pak, Gun-Ik Wheeldon, Megan Royce, Liam Ponader, Nikolaus Dror, David Hardin, Bryan Park, Charles Davis, Samantha Hill, Gerald Wilson, Zachary Kutner, Skye Boone, Thomas L. Allis, Michael Huynh, Kenny Greene, Christopher Secor, Kent Pankratz, Mark Newmiller, Cordell Adomeit, Ambjorn Tang, Jimmy Sun, Shih Pen (Jim) Lin, Iris Parker, Masanari Small, Elizabeth H. Harder, Jason Huang, Kevin O’Leary, Paul Colbert, Myles Feng, Gilbert Fisher, Skylar Kang, Min Soo Xiong, Kevin Johnson, Sam Nguyen, Minh Erville, Julian Rogers, Peter You, James Jiang, Eric Smadja, Frederic Gray, Ian Kerr, Christie Danielle Burgin, Tucker Nichols, Scott Woehler, Rick Zod, Neil Lancaster, Larom Zhang-Zheng, Vincent Curry, Stephen Carlson, Tom Chung, Gene Bennett, Rory Masumoto, Ken Evans, Richard Squitire, Kerianne -10.74 -10.75 -10.76 -10.86 -10.87 -10.87 -10.88 -10.93 -10.93 -10.95 -10.96 -10.96 -10.98 -10.98 -10.99 -11.02 -11.04 -11.05 -11.06 -11.07 -11.07 -11.11 -11.12 -11.16 -11.18 -11.21 -11.29 -11.32 -11.34 -11.34 -11.35 -11.37 -11.42 -11.42 -11.45 -11.45 -11.48 -11.49 -11.51 -11.53 -11.54 -11.58 -11.59 -11.60 -11.63 -11.67 -11.68 -11.73 -11.73 -11.74 -11.76 -11.77 -11.79 -11.80 -11.88 -11.90 -11.92 -11.97 -12.00 -12.05 -12.06 -12.06 -12.06 -12.07 -12.09 -12.11 -12.12 -12.14 -12.18 Kinnear, Noel Ward, Jeffrey Johnson, McLeod Wheeler, Jacob Michael Choi, Sky Frantz, Doug Sundermeier, Brian Dudzik, Michael Carr, Kevin Liu, Ray Thompson, Josh Mellnik, Alex Xu, William Todd, Blackmon Durfee, Ryan Castanza, Gordon Gallegos, Josh Yates, Tyler Wu, Ann Johnson, Rez Sipes, Eric Hinojoza, Justin Russell, Aaron Cartwright, Tony Capobianco, Christopher Huang, Conan Hilt, Jonathan Nazarenko, Sergiy Fang, Daniel Anderson, Ivar Walter, John Fitzgerald, Craig Layton, Charles Taylor, Ryan Brovoort, James Zhou, Roy Michihata, Nobuaki NG, Philip Duprey, Jeff Lemmon, Jay Smith, Garrett Rogers, Tim Clark, Mike Armendariz, Luis Li, Zheng Zuniga, Jeremy Crowther, Molly Edge, Jake Ji, Bennett Zilber, Steven A. Shi, Yili Morris, Steven Lee, Hyoung-Gyu Slider, Nathan Feeney, Jonathan Jin, Jason Szepietowski, Josh Zeng, Sicheng Wu, Andrew Zhou, Henry Saunders, Allen Lu, Zachary Haldeman, Kurt Russell, Eric Holmes, Craig Chen, Jessie Shaw, Robert Danzy, Anthony Wang, Michael -12.19 -12.21 -12.22 -12.23 -12.23 -12.24 -12.24 -12.28 -12.28 -12.29 -12.33 -12.33 -12.38 -12.38 -12.38 -12.47 -12.49 -12.50 -12.54 -12.56 -12.57 -12.61 -12.61 -12.63 -12.68 -12.71 -12.71 -12.73 -12.76 -12.76 -12.76 -12.80 -12.84 -12.84 -12.85 -12.87 -12.90 -12.93 -12.94 -12.96 -12.96 -12.96 -13.00 -13.04 -13.05 -13.12 -13.13 -13.14 -13.20 -13.21 -13.24 -13.35 -13.41 -13.42 -13.44 -13.47 -13.51 -13.51 -13.56 -13.56 -13.58 -13.60 -13.68 -13.69 -13.75 -13.81 -13.82 -13.82 -13.89 Golash, Deirdre Rumsey, Christopher Pridgen, Robert Shufflebarger, Matthew Highful, Kyle Hess, Nathan Paquette, Dalton Zhou, Jerry Swanson, Aron Giusto, Michael Henz, Triana Kerr, Kelly Wang, Amy Inman, Daniel Pfeffer, Susanna Loria, Gavriel Wu, Charlie Thaithawarn, Sar Hlavka, Chris Manning, Steven Fraley, Andrew Daley, Rachel Jones, Noah T . Bassett, Ben Huang, Yu-Hsin Gritten, Cassie Komarek, Dan Tran, Minh Niedermeyer, Deborah Ayers, Robert M. Steveson, Christopher Kasper, David Jenkins, Kenneth Shi, Julia Polkiewicz, Charles Anderson, Jeff Brosy, Steven Chue, Kazuya Eckles, DeeDee Lee Zalesak, Andrew Tsai, Ken Feaster, Brian Siangliulue, Pao Clifford, Kevin Hsu, Justin Rhone II, Michael King, Kevin Gross, Lawrence E. Gordon, Kazumi Yang, Austin St. Aubin, Rich Lee, Richard Smith, Tom Mulryan, Seamus Wong, Stephen Tran, Van He, Bowen Park, Jong Hoon Ink, Lawrence Reeves, Richard Cihak, Joshua Hong, Brian Long, Anthony Ke, Felix Irving, John Flood, Eric Shinmo, Kyoko Lopes, Robert Geiger, Marty -13.91 -13.92 -13.92 -13.98 -13.99 -13.99 -14.01 -14.01 -14.02 -14.08 -14.11 -14.11 -14.13 -14.16 -14.18 -14.20 -14.20 -14.22 -14.25 -14.25 -14.38 -14.38 -14.40 -14.47 -14.55 -14.55 -14.62 -14.62 -14.64 -14.65 -14.65 -14.69 -14.69 -14.70 -14.74 -14.75 -14.76 -14.77 -14.77 -14.78 -14.82 -14.83 -14.86 -14.91 -14.92 -14.93 -14.93 -15.05 -15.05 -15.06 -15.08 -15.09 -15.12 -15.12 -15.15 -15.16 -15.16 -15.20 -15.21 -15.34 -15.36 -15.36 -15.40 -15.40 -15.44 -15.47 -15.52 -15.52 -15.55 Cole, Mark Newman, Richard Lu, Jerry Janssen, Dustin Newshan, Adam Crouch, Steve Lozano, Daniel A. Romero Y Vigil, Ramon Sin, Christopher Ayres, Robert W. Wood-Vasey, Michael Sun, Glenn Chan, Chia Yun, Edward He, Zhiying Hornberger, Christopher Ruster-Mack, Aaron Luo, Robin Pepmiller, Ethan Louchez, Eric Selesky, Peter Joseph Cook, Jeremy Oakeson, Lehi Lemus, Geovanni Blann, Dale Doman, Matt Tsimakuridze, Nikoloz Seifrid, Alicia Chen, Alan Anderson, James Akeyama, Yuriko Nyman, Kuhlman Bailey, Jason Myers, Drake Zhang, Christopher Moore, Barry Grodzki, Jonathan Nelson, Jonathan Michel, Ethan Ulate, Ricardo O’Leary, Sanchez Hu, Alvin Wolf, Stanley Klock, Gordon Solovay, Robert Parks, Ben Grantham, Beau Granger, Otis Keom Roth, Stephanie Manning, Jane Corbin, Jonathan Delaney, Clayton Teutsch, Thomas Latimer, Ash Sparks, Michael Brow, John N. Yi, Alexander Kasischke, Katherine Tobias, Mike Swen, Donald Harris, Ian So, Brian Yu, Austin Metcalf, Gary Wan, Andrew Clifford, Derek Joiner, Christopher Rouch, Keith Liu, Kevin 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK -15.56 -15.59 -15.61 -15.63 -15.65 -15.73 -15.73 -15.73 -15.75 -15.77 -15.79 -15.80 -15.80 -15.82 -15.82 -15.86 -15.89 -15.89 -15.91 -15.94 -15.95 -16.00 -16.03 -16.05 -16.06 -16.06 -16.13 -16.20 -16.24 -16.25 -16.30 -16.30 -16.36 -16.36 -16.37 -16.47 -16.50 -16.50 -16.53 -16.59 -16.61 -16.63 -16.64 -16.65 -16.66 -16.69 -16.77 -16.78 -16.80 -16.81 -16.82 -16.92 -16.93 -16.95 -16.98 -17.01 -17.03 -17.05 -17.05 -17.07 -17.08 -17.08 -17.09 -17.16 -17.17 -17.20 -17.20 -17.24 -17.27 73 Ratings Wu, Derek Phoon, Marcus Sumner, Eric Eldred, Tyler Davis, Blake Holgerson, Mark Hong, Jonathan Tran, Tristan Austin, Alec Serra, Cesar Tanaka, Payam Allison, Conner Heuett, Jacob Ehrlich, Joseph Carbonell, Sergio Hoffman, Damon Laser, Charles Ari, Margo Lin, Vincent Ong, Ze-Ching Zhu, Alec Acuna-Guintero, Daniel Wang, Patrick Spindler, Mark Maier, Henry Lai, John Szmajda, Josh Colas, Mike Heindl, Shane Estrada, Phillip Zhang, Jerry Burton, Sean Choi, Danny Abramson, Myriam Lewis, Warren Reiner, Ben Soto Tran, Eric Greenwell, Zachary Brownewell, Eric Akeyama, Shuntaro Torres, Marcus Reedy, Ryan Heintz, Jackson Swartz, Justin Goodman, Grant Rodenbaugh, Dillon Lloyd, Steven Hanson, Leah Nguyen, Tai Churchill, Courtney Ponader, Chris Bessenov, Daniel Perman, Eric Sailing, Amara Soto, Ben Steffens, Wayne Littlefield, Lukas Zhang, Ling Seco, Angel George Sandell, Dustin Maher, Zack Wassmer, Marcus Hsu, Alan Miyake, Yuriko Rouen, Michael Saint, Chuck Weight, Josh Farkas, Jacob 74 -17.28 -17.37 -17.37 -17.38 -17.39 -17.40 -17.40 -17.41 -17.43 -17.44 -17.53 -17.56 -17.58 -17.63 -17.64 -17.66 -17.68 -17.72 -17.77 -17.86 -17.87 -17.89 -17.94 -17.99 -18.02 -18.06 -18.06 -18.08 -18.10 -18.12 -18.12 -18.13 -18.18 -18.22 -18.24 -18.30 -18.31 -18.43 -18.44 -18.51 -18.53 -18.59 -18.69 -18.69 -18.74 -18.75 -18.77 -18.91 -18.96 -19.00 -19.03 -19.07 -19.10 -19.14 -19.18 -19.22 -19.31 -19.33 -19.36 -19.43 -19.45 -19.45 -19.46 -19.47 -19.50 -19.70 -19.71 -19.73 Hey, Marjorie E. Mei, Brian Huang, Joanne Tao, Kevin Haddad, Geoffrey Moseley, Brian Thompson, Bill Mouly, AJ Strater, Dorothy Roberts, Christopher Manning, Joel Shum, Matthew Yi, Christopher Bynum, Jim Zhang, Wayne Cane, Ariel Hall, Lynn Hambor, Jacob Liu, Zhi Presson, Cheri Oshel, David C. McNary, Brian Liang, Raylen Ramos, Jessica Bridgman, Andrew Nonini, Donald Zhu, Brian Lai, Matthias Pederson, Sean Berner, Mallory Blue, Sunny Cheng, Justin Ma, Elan Martinez-Ortega, Jorge Uzal, Christopher Monroy, Maria Ward, Richard Johnson, Diane Fu, Sybil Milling, Alex Stone Fish, Avery Spangler, John Cole, Robert Collins, David Cho, Brandon Greco, Anne Marie Cho, John Jenkins, Lisa Frankel, Danielle Lewis, Nathanael Guo, Shuyue Bradley, Seth Gulkis, Adam Feldman, Steven Dauska, Povilas Dorsey, Trevor Colas, Brandon Okun, Emily Baker, Morgan Walters, Joshua Lai, Mitchell Hu, Scott Endres, Ashley Craig, Morgan Mitchell, Phillip Jauregui, Jonathan Kerr, Brandy Yim, Daniel -19.73 -19.74 -19.79 -19.81 -19.82 -19.84 -19.85 -19.86 -19.90 -19.92 -19.97 -19.97 -19.99 -20.00 -20.01 -20.02 -20.04 -20.07 -20.12 -20.12 -20.13 -20.22 -20.33 -20.33 -20.33 -20.36 -20.37 -20.38 -20.39 -20.42 -20.51 -20.60 -20.61 -20.64 -20.69 -20.71 -20.71 -20.74 -20.76 -20.80 -20.85 -20.86 -20.86 -20.87 -20.88 -20.88 -20.88 -20.91 -20.92 -20.95 -20.97 -20.98 -20.98 -21.03 -21.04 -21.16 -21.17 -21.22 -21.27 -21.29 -21.38 -21.38 -21.46 -21.64 -21.67 -21.67 -21.68 -21.73 Nachiappan, Aditya Pohl, Eric Sheng, William Law, Phillip Kerr, Alan Dettmar, Hans Huang, Jessica Viemeister, Steven Benson, Justin Burkholder, Max Evans, Brad Barry, Jessica Fang, Bryan Song, Andrew Takahashi, Curtis Rogers, Chris Tolley, Christopher R. Kuhlenbeck, Drew Herman Jr, L. Russell Wu, Benjamin Ghizzoni, Jack Jauregui, Joshua Basham, Rowan Liang, Raylen Chi, Andrew Zheng, Kevin Yang, Ashley Karanja, Andrew Cook, Christopher R. Jones, J. Lim, Eugene Hoh, Jay Li, Si Roger Carley, Nicklaus Huang, Daren Malay, Allison Higuchi, Katsuya Waldron, Joseph Jones, Chris Leitonaite, Monika Chao, Melody Goss, IlanaRei Boyer, David N. Mei, Gary Manning, Casey Xiang, Jiexin Tallant, Purity A. Longo, Mark Li, Larry Fraser, Kalinda Hersey, April Hart, Sean Chen, Benjamin Valdes, Chayanne Li, Victor Dai Nye, Grey Nieman, Mark Chiu, Antoine Spangler, Jared Masinter, Alan Chao, Alan Li, Thomas Huang, Diana Berrian-Phillips, Andrea Pun, Anthony Cho, Vanessa Berthelette, Julia Wynn, Zachary 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK -21.79 -21.99 -22.01 -22.03 -22.03 -22.11 -22.20 -22.20 -22.21 -22.36 -22.41 -22.49 -22.49 -22.52 -22.52 -22.54 -22.60 -22.74 -22.83 -22.93 -22.94 -23.07 -23.10 -23.13 -23.13 -23.43 -23.43 -23.45 -23.49 -23.51 -23.52 -23.56 -23.66 -23.70 -23.72 -23.84 -23.86 -23.93 -23.96 -24.07 -24.14 -24.25 -24.27 -24.28 -24.34 -24.37 -24.38 -24.41 -24.42 -24.45 -24.47 -24.56 -24.60 -24.61 -24.62 -24.73 -24.80 -24.80 -24.81 -24.99 -25.07 -25.15 -25.17 -25.22 -25.22 -25.23 -25.23 -25.34 Lewis, Joseph Smith, Gary Garcia, Khiara Thompson, L. Anne O’Leary, P.J. Tang, Daphne Liou, Kevin McAlister, Johnathon Wuest, Courtney Peve, Gustavo Yang, Kevin Blue, Victoria Huang, Leo Cheng, Charles Schery, David Costello, John C. Lezenby, Noah Mc Laws, Sean Johnson, Chelsey True, Kevin (Kenneth) Morales, Chris Stein, Brad Sheng, Charlie Salomone, Thomas Lu, PoeAn Ledante, Alex Costa, Charlie Barbaro, Ron Shepherdson, Braden Lu, William Blumenfeld, Michael Huang, Sean Bridges, Arlene Harris, Kyoko Andree, Glen Yu, Alex Duplissey, Jesse Palovich, Matthew Hughes, Samuel J. Persinger, Emma Batista, Blendon Wang, Sophia Brohier, Natasha Ehlinger, Reese Li, William Hergenrather, Jackson Williams, Kris Lin, Eric Liu, Shengjie Chiang, Annie Perry, Robert Lim, Grace Besser-Gilbert, Irene Yu, Justin Liu, Shirley Wu, Wenguang He, Max Chou, Pallas Zalesak, Rudy Mou, Wendy Yen, Derek McAlister, Sean Li, Julian Li, Daniel Lei, Alan Gloor, Cole Wykhuis, Bill Hance, Tristan -25.51 -25.57 -25.61 -25.76 -25.79 -25.79 -25.81 -25.83 -25.86 -25.93 -26.01 -26.07 -26.11 -26.16 -26.23 -26.35 -26.38 -26.42 -26.58 -26.62 -26.64 -26.67 -26.69 -26.81 -26.83 -26.95 -26.99 -27.07 -27.16 -27.18 -27.22 -27.24 -27.25 -27.25 -27.30 -27.34 -27.34 -27.49 -27.53 -27.60 -27.75 -27.76 -27.92 -28.06 -28.18 -28.22 -28.39 -28.39 -28.55 -28.61 -28.61 -28.67 -28.69 -28.83 -29.00 -29.20 -29.31 -29.36 -29.39 -29.70 -29.71 -29.75 -30.05 -30.11 -30.37 -30.51 -30.53 -30.55 Huang, Sophia Fraser, Isabel Yu, Selena Mott, Susie Hiatt, Jesse Goodman, James Bennington, Cydne Barleta, Cole Bai, Michael Wu, Wei-Lee Reith, David Cui, Kevin Briscoe, Sarah Wu, Yvonne Taylor, Jeanette Keenan, Brendan Dorsey, Cherise Chiang, Helen Dickson, Marc Lin, Benjamin Arnold, Melanie Gui Wei, Sophia Tietjen, Zach Lloyd, Jared Rosemont, Penelope Wu, Yu-Chia Chen, Brian Yang, Daniel Chen, Kevin Lai, Samantha Fang, Bryan -30.82 -30.86 -30.88 -30.96 -31.10 -31.12 -31.19 -31.20 -31.25 -31.29 -31.86 -31.95 -32.05 -32.11 -32.15 -32.26 -32.41 -32.41 -32.42 -32.49 -32.66 -33.44 -33.97 -34.17 -34.35 -34.55 -35.43 -35.55 -36.83 -37.56 -38.31 Winner’s Circle We could not reach our goals without the generous contributions of our members. Our deepest thanks and appreciation to the donors below. To join their ranks, email [email protected] Life Members ($1,000) Allen, David Arnold, Keith L. Baker, Bryan D. Baker, Karl Baum, Leonard Bengtson, Matthew Benson, Terence G. Berry, Joseph A. Bowie, Lee Anne Brown, Richard Burrall, Steven F. Carpenter, Scott Clapp, Gordon Cobb, William S. Doshay, David Eckelkamp, John Erbach, David W. Forrester, Sean Fotland, David Fraser, Mark Gaty, Cynthia Giacomoni, Aldric Grant, Ryan Greene, Christopher Grossman, Dennis Halderman, Nicholas Hansen, Wilfred J. Heck, Gus Hess, Nathan Hewitt, William J. Hogan, John M. Jankowski, Eric Kent, David W. Kerwin, James Koester Jr., Kenneth M. Kolb, Laura Kukol, Ray F. Kurz, Steffen Lash, Michael LePore, Mike Mak, Ruth Malick, Darrell Matson, David Matthews, Paul G. McDonald, Brian R. Mechner, Francis Mills, Roger E. Ogg, Karen Ohashi, Yoko Okun, Andrew Peng, Peilung M. [Mike] Pham, Angela Poche, Gerard Purvis, Kevin Redmond, None C. Roach, Jarod Robbins, Charles G. Rognlie, Colin Sanet, Joel S. Sauer, Kurt Schilpp, Jonathon Schurter, Terri Schwartz, Michael A. Shaevel, Jeff Simpson, Joel Small, Haskell Smith, Clay Chip Straus, Peter Straus, Phil Strohm, Jed Su, Charles Wainwright, Eric Waldron, Philip Wang, Vincent H. Weimer, David L. Wu, Steven Zimmerman, Samuel E. Sponsors ($100-$499) Berlekamp, Elwyn R. Brooks, Clark Brow, John N. Bullard Jr., Franklyn Chavez, Todd DeBerry, Aaron Dows, David A. Dunie, Richard Giles, Thomas Allen Harker, Wesley H. Heidenreich, Todd Klock, Gordon Knox, Walter Lee Kwon, Young K. Lanphear III, Lester C. Lazenby, Skip Marshall, Howard Z. Michmerhuizen, James Preuss, Peter Proudfoot, Lewis Saltman, Bill Souris, Myron P. Turnipseed, Joel Walker, Mead Wierda, Clark Witte, Bruno F. Wulf, David Sustainer ($50-$99) An, Terence Baghboudarian, Jason Bailey, Jason Barndt, Charles Bernstein, Benson J. Birk, Christoph Blann, Dale Brown, Mark A. Bryant Jr., Herbert M. Carter, Eric H. Chalmers, Richard M. Chen, Jianbo Ching, Justin Cornell, Dewey G. Culley, Robert Downes, Edward R. Evans, Brad Felice, Robert Freedman, Peter Garibovic, Ekrem Haga, William Han, Kuo-Ruey Hayes, Richard Ishizuka, Mozart Haruhisa Jamar, Steven D. Knox, Warren Kowalski, Richard Kron, Peter Lindemann II, Robert Loegel, George J. Malveaux, Mike Mc Laws, Sean McCann, H. Gilman McDaniel, Kenneth Mckerney, David Mitchell, Paul Murphy, Jeff Osman, Eric Pelrine, Kellin Peterson, Rick Phipps, Joanne Phipps, Ned Porter, John Rex, Scott Rivers, William Rogers, Tim Rounds, Starr Rubenstein, Mark Shivak, Joseph Simonson, Shai Spillers, Lars B. [Ben] Taylor, Thomas C. Walton, Peter L. Wang, Baishi Wawrzyniak, Joseph Whiteside, David E. Yen, Pong 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 75 Yang’s Life & Death SOLUTIONS TO YILUN YANG 7P’S LIFE & DEATH PROBLEMS Easy and hard life and death puzzles by Yilun Yang 7P were a regular feature of the E-Journal in 2009. Here we show the solutions to the puzzles shown on page 46. In the SGF files attached to the E-Journals, Yang explains the moves and shows failure variations. 9 7 8 2 10 3 1 5 6 4 2 6 3 5 4 7 1 9 Easy Solution from 2009_02_02 White 8 at 6, White 10 at 4 Hard Solution from 2009_03_02 4 3 2 1 5 1 2 4 3 5 Easy Solution from 2009_05_11 Hard Solution from 2009_10_12 8 7 6 4 5 3 1 2 Easy Solution from 2009_07_06 76 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 1 2 3 4 Hard Solution from 2009_11_16 Black 5 at 3, white 6 at 4, White 7 at the marked white stone, Black 9 at 3: a ko AGA CONTACT LIST: PRESIDENT: [email protected] MEMBERSHIP SERVICES: [email protected] COMMUNICATIONS: [email protected] E-JOURNAL & YEARBOOK: [email protected] RATINGS COORDINATOR: [email protected] TOURNAMENT COORDINATOR: [email protected] WEBMASTER: [email protected] BOARD OF DIRECTORS: [email protected] YOUTH COORDINATOR: [email protected] GO CONGRESS LIAISON: [email protected] AMERICAN GO FOUNDATION: [email protected] AGA LIBRARIAN: [email protected] YUTOPIAN ENTERPRISES 2255 29th St., Santa Monica, CA 90405 We carry a variety of English, Korean and Chinese go books, equipment and software. 1-800-988-6463 www.yutopian.com/go 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK 77 2010 US Go Congress July 31 - August 8 Colorado Springs, CO www.gocongress.org The annual US Go Congress is the largest go event of the year held in the United States. While the event revolves around the multi-day US Open tournament, the Congress also features dozens of smaller tournaments, as well as lectures and game analyses by professional go players. Check out the events page for information about what goes on during the week of the Go Congress, and head over to the registration page to sign up! 78 2009 AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK Yearbook CD Coming Soon.... Watch the E-Journal for Updates. Guide to Go Guide to Go Where to play Go in America — AGA CHAPTERS http://www.usgo.org for a full club listing Where to play Go in America — AGA CHAPTERS http://www.usgo.org for a full club listing AZ: Tempe Arizona Go Club William Gundberg 480-831-5567 [email protected] CO: Denver Fiery Rain of Go Stones Jasmine Sailing 303-388-4666 [email protected] HI: Honolulu Honolulu Go Club Sid Kobashigawa 833-2540 [email protected] MA: Boston Northeastern Univ. Go Club Joshua Warhurst 508-728-1351 [email protected] MT: Bozeman Gallatin Valley Go Club Pippin Wallace 406-582-8732 [email protected] AZ: Tucson Tucson Go Club Martin Lebl 520-850-9213 [email protected] CO: Longmont Longmont Go Club Aref Nammari 303-776-4200 [email protected] HI: Kaneohe Oahu Go Club Frank H. Alejandro 808-235-1567 [email protected] MA: Sharon Sharon Go Club David Hawkins 781-784-7782 [email protected] NE: Omaha Omaha go Stuart Shell 402-216-1235 [email protected] CA: Davis Davis/Sacramento Go Club Willard Haynes [email protected] DC: Washington NI_ME Thomas Giles 202-368-9955 [email protected] IA: Ames Cyclone go Club Kirk Moloney 515-294-6415 [email protected] MA: Somerville Massachusetts Go Association Peter Martin 617-629-0110 [email protected] NC: Cane Creek Middle School Go Club Jeff Long 828-628-0824 [email protected] Ca: Irvine Orange County Go Club Kevin Chao 949-466-1479 [email protected] DC: Washington Greater Washington Go Club Haskell Small 202-244-4764 IA: Cedar Rapids Cedar Rapids Go Club Jacob Uptain 319-329-5344 [email protected] MD: Baltimore Baltimore Go Club Keith Arnold 410-788-3520 [email protected] CA: Livermore LLNL Go Club Karl Nelson 925-424-4183 [email protected] DC: Washington 19 Squared Points Go Club Thomas Allen Giles 202-338-8301 [email protected] IA: Davenport Quad Cities Go Club Michael Dudzik 312-265-3061 [email protected] MD: Baltimore UMBC Go Club 443-392-6822 [email protected] NC: Charlotte Charlotte Go Club Greg McCall 704-358-6297 [email protected] CA: Oakland Bay Area Go Players Assoc. 510-501-2701 FL: Fort Myers Ft. Myers Go Club Joshua Frye 239-357-8811 [email protected] MD: Baltimore Hopkins Go Cllub Lisa Scott 816-651-6347 [email protected] NC: Durhan/Chapel Hill Triangle Go Group Paul Celmer 919-779-7925 [email protected] MD: College Park University of Maryland Go Club Stephen M. Mount 301-405-6934 [email protected] NH: Nashua Milford Go Club Peter Gousios 603-882-0543 [email protected] IL: Prospect Heights Northwest Chicago Go Club Kyung Han 847-296-2510 MD: Germantown XYZ Private Go Group Yuan Zhou 301-528-7259 [email protected] NJ: Caldwell Feng Yun go School Feng Yun 973-992-5675 [email protected] IL: Rockford Rockford Go Club Michael Hopkins 815-979-1148 [email protected] MI: Ann Arbor Ann Arbor Go Club Eric Jankowski 734-663-1675 [email protected] NJ: Freehold Rutgers Go Club Andrew Casal 732-740-7815 [email protected] IL: Schaumburg Schaumburg Go Club Daniel Smith 847-274-9742 [email protected] MI: Kalamazoo Kalamazoo Go Club Paul Miller 269-623-9981 [email protected] NJ: Hoboken Hoboken Go Club Larry Russ 201-216-5379 [email protected] KY: Louisville Louisville Go Club Asha Nagaiya 270-300-3418 [email protected] MN: Fairboult Rice County Go Club F. John Rowan 507-220-0825 [email protected] NJ: Princeton Princeton Go Club Rick Mott 609-466-1602 [email protected] LA: New Orleans Crane’s Nest Go Club Sean Moy 504-813-2804 [email protected] MO: Go Miners S&T Donald Wunsch 573-341-4521 [email protected] NV: Las Vagas Las Vegas Go Club James Schaefer 702-824-2898 [email protected] CA: San Diego San Diego Go Club Andrew Smith 619-669-8410 [email protected] CA: San Francisco Salesforce.com Go Club Benjamin Tsai 415-8431688 [email protected] CA: San Francisco San Francisco Go Club 415-386-9565 [email protected] CA: Santa Monica Santa Monica Go Club Christopher Hayashida 310-479-2892 [email protected] CA: Sunnyvale Sunnyvale Go Club Jean G. DeMaiffe 408-720-0738 [email protected] CA: Ventura Ventura County Go Club David Whiteside 805-647-8803 [email protected] CO: Boulder Boulder Kid and Teens Go Club Paul Barchilon 303-440-7124 [email protected] CO: Colorado Springs Springs Go Club Jim Michali 719-487-8816 [email protected] CO: Denver Colorado Go Center Eric Wainwright 303-460-0885 [email protected] FL: Gainsville Univ. of Florida Go Club Michael Dyer 352-514-3723 [email protected] FL: Melbourne Space Coast Area Go Assoc. George Lebovitz [email protected] FL: Miami Miami Go Club Joel Sanet 305-652-1137 [email protected] FL: Orlando Go Orlando Joshua Lee 305-308-6624 [email protected] FL: Sarasota Sarasota Go Club Larry Rabinowitz 941-922-1000 [email protected] FL: Tampa Tampa Go Club John Russell 813-385-1853 [email protected] GA: Atlanta Atlanta Go Club Jeffery J Kerlagon 770-992-0308 [email protected] GA: Reingold Go Players’ Association Greg Gibson 706-980-4924 [email protected] IL: Evanston Evanston Go Club Mark Rubenstein 847-869-6020 [email protected] IL: Peoria Bradley Go Association Roy Schmidt 309-677-3718 [email protected] LA: Shreveport Shreveport-Bossier Go Club Peter Haas 318-861-7829 [email protected] MA: Amherst Western Massachusetts Go Club Micah Feldman 413-587-3720 [email protected] NC: Cary Cary Go Club Owen Chen 919-468-2062 [email protected] MO: Southwest Missouri Go Club Tyler Keithley NY: Brooklyn/Manhatten 417-399-4318 Brooklyn Go Club [email protected] Jean-Claude Chetrit 718-638-2266 MS: Jackson/Ridgeland/Brandon [email protected] Mississippi Go Society Rez Johnson NY: Buffalo 601-732-2392 Buffalo Go club [email protected] David Daniels 760-468-4204 [email protected] TX: San Antonio San Antonio Go Club Levi Self 210-367-9759 [email protected] WA: Olympia Olympia Go Club Jason Baghoudarian 360-867-4086 [email protected] WI: Madison University of Wisconsin Go Club Dan Kastenholtz 608-255-6539 [email protected] UT: Salt Lake City Salt Lake Go Club Mike Wallstedt 801-558-4892 [email protected] WA: Seattle Seattle Go Center Jon Boley 206-545-1424 [email protected] WI: Milawukee Milwaukee Go Club Richard Hayes 414-967-1057 [email protected] VA: Blacksburg Blacksburg Go Club John Greiner 540-884-7010 [email protected] WA: Tacoma Tacoma Go Club Gordon Castanza 253-853-4831 [email protected] ISRAEL: Rosh Ha’Ayin Mind Go Club Shavit Fragman +972 (0)54 500453 [email protected] DAF Go League Latasha James [email protected] 2010 U.S. GO CONGRESS GOBASE.ORG GOGAMEWORLD.COM GOGOD GUO JUAN’S GO SCHOOL KISEIDO SCHAAK EN GO WINKEL HET PAARD SLATE & SHELL SMARTGO YELLOW MOUNTAIN IMPORTS AMERICAN GO YEARBOOK AMERICAN GO Yearbook 2009 Please patronize these Yearbook supporters: fine purveyors of quality go books, equipment, software and more! 2009 AMERICAN GO Y E A R B O O K PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID American Go Association P.O. Box 397 Old Chelsea Station New York, NY 10112-0397 WASHINGTON, DC PERMIT #3070 THE WORLD’S OLDEST BOARD GAME R E V I E W & I N S T R U C T I O N INSIDE: TOURNAMENT REPORTS, GAMES, RATINGS, INSTRUCTION, GO PLAYERS GUIDE TO THE WORLD & MORE