13 Nov 2009 No Comments

30th Queensland Championships

February 6, 2010toFebruary 7, 2010

The thirtieth Queensland Championships will occur over Saturday 6 February and Sunday 7 February, 2010, in the Holt Room at the Student Union on the University of Queensland campus at St Lucia in Brisbane. There will be an open division for dan players (attracting AGA representative points) and a handicap division for kyu players. First round of six starts at nine o’clock, and there is a published schedule running until five o’clock both days.

Please RSVP to your nearest Brisbane Go Club officer – use the registration form or write an email. If you’re interstate, that’s horatio@go.org.au. Because this is an AGA-sanctioned championship, competitors will need to either have current Australian Go Association membership or be prepared to acquire some during registration (club membership will do nicely), and will accrue AGA credit points from their placings. Entry is five dollars for students and juniors (thank QUGS for this one) and thirty-five dollars for everyone else. Anyone and everyone who plays any sort of go in the greater Brisbane area is welcome and strongly encouraged to turn out and play.

The 2010 annual general meeting of the Brisbane Go Club, including elections, will take place on the Sunday of the tournament, during lunch.

by aguido in Announcements, Tournaments Tags: , , , ,

12 Nov 2009 No Comments

2009 Wellington Open

November 21, 2009toNovember 22, 2009

The Wellington Go Club is holding the 2009 Wellington Open on Saturday the twenty-first and Sunday the twenty-second of November in New Zealand. Contact Teruhisa Yanagihashi for more information.

As always, photos and kifu and amusing anecdotes and results can be sent here to the Journal, and we will even publish them. :)

by aguido in Announcements, Tournaments Tags: , ,

02 Nov 2009 No Comments

New Zealand beats Australia at 2009 Korean Prime Ministers Cup

The results of the fourth Korean Prime Ministers Cup this week are in. Xuqi Wi 3d of New Zealand took twelfth place with five victories in seven rounds. Yiming Guo 7d of Australia came nineteenth with four victories, out of a field of sixty-six countries.

Xuqi Wi at the 4th KPMC

Xuqi Wi lost to Zoran Mutabzija 5d of Croatia, defeated Sebastien Ott 1d of Switzerland, Charlie Akerblom 4d of Sweden, Sin-Voon Chin 2d of Brunei, Cesar Sanchez Munoz 4d of Spain and Dusan Mitic 5d of Serbia, and lost to Yuan Zhou 7d of the United States in his final round, to score 5 points, 27 points SOS, and 190 points SOSOS. Zhou subsequently placed fifth in the competition, so not a bad player to be defeated by.

Yiming Guo

Yiming Guo defeated Ott and Ruechagorn Trairatananusorn 5d of Thailand, lost to Chun-Yen Lin 6d of Taiwan, defeated Ralph Spiegl 5d of Australia, lost to Cristian Pop 7d of Romania, defeated Wan-Kao Lou 5d of Macau, and lost to Victor Chow 7d of South Africa to score 4 points, 28 points SOS, and 197 points SOSOS.

Congratulations to both representatives for a strong showing, and thanks to Sensei’s Library for a proper English translation of the official results, and Jayden Sia for the photos.

by aguido in Tournaments, World Championships Tags: , , , ,

22 Oct 2009 1 Comment

Eighth World Students Go Oza wants an Oceania representative

If you’re a strong go player and full-time university student under thirty years old, please have a go at the eighth World Students Go Oza happening in March 2010 in Japan. Unlike the previous seven, this one has a slot for a player from Oceania (i.e. Australia and New Zealand and the islands) and a qualifying tournament for same (played on IGS). Registrations for the tournament are reported as closing on Sunday the twenty-fifth of October (or not: updated below).

Word has already been sent to most Australian go clubs. But the qualifying round needs at least ten games played in it, with no doubling up, which means at least five players, and if there are a lot of players from one region, they will adjust the slots for competitors accordingly, possibly upward. If you know anyone who fits the bill, please make sure they know about this before Sunday.

Update: according to Keiko Sota from Pandanet, the deadline is now November 12th for the Oceania contestants to register for the preliminaries in December.

by aguido in Tournaments, World Championships Tags: , ,

19 Oct 2009 4 Comments

Brisbane Christmas Pair Go Tournament

December 19, 2009

…and barbeque (alright, mostly a BBQ) at our president Mark Bell’s house (55 White Street, Wavell Heights), on the northside of Brisbane, on Saturday the nineteenth of December. We will be playing rengo (teams of two) on 13×13 boards, in order to fit sufficient rounds into one day. BYO pairs (also your own alcoholic drinks and desserts) and RSVP to your nearest Brisbane Go Club member, mentioning if you are a vegetarian or similar. Any go player within range is cordially invited to turn up and join in. Please pass the word to anyone unlikely to read it here.

Play starts at nine o’clock. A BBQ lunch will happen around noon, and there will be tea and coffee and soft drinks laid on. We anticipate finishing around three o’clock, but our mileage will vary.

The draw will use the Gray & Mackay algorithm pioneered last year, and any leftover unpaired entrants will be paired quasi-randomly, or left free to play side games. The event does not attract AGA representative points, however if we get any traditional mixed pairs playing better than average, this will be noted for future use in selecting Australian pair go teams. :)

by aguido in Announcements, Tournaments Tags: , , ,

06 Oct 2009 1 Comment

2009 National Championships results

The 2009 Australian open champion is Zack Zhou 7d. Second place in the open division of the thirty-second Australian National Go Tournament on the weekend went to Kevin Chen 7d, and Raphael Shin 7d placed third. All three players won five of the six rounds, and were separated on the sum of their opponents’ scores.

All the competitors

All the competitors

The second division was handicapped, with eleven competitors between second dan and third kyu. Yong Heng Li 3k won with a clean sweep, Jeremy Wen 1d of Brisbane came second with five victories, and Tridat Tran 1k placed third with four wins.

Bill Wen winning third division in the 2009 Nationals

Bill Wen winning third division in the 2009 Nationals

The third division (four kyu and under) was won by Bill Wen 15k of Brisbane, with Masahide Yanagi 5k and Warrakun Mangrai 8k placing second and third.

An Younggil 8p playing simultaneous games on the teaching day

An Younggil 8p playing simultaneous games on the teaching day

In all, a good tournament, with a strong field (110 dan!) of forty competitors, and a good turnout for An Younggil 8p’s teaching afternoon on the preceding Friday. The BBQ didn’t hurt, either. Kudos to the host Melbourne University Students Playing Go collective, and the newly announced Victorian Go Club for helping out.

Shining Yin, tournament director for the 2009 Nationals

Shining Yin, tournament director for the 2009 Nationals

A full report with shiny photos will be in the summer edition of the Journal. If anybody has any interesting kifu from the tournament and wants to send them to us, we will be happy to turn them into SGF files for your use and and see about getting reviews of them from strong players for later publication.

by aguido in Tournaments Tags: , ,

24 Sep 2009 1 Comment

Photos from the ACT Championships

Neville Smythe has posted some photos from the 2009 ACT Championships on Picasa. If you have any photos around from an Australian or New Zealand tournament, please upload them to Picasa or Flickr and share with the community, or mail them to us, who will do it for you. :)

by aguido in Photos, Tournaments Tags: , ,

05 Sep 2009 No Comments

Australian Go Problem Competition winners

The AGA ran a go problem competition during August, sponsored by David Mitchell. Entries have now closed. Guyu Liu 7d has won the dan division with five correct answers. James Kaaden 2k has won the kyu division with five correct answers. The AGA will be in touch with the winners regarding which book prizes they want.

by aguido in Competitions Tags: , ,

23 Aug 2009 No Comments

2009 ACT Championships results out

The final results for both divisions of the 2009 ACT Championships have been published on the Australian Go Association web pages. Neville Smythe posted on the AGA news page:

The ACT Open Championship was won by Guyu Liu, with 6 straight wins; Yiming Guo and David Ormerod came 2nd and 3rd. The Handicap section was won by Jordan Ceglinski. The tournament was run as a McMahon, so after the second round the kyu players were mixed in with the dan players; Jordan’s record indicates we have to upgrade his ranking significantly!

If anyone has any photos or kifu or amusing anecdotes from the event, we would like to include a proper tournament report in the spring issue of the Journal.

by aguido in Tournaments Tags: ,

08 Aug 2009 2 Comments

Friendly go at GenCon

September 20, 2009
1:00 pmto4:00 pm

A few of us will be holding a friendly go afternoon at Gen Con Australia, a rather large gaming convention on 18-20 September, 2009 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. We’ll be in the gaming area on Sunday afternoon from 1pm to 4pm, playing random go and teaching all comers. If you’d like a game or you’re at the convention anyhow, feel free to drop in.

Next year, if this idea holds water, we might actually take up their offer to hold a tournament there. Watch this space.

by aguido in Announcements, Events, Life Tags: , ,

06 Aug 2009 No Comments

First Australian go problem competition

The Australian Go Association is running an inaugural go problem competition for kyu players and dan players. Closing date for entries is 31 August. Details at the link.

by aguido in Competitions Tags: , ,

27 Jul 2009 No Comments

2009 New Zealand Open

September 12, 2009toSeptember 13, 2009

The 2009 New Zealand Open Go Championships have just been announced on the NZGS mailing list. They will be held in Auckland on the weekend of 12-13 September. As well as the open division to choose the New Zealand champion, there will be a handicap division for kyu players. Both divisions will be run in six rounds using a McMahon draw. There will be a social function on the Saturday night, and any go players in the area are welcome to drop by for a game.

For more information, contact Colin Grierson or fetch the entry form from the New Zealand Go Society wiki.

by aguido in Announcements, Tournaments Tags: , ,

26 Jul 2009 No Comments

MU-SPGO beginners’ night

July 29, 2009
4:00 pmto7:00 pm

The Melbourne University Students Playing Go club are holding their biannual beginners night on 29th July in the Graham Cornish Room at Union House. If you’re on campus, or even if you’re not, come down from 4pm-7pm, be sociable, learn some go. See the entry on their blog for more details, or contact shamim@go.org.au.

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

28 Jun 2009 1 Comment

Fourth Korean Ambassador’s Cup

August 8, 2009

The 4th Korean Ambassador’s Cup in Sydney will be held at Sila Restaurant (161 Beamish Street, Campsie, phone 9718 1029) by the Sydney Ki-Won on Saturday the eighth of August. This is a one-day tournament and the open division will determine the Australian representative in the Korean Prime Minister’s Cup. For more details, contact Raphael Shin at the Sydney Korean Go Club.

(This is a placeholder for the event calendar. Will someone actually at the club please come forward and give us some more details to post?)

by aguido in Announcements, Events, Tournaments Tags: , ,

28 Jun 2009 No Comments

Date Claimers

Just a reminder of the three Australian tournaments in the last half of 2009:

  • The ACT Go Championship will be held at the Australian National University by the Canberra Go Club on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth of July (last weekend of the inter-semester recess) as part of the 17th ANU Chess Festival. Neville Smythe posted the formal announcement to AusGo, and the Journal has a previous post with all the details up. The Chess Festival page also seems to list a “Go Exhibition” on Friday the twenty-fourth, at Garema Place, Civic. Does anyone know any more about this?
  • The 4th Korean Ambassador’s Cup in Sydney will be held at Sila Restaurant (161 Beamish Street, Campsie, phone 9718 1029) by the Sydney Ki-Won on Saturday the eighth of August. This is a one-day tournament and the open division will determine the Australian representative in the Korean Prime Minister’s Cup.
  • The 32nd Australian Championships will be held at the University of Melbourne by the MU-SPGO and Melbourne Go Lovers clubs on the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of September third and fourth of October (the first second weekend of mid-semester break). Six rounds of go in two days, with the open division deciding the Australian Champion, plus a BBQ lunch and a bonus AGA annual general meeting. I am entirely certain there will be a blog post very soon from the tournament announcers.

Also there’s the Brisbane Christmas pair go tournament coming up in December, and the ongoing Australia Room Friendly Series – Brisbane v Sydney fixture has better-than-even odds of happening in early July.

by aguido in On KGS, Other, Tournaments

25 Jun 2009 No Comments

Australasian Go Forum is up and running

The Melbourne Go Lovers club asked for a discussion forum so that go players in Victoria could find one another. Normally I’d leave this kind of thing to GoDiscussions, but frankly I got bored waiting for their answer to my request for an AGA subforum, so now there is discussion.go.org.au.

It runs bbPress, and uses the same user accounts as the AGJ blog; that is, if you have a login there, you have the same login (and password) here, and vice versa, register wherever you feel like. The forum administrator is James Kaaden of MGL, one of the team behind the 2009 Australian National Championships.

Drop in and post something?

by aguido in Meta Tags: , , ,

10 Jun 2009 No Comments

Bits and pieces

  • Some of the Perth go players will be meeting on the first Sunday of every month at Clive Hunt’s place from the fifth of July. Play starts from two in the afternoon, more details closer to the date. If you want to RSVP, contact Clive at clivehunt@bigpond.com or 0415-619046.
  • The NSW State Championships have just finished. Does anybody have any kifu or anecdotes or photos from the tournament they would like to share? Send them in and we’ll blog ‘em.
  • The Australia Room Friendly Series on KGS has its second fixture on Sunday the fifth of July 2009: Sydney vs Brisbane. Both cities have the core of a team, although Sydney’s is at this point stronger. If you want to play, contact David Mitchell (Sydney) or Horatio Davis (Brisbane). If you’re in Melbourne or Adelaide and want to join in the fun, put a team together and scribble down a claim to a month on the SL wiki page. Currently Adelaide leads the table with two points, with Brisbane in second place on half a point. All other cities are equal last on zero points. :)
  • The biennial Toyota and Denso Cup World Go Oza, including the Brisbane qualifying tournament has been cancelled as the sponsors aren’t going to support it any more. Rumours have been going around for several days on various forums; the Australian Go Association has just been formally notified. The fifth tournament was going to be next year. If you have any suggestions for what to replace it with, please do tell the AGA…

by aguido in On KGS, Other, World Championships Tags: , , , ,

01 Jun 2009 No Comments

Thirteenth and twenty-first

At the end of the thirtieth World Amateur Go Championships on Saturday, the Australian representative David He 7d of New South Wales placed thirteenth with five wins and three losses (sum of opponents scores 39), and the New Zealand representative Longyang Li 4d placed twenty-first with the same record (but an SOS of 33). David lost his fifth round game against Juyong Koh 7d of Canada, won the sixth against Dimas Cabre Chacon 4d from Spain, won the seventh against Paisal Thunthaduluk 4d from Thailand, and lost the last against Korea’s Shin-wan Yoo 6d. Longyang in his last four rounds won against against Israel and Hungary, and lost one of the remaining rounds.

IGF Oceania director Neville Smythe was on the spot, and has posted some pictures (above). He wrote at the time:

David was disappointed to lose by 0.5 to Singapore, he was 10 points ahead for until near the end when Tan pulled off something desperate. He also lost to Canada after a good game; the Canadians always seem to be our nemesis (and I’m afraid he may also be losing at the moment to Thailand, and I think he must be feeling discouraged). LongYang Li from NZ had a very good win against Hungary, who had beaten USA.

Shortly after this, David He did indeed pull off a win against his Thai opponent, leaving him to face the second-placing player in the tournament. China took first place, and Hong Kong third, with Finland’s Antti Tormanen taking the Shizuo Asada Fighting Spirit Prize. Full results are posted by the Nihon Ki-in here, kifu of selected interesting games here.

by aguido in Photos, World Championships

28 May 2009 No Comments

Halfway through the 2009 WAGC

…and the Australian representative is in equal seventeenth place out of sixty-six players. David He 7d of New South Wales lost to Jia Cheng Tan 6d of Singapore in the third (morning) round on day two of the thirtieth World Amateur Go Championships, and defeated Matt Cocke 5d of the United Kingdom in the fourth round this afternoon. Meanwhile, Longyang Li 4d of New Zealand lost to Santiago Andres Tabares 3d of Argentina in the third round and defeated Cristiano Garbarini 1d of Italy in the fifth round, to end up in forty-fourth place on the leader board.

Meanwhile, the IGF director from Oceania, Neville Smythe, has popped up among the audience at Shizuoka and engaged in na side game with Shiratori Sumiko 5p. Five handicap stones and 255 moves later, it was white’s game by six points. Review by Michael Redmond 9p and the SGF game record in conveniently viewable form at the Ranka blog entry.

by aguido in World Championships Tags: , , ,

27 May 2009 2 Comments

Australian representative wins first two games at WAGC

After day one of the 30th World Amateur Go Championships, David He 7d from Australia is in sixteenth place out of sixty-six players (thirteen players are occupying third place at the moment). In the first (morning round) he won against Turkey’s Fatih Sulak 2d. In the second (afternoon) round he defeated Anh Tuan Tran 2d from Vietnam. New Zealand’s Longyang Li 4d won his first round game against Edgardo Carceres Estrada 7k and lost to Gheorghe Cornel Burzo 6d of Romania, to place twentieth along with 26 other players. There are six more rounds to go.

by aguido in World Championships Tags: ,

18 May 2009 1 Comment

Australia Room Friendly Series

There is now a page on Sensei’s Library for the Australia Room Friendly Series.

This is an annual series of teams matches between cities held in the Australia Room on KGS. After the first match for 2009 the current standings are: Adelaide 2 points, Brisbane 0.5 points, the other capital cities no points. Teams are self-organised, although Brisbane’s is easy (there’s only one club in the city and by definition I know where they all live). There are (were?) teams from Adelaide and Brisbane, and sniffs of a team each from Sydney(-ish) and Melbourne(-ish). No word from Canberra or Perth yet.

If you want to join in/watch/mock, details are on the wiki page, or comment on this blog entry. Get stuck in….

by aguido in Events, Team matches Tags: , ,

16 May 2009 No Comments

2009 World Amateur Go Championships

The thirtieth World Amateur Go Championship this year will be eight rounds played from Wednesday the twenty-third to Saturday the twenty-ninth of May in Fukuroi, Japan. Australia’s representative is David He 7d of New South Wales, who was the 2007 Australian champion. David is profiled in this week’s American Go Association E-Journal. The Australian Go Journal will be following how he goes, and reporting it here.

Ranka Online has the tournament announcement and will be covering the championships in depth.

by aguido in Tournaments, World Championships Tags: , , ,

07 May 2009 No Comments

An Young Gil in invitational match at The Enclave?

Spotted on the KGS message of the day: Ahn Younggil, Korean 6p vs. Andy Liu (bigbadwolf), KGS 9d, AGA 7d. 5/10/09 8:00 AM in The Enclave, under social. Master Gil is based in Sydney, and has taught a lot of people around the traps in Australia, as well as frequenting the Kiseido Go Server under the login younggil. For those who’ve wondered what he plays like when he’s not trying to teach you, this should be well worth watching…

(hat tip: Rene Hexel, Australia Room regular on KGS)

Update:White by resignation after one hundred and eighty-four moves. The SGF record is here in the KGS archives.

by aguido in Events, On KGS Tags: ,

03 May 2009 1 Comment

Live from the Ballina Go Camp

‘evening, all.

We’re just finishing up the second day of the Ballina Go Camp, here at the Ballina Beach Resort in sunny Ballina, northern New South Wales. An even dozen of us have just had a Saturday and Sunday of lectures from An Young Gil 6P, random games of go, game reviews, and food.

An Young Gil 6P teaching

An Young Gil 6P teaching

Also three colour go (black, blue, and white). The contingent from Adelaide (two Matts, a Clint, and Alex) have taken to it well. The people from Sydney (including David Mitchell of Sydney Go Journal fame), not so much. The largest contingent, from Brisbane, are already familiar with the sport, and how it does strange things to joseki. No-one from Canberra or Melbourne at this year’s camp, maybe next year with a bit more run up we’ll get some of those coming along.

Three colour go at the 2009 Ballina Go Camp

Three colour go at the 2009 Ballina Go Camp

Prizes were given to the winners of the problem competition just now. John Hardy, the organiser, handed the problem sets out on Saturday morning, highest percentage of correct answers wins. Everybody else is clustered around Master Gil as he does some impromptu instruction, killing time until dinner. The fish and chips from the Fisherman’s Co-op lived up to its billing last night, but it looks like pizza tonight.

This is being written from a free internet terminal at the resort, so I’ll update this post later with the pictures we’ve taken, and what happened between now and the end of the camp on Monday lunchtime…

Update: Sunday evening was David Mitchell’s travelling road show of trick joseki, some random go, and a movie expedition by the Adelaide crew (Wolverine, which wasn’t half bad). Monday morning was teaching by the strong players and Master Gil, and more random go. Here are some pictures of the weekend taken by John Hardy:

and in a more traditional web page for those of us whose browsers don’t run to Flash. The attendees this weekend were:

  • Matthew Crossman 1d (Brisbane)
  • Horatio Davis 4k (Brisbane)
  • Alex Hanysz 3d (Adelaide)
  • John Hardy 2d (Brisbane)
  • Rene Hexel 2d (Brisbane)
  • Clint Hill 6k (Adelaide)
  • Brian Humphreys 4k (Armidale)
  • Barry Jay 2d (Sydney)
  • Kevin Jiang 6d (Brisbane)
  • David Mitchell 5d (Brisbane)
  • Markus Pache 5d (Lismore)
  • Matt Pulsford 10k (Adelaide)
  • Matthew Weiss 4k (Adelaide)
  • Bill Wen 16k (Brisbane)
  • Jeremy Wen 1k (Brisbane)
  • Larry Wen 3d (Brisbane)

Hopefully there’ll be another one. Wouldn’t you like to join in?

by aguido in Events, Go camp Tags: ,

26 Apr 2009 No Comments

Perth Go mailing list online

An interesting fact: the Perth go mailing list (perth@go.org.au) has more than twenty players on it, which is more than some cities that have go clubs. The denizens use the list to announce where they will meet to play go. If you are in Perth and like to play go and are not on the list, perhaps you should email Peiran Guo and get yourself subscribed.

by aguido in Club updates, Meta

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: , ,

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: , ,

22 Feb 2009 No Comments

Brisbane v Adelaide

Just a reminder – the Adelaide vs Brisbane match is on this afternoon in the Australia Room on KGS. A team of eight from each city are lined up to play from 2:30 Brisbane time.

Even if you’re not from either city, come and watch the fun, and pass the word around.

by aguido in Other, Team matches

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:

31 Jan 2009 1 Comment

2009 Australian Go Camp is coming to Ballina

May 2, 2009toMay 4, 2009

This year’s Australian Go Camp will be held on the Labour Day weekend at the Ballina Beach Resort, New South Wales. Two-ish days of sun, sand, surf, and go, with An Young Gil 6P flying up from Sydney to teach, and a contingent driving down from Brisbane to play. More details in the flyer.

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

by aguido in Announcements, Events, Go camp Tags: , , , ,

25 Jan 2009 3 Comments

A little light go in Hobart

Horatio teaching go at LCA 2009

All last week I attended the tenth Australasian Linux Conference for professional development. On spec, I packed some light Chinese weiqi boards and some stones. It turns out, if you sit down in a barful (or conference-dinner-ful or exhibition-room-full) of computing geeks and start playing go, some of them will ask you to teach them, or for a game. The picture above is the Go session on the Tuesday.

I didn’t encounter anyone over twentieth kyu in strength, but the dozen or so I did teach were from all over the country. Alas, I could only refer the Adelaide and Sydney and Melbourne ones to their local go clubs. Hobart’s and Perth’s have died, so those people I referred to OGS and the AGA.

by aguido in Events, Life Tags: , ,

27 Dec 2008 1 Comment

Brisbane-Keio Friendly Igo Match 2009

January 18, 2009
3:00 pmto6:00 pm

The All Keio Igo Association has challenged the Brisbane Go Club to a friendly match over the internet in January, with the intent to make this an annual event. The match will take place in the public Australian Room of the KGS Go Server, between a picked team of eleven Keio University alumni and a Brisbane team, plus ring-ins.

The main event kicks off at 3PM Brisbane time (4pm Sydney time, 3:30pm Adelaide time) and is scheduled to take around three hours. An Young Gil 6P (KGS handle younggil), currently based in Sydney, will play a demonstration match against Yamashita-san 9d from Keio, which he will then review. Master Gil is also going to select and review one of the team matches.

All Australian go players are invited to watch any or all of the games and reviews. If you don’t have a KGS account, it is easy enough to log in and create one; KGS is where most of the AGA’s public activities occur, outside of tournaments.

by aguido in Announcements, Team matches Tags: , , , ,

25 Dec 2008 No Comments

Adelaide Go Clubs acquire a new web page

The Adelaide, Adelaide University, and North Adelaide go clubs have a new web page up at http://adelaide.go.org.au/. Between them they meet Tuesday afternoons, Wednesday evenings and Thursday evenings most weeks, and there is a growing movement towards holding their first tournament in 2010. If you’d like to know about all this in more detail, follow the link and sign up for the adelaide@go.org.au mailing list.

If you’re in another city and have decided that, for example, http://hobart.go.org.au/ would be a nice place for your club to put up a page about itself, feel free to contact horatio@go.org.au and enquire. :)

by aguido in Club updates, Meta, Other Tags: , ,

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