30 Mar 2009 No Comments

Queensland Championships results

picture of the champions

After the final three tournament rounds on Sunday, the Queensland Open Go Champion for 2009 is Kevin Jiang 6d with a clean sweep of six victories. Kevin was also the 2008 champion. Second place went to Fred Huang 3d, and third to Chulho Rhee 4d, each with five wins. The Queensland Kyu Go Champion for 2009 is the Journal’s own Amelia Gray 3k with five victories. Second place went to Bruce Macintosh 5k with five victories, and third place to Warrakun Mangrai 8k with four wins.

The Brisbane consulate-general of the People’s Republic of China was kind enough to send consul Duan Zhong to say a few words at the closing ceremony, and to donate some rather colourful prizes for all six winners. Above are pictured (from left to right), Amelia, the consul, and Kevin, just after the trophies were presented; picture by Rodney Topor, who was one of several bystanders to come along to watch the finale.

More pictures as people start decanting their cameras…

by aguido in Analysis, Tournaments Tags: , , ,

29 Mar 2009 No Comments

Before day two of the Queensland Championships

This weekend is the Queensland State Championships, run by the usual suspects at the Brisbane Go Club. I’m liveblogging from the venue, thanks to the wonders of mobile prepaid broadband. :)

After three rounds on day one, the open division placings are as follows:

  1. Kevin Jiang 6d
  2. Fred Huang 4d
  3. Markus Pache 4d
  4. Larry Wen 3d
  5. Chulho Rhee
  6. Sam Nakagawa
  7. Mark Bell
  8. Jeremy Wen

plus eleven others with fewer than two wins. In the kyu division, the placings so far are:

  1. Warrakun Mangrai 8k
  2. Amelia Gray 3k
  3. Horatio Davis 4k
  4. James Chown 1k
  5. Bruce Mcintosh 5k

plus six others with fewer than two wins. The day also featured the Brisbane Go Club‘s annual general meeting, which re-elected the same officers as last year and discussed the upcoming Ballina Go Camp.

Three more rounds, and pictures to come.

by aguido in Tournaments Tags: , ,

28 Mar 2009 4 Comments

An evening of go

Late afternoon on a cloudy Tuesday rolled around, and the committee members of Students Playing Go staggered over to the Union building, arms laden with go equipment and plenty of snacks. The event started precisely at four, and as several muttered ‘we didn’t expect -this- many people to show up!’ Indeed we recorded more than 40 turn-ups, comprising of old and new members, players from the local high school and even a couple of curious students peeking in from the outside. Many immediately dived into games while others sampled the food (the dips seemed to be a firm favourite!). It was great seeing everyone mixing about and even separating into small groups for teaching games. Yours truly had to miss the middle hour, during which the tournament director Trithang held a demonstration of life and death situations and opening strategy. All in all it was a very lively evening, ending with an awesome group photo! We certainly hoped that many have picked up some good tips and a good many new friends.

by Shamim in Events, Life, Other Tags: , , ,

17 Mar 2009 1 Comment

The First Issue – Autumn 2009

That’s right, it’s safe to believe it, folks. We have finally produced our very first Issue in PDF format! This calls for celebration; bring on champagne and chocolate (or whatever else you feel like celebrating with)!

You’ll notice there’s a shiny new Print Edition tab above. You will be able to go here to download all issues of the Journal (There’s only one at the moment, but in the not too distant future, it shall have friends.), or you can download Issue 1 from this link right now!

A general round of applause goes out for all the wonderful contributors of this issue, and in particular, a huge thank you to James Birkett, who designed the front page graphic, and chid0ri, who allowed us to use her Empty Triangle comics. If you’d like to write an article, or just give general feedback, you are more than welcome to contact us here at the blog by leaving a comment, or emailing amelia@go.org.au. We want to know what you’d like to read.

by Amelia in Issues

12 Mar 2009 No Comments

SPGO’s Beginners’ Night 2009

March 24, 2009
4:00 pmto7:00 pm

With students settling down and finding their classes, and deciding (finally) to join the go club, it’s time again for Beginners’ Night, a casual evening event organised by Students Playing Go at the University of Melbourne. It’s aimed at introducing new players to go and to other members and has been widely successful the past two years. There will be various activities, including life+death demonstrations, opening strategy tips and one-on-one teaching games. Beginners’ Night is completely free and opened to everyone (even non-members) so if you’re in Melbourne, bring yourself and friends! It’ll also be fully-catered, and seriously, who can resist free food and go games? =)

Details:

When: 24th March (Tuesday), 4-7pm

Where: Union House (centre of University of Melbourne Parkville Campus), lvl 2, Cornish Graham A+B (Opposite Rowden White library)

Please note the SPGO website at http://www.spgo.org.au is currently down. Write to mu.spgo@gmail.com (temporary address) for more information or to join the mailing list. We’re working to bringing the site back up.

by Shamim in Announcements, Club updates, Events

07 Mar 2009 No Comments

NEC Cup update

It is now confirmed that Mr Kawamura from the Nihon Ki-in will be attending this year’s NEC Cup in Melbourne and bringing a group of his students to play in the tournament. As the numbers for each division are limited they are filling up fast so if you wish to play and have not yet registered you should do so immediately.

(Hat tip to Brad Melki of the Melbourne Go Club, who the Journal understands are also hosting this year’s Australian national championships).

by aguido in Tournaments Tags: , ,

07 Mar 2009 No Comments

Kicking off first semester at the University of Melbourne

This just in from Shamim at the Melbourne University Students Playing Go collective:

“The end of summer saw intense flurries of activity from the committee members of SPGO (notwithstanding its political sounding name, Students Playing Go is the happy friendly resident go club of the University of Melbourne), who are preparing to lure welcome new students and introduce them to this wonderful game. We begin by braving 38 degrees heat for Orientation week and was met with resounding success with a high markup of new members. Some have seen passing reference to go especially in movies and TV shows, but many became interested by the sight and sounds of stones hitting the board and also (we hope) by our smiling faces as we demonstrated games. Good news this year, there were fewer mentions of reversi and no one mistook stones for candy nor attempted to eat any!

Turnout for first week meetings have been quite pleasing, with even a couple of dan-level players coming in and beginners who dived into games with much enthusiasm. The first event for the semester – Beginners’ Night certainly looks to be promising at this rate! Meanwhile, the hiccup of players getting lost while attempting to locate us in the Alice Hoy building, will hopefully sort itself out soon.

Stay tuned for more updates and activities from Students Playing Go =)”

Yes, more posts than average this week from me; I hope to persuade someone at MU-SPGO that they want posting rights on this blog as well as theirs, so you don’t just see the same names all the time here. And it would be nice to hear from the UNSW Go Club as well as the crowd at UWA. If anyone in Sydney or Perth is reading this and is in a position to, could you give them a poke?

by aguido in Club updates, Events Tags: , ,

04 Mar 2009 1 Comment

University of Queensland Go starts for the semester

For the past few semesters, the Queensland University Gaming Society has met every academic week or so and played go. They also meet at a frenetic pace to play other board, card, and strategy games, but that’s another blog post. The go meetings are usually led by one or two students who hold dual membership with the Brisbane Go Club, which also loans some decent boards and stones to QUGS for the purpose, and usually makes itself visible at UQ’s O Week clubs-and-societies day.

First semester started this week, and so did the go playing for 2009. For a change the group convened in the Science Learning Centre in the Priestley Building, rather than haunting one of the refectories. It was lunchtime, so I dropped in at half past eleven to see whether they’d get five or maybe push the envelope and have six regular players this year.

Well.

First they ran out of boards. Then they ran out of players to teach the newcomers. Then they ran out of tables. I lost count at half-a-dozen games (two of ‘em on the floor), but I’m told by witnesses who stuck out the entire five hours (!) that on the order of twenty people came through and played. Strengths ranged from three dan to (sorry, dude) thirty kyu. I couldn’t persuade any of them to turn up to the Queensland Championships, but you can’t have everything.

A dozen students playing go is small change to one of the large inner-city clubs. But it will be interesting to see where the numbers are next week.

by aguido in Club updates, Events, Opinion Tags: , ,

01 Feb 2009 3 Comments

2009 Queensland State Championships

March 28, 2009toMarch 29, 2009

Two days of go at the Brisbane Bridge Centre, 104 Frederick Street, Annerley, from the twenty-eighth to the twenty-ninth of March, hosted by the BGC. Participation attracts AGA representative points. There will be an open division (all strengths of dan player) to determine the Queensland Open Champion, and a handicap division on the McMahon system for kyu players. The tournament fee is $35 for student and junior players, and $55 for everybody else. This price includes the tournament, morning and afternoon teas, and lunch, both days. All welcome, especially AGA members from other states.

  • An Young Gil 6P will be teaching on Friday from noon to 8:30pm, this is an extra $15 to participate.
  • The Brisbane Go Club will have its annual general meeting on Saturday lunchtime.
  • There is a tournament dinner on Saturday night for an additional cost, opt in at registration.
  • Side games are eligible for entry into the Oceania Go Ladder.

If travelling from interstate, try the Annerley Motor Inn or the Lancaster Court Motel, each of which is five to ten minutes from the venue. You will need to be a member in good standing of the Australian Go Association; individual memberships will be sold on the day for ten dollars, or you can arrange something through your club – for Queenslanders, that’s the Brisbane Go Club, which you will need to (re)join if you aren’t already a member.

To register, please email your name, rank, club, and contact details to the tournament director, Horatio Davis (horatio@go.org.au), or find the nearest BGC committee member and hand them a filled-in copy of the entry form. If you have particular needs for the dinner or morning tea (vegetarian, kosher, coffee, black forest cake) or wish to attend the teaching afternoon on the Friday or the tournament dinner on the Saturday, please mention these in your email. Registration fees will be collected on the day.

The Journal will of course be reporting live from the event. :)

Update: As of one week before the event, there are sixteen players registered in the open division and fifteen in the kyu division. Come on in, the water’s fine!

Second update: The schedule for the tournament is here. Short version: teaching half-day starts at noon, Saturday and Sunday we start at nine in the morning.

by aguido in Announcements, Tournaments Tags: