Young Go Academy opens in Sydney

(July 14, 2010 at 10:12 pm by aguido in Club updates, Events, Other, Tournaments, Visiting)

Local professional An Younggil has just opened the Young Go Academy in Strathfield, Sydney. He sends through this report:

“Last Sunday was the opening day for of the new club. There was a friendship match between Korean and Chinese go players in Sydney as the opening event. Participants are 3d to 7d and each dan has three or four players each team. The team members are 17 each, and there were two rounds in the afternoon.

On the first round, Chinese team won by 10 to 7, and after the round, there was a review between Rain Jang and Miao Zhao. Rain beat Miao, and he came to Australia three weeks ago, and he seems to be the strongest amateur player in Australia I think. Kyung-Min Yu reviewed the game in fluent Chinese; he’s a 6p Korean player and has lived in Taiwan about 5 years before coming here. After the short review, the second round had begun and the Chinese team won by 11 to 6. Finally, the friendship match ended with the result Chinese won by 21:13. There were three foreigners in the Korean team (Norman Wildburger 5d, Ciaran Pearson 5d and Barry Jay 3d) although actually, we count as foreigners too. They won 5 games and one lost, and they also seemed to enjoy the time so much. There were many other go players who came to watch the games and the new venue.

After the event, the players and watchers were all coming for dinner together and people enjoyed the Korean style of buffet. There was also raffle time for some concert tickets, and the Chinese took all five. The event was so successful and I really thank the visitors including players. :-) As the Australian government is letting me stay here longer for Go, I hope to contribute something with Go and this is the first step to do it properly. By the way, the new club will be opened every single day from 2pm to 10pm.”

The YGA has An Younggil 8p, Kyung-Min Yu 6p (come here from five years in Taiwan teaching go), and Rain Jang 7d (fresh from a year in Seattle) as teachers, and seems to be exciting a lot of interest. Here are some photos of the open day tournament: