I’m obviously flattered that Go is the game of the highbrow, according to a 1949 issue of Life magazine, but having played both, I wouldn’t say it’s a more highbrow game than bridge. I like it better, but I wouldn’t say it’s a better game than bridge.
Even more confusing, Go’s footprint in the US was extremely small in 1949. Not even many highbrow individuals would have played it, even if they’d heard of it.
When I last wrote about Cho U and Iyama Yuta, I wrote that Cho was arguably the top player in Japan. I doubt it’s even arguable this year, as he holds five of the big seven titles (Meijin, Judan, Gosei, Oza, Tengen).
Let’s just repeat something John Fairbairn said: “Everyone agrees that the 20-year-old Iyama has gotten stronger in the intervening year, but, seemingly, so has Cho－after all, he has become the first player to hold five of the top seven titles simultaneously.”
Iyama swept the Meijin qualifier, going 8-0 against a respectable field. Apparently it’s his tourney, as it’s the only major one this year where he’s stood out (and yet he has the most wins of any Japanese pro right now).
Cho is also doing well in the Kisei qualifiers. He only has to beat the currently hapless Miyazawa Goro to win the B league, in which case he’ll have a game against O Rissei for the chance to challenge Yamashita Keigo. Cho recently had little trouble defending the Oza against Yamashita, but it sometimes appears that particular players have a knack for winning their tournaments, and Yamashita is one more win before he becomes Honorary Kisei. Anyway, even if Cho eventually gets to challenge for the Kisei, in November, he’ll be defending the Tengen title against…Yamashita Keigo.
Lastly, the Honinbo league is incredibly competitive: Takao Shinji, Yamada Kimio, Yamashita Keigo, Cho U, Takemiya Masaki (!), Yuki Satoshi, Mimura Tomoyasu, Iyama Yuta. When you take into account that Hane Naoki is the title holder, it’s an impressive list.
Just a quick note: there will be a go tournament for beginners held in Oakland this coming Tuesday–I’ve included the announcement below. I doubt I’ll be there to offer moral support, but it’s a good opportunity to play go if you’re just starting or haven’t played in awhile. I suspect that the fifteen game limit may be more of a rough guideline, but if you’re worried, you can contact someone at the club and ask.
Let me also note that September is just about the best time of year for new players in our club. Every year there’s an increase in the number of attendees right after CMU’s activity fair, and it brings in folks of all levels.
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The tournament will be this Tuesday night (Aug. 25) at Phantom of the Attic in Oakland (406 S.
Craig St.). It will start at 7:30 and go no later than 11:30.
The tournament will be played on 13×13 boards and is aimed at players who are new to the game of go. Anyone who has played around fifteen games or less is welcome to play. So, if you’re new to the game yourself, be sure to stop by, and if you have friends that you’ve been trying to get excited about go, encourage them to attend. First prize is a used go board. Second prize is $5.
Josiah will be at Phantom of the Attic at 6:30 to give a review of the rules and other tips to anyone who shows up early. Other
non-beginners are invited to stop by to observe and/or teach before the tournament and between rounds.
Categories: Go · Pittsburgh
It looks like the field for the Go Congress is going to be really impressive this year. Jie Li, who missed 2007 and 2008 is going to attend, as will Andy Liu, winner of the 2006 congress. There’s also Curtis Tang who was fourth in 2006 as a 13 year old. He hasn’t played in US tournaments since then, and I thought I’d heard he was receiving professional training in China (if so, he’s not now a pro). Canada is sending Yongfei Ge, who has won 2 prior Opens, Juyong Koh, who was top three in last year’s Open, and Gan Sheng Shi, who had a major upset against Mingjiu Jiang this previous year. That’s in addition to a number of perennial strong American players like Zhaonian Chen, Eric Lui and Thomas Hsiang (a somewhat arbitrary list, I suppose).
There’s also a large contingent of professionals attending from China, Korea and Japan. Last year, one of them, Yin Kuo, played in the Open, so I’m curious to see whether that will happen again, even if active professionals are likely to dominate the open.
There’s some uncertainty from where I sit about which American professionals will play. Mingjiu almost always does, Myungwan did last year, and won the event, but there are others I don’t know about.
Sunday morning: Myungwan Kim is playing on one of the top three boards. Little surprise that he won, playing against Jianing Gan, a 12 year old Canadian player.
Sunday Evening: Seems that Jie Li and Mingjiu Jiang aren’t playing in the open. Nor are any foreign players. So I’m somewhat disappointed. Find pairings, although no results yet, at the Congress News page.
Later: After some delay, results are regularly being posted at the news page–after three days, there are no huge surprises. In the Ing, you could count Andy Liu beating Yilun Yang for the second time in a few weeks as noteworthy, and the same for Jie Li losing to Juyong Koh, but neither is a shock. Juyong Koh, Myungwan Kim and Andy Liu are the only undefeated players in the top section of the Open, so two of them will play on Thursday, and then we’ll be down to a maximum of one undefeated player after Friday.
I also noticed that Curtis Tang isn’t participating, even though he was previously listed.
Friday Night: It seems like the top board of Saturday (the last day) could be anticlimactic. Myungwan Kim is 5-0, but has already beat all 4-1 players (Andy Liu, Juyong Koh, Zhaonian Chen), so he’ll probably play someone who is 3-2. Some of the 3-2 players are very good, but others would provide an absolute mismatch. More interesting will be which two of the three 4-1 players are paired.
Andy Liu has really had an amazing tournament–aside from being 4-1 in the Open, he went 5-0 in the Ing Masters. All told, he won against Chaelim Kim, Thomas Hsiang, Jie Liang, Eric Lui (twice), Mingjiu Jiang 7p, Yilun Yang 7p and Feng Yun 9p. Seems like he’s now got a lead on strongest American amateur (Jie Li went 4-1 in the Ing).
Saturday Morning: Minor surprise, as Zhaonian Chen beats Andy Liu. Myungwan Kim beats Yongfei Ge. That puts Myungwan at 6-0, Zhaonian at 5-1, followed by several players at 4-2 (Andy Liu, Juyong Koh, Eric Lui, Thomas Hsiang, Jie Liang, Yuan Zhou, Richard Liang and Matthew Burall). And with that, I’m done covering congress.
Categories: Go
Tagged: Baduk, Go Congress, Igo, Weiqi
Iyama Yuta will once again play Cho U for the Meijin in the fall. The league hasn’t actually finished, but Iyama is 6-0, with two games to play. Yamada Kimio, Takao Shinji and Sakai Hideyuki are 5-2, 4-2 and 4-2 respectively, but they’ve each lost to Iyama head-to-head.
It’s potentially something of a weird year for Iyama. It’s his second year with a really high level performance, and he leads the Japanese win-loss standings, with a 22-7 record. And yet the Meijin will be the only title he’ll challenge for this year, after narrowly missing the chance to challege for the Kisei and Gosei titles. Whether or not he wins the Meijin he’ll be the top of his age group, but it would be strange for 2009 to essentially be a repeat of 2008.
Also interesting, Ri Ishu, a 20 year old player, is third in the win-loss standings, with a 17-2 (!) record. He just earned a 7-dan promotion for entering the Kisei league, making him one of the young players to watch.
July 9th: Iyama ended up sweeping the league 7-0.
Categories: Go
Tagged: Igo, Iyama Yuta, Meijin
I was amused by the Fujitsu seedings–there are three slots open to Western players, but it was as if they were seeded to lose. Fernando Aguilar, the most successful Western player, was slotted to play Cho U, while Jie Li (the top American amateur) played Hane Naoki. Europe’s representative Franz Josef Dickhut, himself less famous than the other two Westerners, drew Moriyama Naoki, who is the least successful of the Japanese entrants.
Neither amateurs nor Westerners typically win games in these tournaments, so it was unsurprising that they were swept. More surprising is that all of Japan’s players advanced to the second round. That’s to be expected for the three who played amateurs, but Takao Shinji beat Zhou Ruiyang, Iyama Yuta beat Won Sungjin, and probably most impressive, Kono Rin beat Kong Jie. None of those wins are individually shocking, but the odds are against so many Japanese players making it.
The second round will be somewhat harder. Takao will play Lee Changho, Cho will play Lee Sedol, Kono Rin will play Gu Li, and Iyama will play Kang Tongyun. I’d tentatively call all the Japanese players underdogs, though Iyama is a wild-card and Cho is quite strong.
Update: 5 Japanese players lost, Yamashita Keigo beat Qiu Jun, and in a big surprise, Kono Rin beat Gu Li. That means Kono will play Chang Hao and Yamashita will play Lee Sedol in June.
Categories: Go
The Meijin title went to a seventh and final game, but Cho U swept the Tengen, winning 3-0 against Kono Rin, the followed that by beating Yamashita Keigo 3-1. Along with the Gosei, that gives Cho a majority of the Japanese Big Titles. The final game of the Oza is worth looking at–almost all the amateur observers on IGS thought that Yamashita had acquired a big lead in the sequence leading up to move 108. Either the position deceived us, or Cho made up some serious points in the endgame, because he ended up winning by 2.5.
Awhile back, I commented on the Meijin match starting. Iyama Yuta took a 2 game lead, which surprised many people. In fact, he won the first game by 5.5 points. Ishida Yoshio called it a masterpiece, and Cho couldn’t find a losing move, both signs that Iyama’s play was impressive. However, Cho then won 2 games, evening the score. Meanwhile, Cho won their game, making him the challenger for the Oza. Cho also subsequently won the right to challenge for the Tengen. Along with the Gosei (which he has already defended) that means Cho could end up holding 4 of the top 7 Japanese titles this year. He also has advanced quite far in the qualifying tournament for next year’s Judan.
Lastly, Iyama is playing Yoda Norimoto to decide who will challenge for next year’s Kisei.
Perhaps everyone who might be interested in this has already heard through other channels, but the Pittsburgh Go Club is holding its fall tournament on September 27th. You can find more information on the club website. There’s usually a pretty wide range of players: the fall 2007 tournament featured both one of the top players in the country and someone at around 20kyu. The only requirement is that you have some idea of your strength, either from the AGA, or a go server such as KGS.
Categories: Go · Pittsburgh
Tagged: Baduk, Igo, Wei-chi
As I write this, the first round of the Meijin is being played, and I’m watching it on my computer. As much as you can watch a match where the average move takes 3-9 minutes (random numbers). So it goes on the third desktop of my computer.
The match is rather exciting, since Cho U is Japan’s top pro, and Iyama Yuta is the fastest rising young star. By young star, I mean that he’s still 19. I suppose the characterization of Cho could be argued, since there are really four very prominent professionals in the current generation. However, Cho has won more of the seven major Japanese titles than any of the others, and is the only one of the four to win an international title. Right now, he holds the Gosei and is trying to defend the Meijin against Iyama. Cho also will soon play Ko Iso for the right to challenge for the Tengen, and will play …*drumroll* Iyama Yuta for the right to challenge for the Oza. Lastly, Iyama currently leads the Kisei league with a 3-0 score.
I’m a Cho U fan, so I’m quite excited by this, but it’s also very interesting because Japan has trailed in the go world for the past twenty years, so each new star is watched very carefully. Most Japanese pros also seem to reach their full potential later than their Korean or Chinese counterparts, so it’s also interesting that Iyama is so young.
Update: Iyama won the first game by 5.5 points.
Each year, the Go Congress gives an opportunity to see how America’s best amateur players compare to its professionals. This year’s short answer is: the pros are better. Kim Myung Wan won the US Open and Feng Yun won the Ing Masters. The 4-1 band of the Ing Masters had 2 pros and 3 amateurs, while the 5 win band of the US Open had one pro and one amateur.
Lastly, there are new ratings after the congress
Of the professionals, I believe only Kim Myung Wan and Yin Kuo have recently been active in a professional association. Unfortunately, I do not know if Kim Myung Wan has played any rated games other than the 6 US Open games he won since coming to this country, so his rating may well not be accurate.
The match went to seven games, despite Cho taking an early 3-1 lead, but Cho finally pulled through in the seventh game, winning by 2.5 points. The game featured a number of interesting fights or exchanges, including a large corner group dying after a ko fight (you can find the game at Mr. Kin’s go news). Last year Takao took the Meijin from Cho, and this year Cho returned the favor–if things go perfectly, they’ll meet for the title again next year.
Categories: Go
Like many American go players, I’m a bit of a Cho U fan, which makes sense, since he is (arguably) Japan’s top pro. After a mild slump last year, he’s having an excellent year in 2007.
With yesterday’s game, he pulled ahead 3-1 in the Meijin title match. The game was fun, but surprising in a few ways: his opponent Takao played for territory, while Cho got a large wall facing the center. A big ko developed, and while Cho lost the ko, he got to kill a large group of Takao’s as compensation.
So Cho is now one game away from winning the Meijin, he swept the defense of the Gosei, he’s in the playoff to challenge for the Kisei, and he won the winner’s bracket of the Judan, meaning he only needs to win 1 of 3 games to challenge for that title.
By comparison, Takao is the titleholder of the Meijin, and defended the Honinbo. Yamashita Keigo is now defending the Oza, holds the Kisei, and will challenge Kono Rin for the Tengen. Despite being 51, Cho Chikun holds the Judan and is in the Kisei challenger playoff against Cho U. In all likelihood, the best year will go to whichever player wins the Kisei.
Categories: Go
I somewhat doubt that anyone who regularly reads this blogs meets all three of the following criteria, but that won’t stop me from making this post:
Anyway, Hay People! We’re having a tournament next weekend! Preparations are going quasi-smoothly, and it looks like in addition to a good sized local contingent we’ll have folk coming in from Ohio and Baltimore.
I really need to get in some games between now and then, because TAing has seriously messed with my Go these days. Oh the sad sad world of responsibility.
Categories: Go · Pittsburgh
I went to the delightful Japanese grocery store down the street today in search of Kimchi and took the opportunity to ask if I could put up a flyer for our go club. The clerk behind the counter directed me to the owners in the back, and asked if I had the flyer with me.
Conversation: [Japanese I don't understand] [looking over the flyer] ah! igo! [more Japanese] “Go ahead, put it up.”
They thought I was saying golf. Understandably, the average Japanese grocery store has little reason to make room for golf club flyers.
So in similar situations, swallow your fear of being pretentious and use the native word (Igo, Baduk, Wei’chi).
In addition to Kimchi, we also got something which will merit discussion once it has been eaten.
Categories: Go
Tagged: Food and Drink
I’m writing a short guide to resources for learning go and steps you’ll want to take if you’re just starting out, and I just posted an incomplete draft. If you have any interest in the subject, please to take advantage of it, or just comment. The most important thing is that it not be too intimidating or pompous, since I’m thinking of showing it to the beginners in our club.
Categories: Go
Posting should be light for the next week. I’m headed to the Go Congress in Millersville, PA. Almost 500 players from the United States, Canada, Japan and the rest of the world will be there. The natural thing would be to post about how I get myself in the right state of mind for a weeklong go convention including the US Open. Unfortunately my method of preparation consisted of ignoring go for almost past three weeks, playing only two games in the past eight days, and changing my travel plans because moving from Squirrel Hill took twice as long as I expected it to. I’m going to bring 1001 life and death problems to get a little warm-up before my 9:00 AM game on Sunday.
I’ll have my computer and wireless at the congress, but I’m going there to play, not blog. I’m also planning to write a post expressing my very important views on McDowell’s Mind and World, but you can’t rush that sort of thing.
Categories: Go
Shygost told an interesting anecdote which I think I can repeat since it was in a public lecture. We’re accustomed to viewing joseki as an even trade for both players. The Sensei’s Library page says they result “in what is considered a fair outcome for both players.” Sometimes one player gets territory, while the other gets influence, or one gets more territory but also worse aji, etc, but these factors are supposed to cancel out.
Shy told us that during a lesson, he said “I just don’t know about this joseki, it doesn’t seem even” and Zhujiu Jiang came back with “even..who said joseki had to be even?” To illustrate the point he laid out the following position:
It’s a common joseki, but black is clearly better. Black has close to ten points of territory, while white has perhaps four. Both sides are secure, if anything Black is more secure, and neither side has a ton of room to grow. What makes the sequence joseki is that white has established a safe group in black’s area, in a situation where black would have liked to attack. Perhaps a better way to view joseki is as known sequences for producing a desired result. This maintains the fact that a joseki serves a useful function (what leads people to call them even) but allows that they may not strictly be even.
Categories: Go
My understanding is that Friday cat blogging used to be a thing. It looks like I’m late to the party, though.
When I got home from vacation, he was acting snippy, meowing when I petted him, etc. He’s calmed down, and is now taking out his aggression on the go board.
The initial high approach to komoku exhibits an aggressive stance, intended to show fighting spirit and take the opponent out of his game, as does sitting on three-quarters of the board.
Categories: Go · Trivialities
Tagged: Cats
In learning to play go, one of the most elusive concepts has been good shape. Bad shape, on the other hand..well, just look at this game I played today. If the groups with the triangle and the square make you feel uneasy or even nauseated, you understand bad shape.
Incidentally, I’m white, and it’s my turn.
Categories: Go
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