On Friday 28th May we hosted a banquet dinner for our guests, attended by members of the Mainland Chinese Society of Queensland (MCSQ) and Q001 (Brisbane Chinese societies), a consular representative, and a brief visit by the Deputy Mayor of Brisbane, Mr. Graham Quirk. Following Chinese custom the conviviality was helped along by numerous toasts, although sparingly partaken of by Australian drivers. One of the visitors turned out to have a wonderful singing voice, and treated us to a Chinese song in an impromptu performance.

On Saturday 29th May a team go match was organised at a local church. We had invited David He 7D of Sydney, and Billy Sun 6D of Melbourne to participate with the Brisbane side in a well – judged move designed to bring home the teams Cup. It was a great pleasure for us to renew our acquaintance with these two gentlemen. As it turned out, David He was well known to the Xi ‘an visitors as well so friendships were renewed, and not much was said about ring – ins. We played a round in the morning and then another round after lunch.

David He vs Li Gangyi in Round 2

 The match was played with one hour each and no byo – yomi. All games were even which resulted in some mismatches but after all, it was a friendly match. Hopefully the Brisbane players have learned a few things from their more experienced opponents.

There was often animated discussion after the games were over, with some moves being replayed, sometimes even leading to a reversal of the result! Too bad, though, as only the original result counts.

When the battles were over and the dust had cleared, Xi ‘an emerged the winner by 12 – 6.

Presentation Ceremony

Professor Zhou , here seen with John Hardy (L) and Larry Wen (R) in front of the beautiful wall hanging which the visitors presented to the BGC, hoisted the winner’s cup. Brisbane vowed to get that cup back in a return match next year in Xi ‘an. Xi ‘an offered to import some players from Beijing to ensure that it stays in China :)

After the presentations, everyone enjoyed an Aussie BBQ hosted by the MCSQ – and importantly, prepared and cooked by them! Mark Bell and I sat with our feet up and would not have called the King our uncle.

We continued into the evening with friendly go, and not a few fourexes, plus some powerful liquor contributed by the guests for any who dared. It was a great way to finish the day, and already plans were afoot to make that return match a reality.

Group shot

Thank you, Xi ‘an go players, for honouring us by visiting our home town, and we will surely meet you again next year in China.

Have a safe trip home.

This is a placeholder for the weekend in mid-April when the Keio Old Boys will be visiting Brisbane for their annual shindig with the Brisbane Go Club. Dinner on Saturday evening, random go, lunch and the now-traditional team vs team match on Sunday. RSVP and/or query John Hardy at the club, if you’re in Brisbane at all and want to come play.

• Shigeru Inoguchi 5k (inogus6044) black no komi vs Horatio Davis 4k (aguido) white – black by resignation
• Kiyoshi Itsuki 7d (itsukk6575) white vs John Hardy 4d (jackoheart) black and three stones’ handicap – jigo
• Shunji Iseki 7d (isekis6575) white vs Alexander Hanysz 3d (xela) black and four stones – black by one point
• Tokio Sugimoto 1k (sugimt6560) white vs Amelia Gray 2k (kifudancer) black – black by resignation
• Humihoshi Mochida 1k (motidh6560) white vs Matthew Weiss 4k (weissm) black and three stones – black by resignation
• Tatsuo Suzuki 5d (suzukt6572) white vs Jason Mackay 3d (nighteyes) black and three stones – black by resignation
• Kensei Ishibashi 3d (ishibk6668) black vs Mile Gu 3d (syptryn) white – white by resignation
• Hiroshi Kobayashi 2d (kobayh7466) white vs Jeremy Wen 2d (hello12345) black – black by 15.5 points
• Yuuji Kaneko 4d (kaneky7870) white vs Rene Hexel 3d (powidl) black – white by four points
• Takahiro Ishiyama 2d (ishiyt1765) white vs Matthew Crossman 2d (matjet) black – black by 20.5 points.

Etsuko Hoshino 15k did not get to play, unfortunately, as her opponent from the Brisbane team, Dr Peter Hexel, was a late scratching due to illness. The shortest game was Jason Mackay’s (15 minutes):

and the last to finish was Alex Hanysz in a thrilling arm wrestle in the endgame:

An afternoon of good clean fun, and hopefully a stepping stone on the way to many more such matches in the future. Kudos to John Hardy from Brisbane and Kiga-san from Keio for organising the event.

It’s back. The All Keio Igo Association will meet the Brisbane Go Club (and connections) in the Australia Room of the KGS Go Server for the annual friendly team vs team match on the afternoon of Sunday the seventeenth of January. Come and watch. If you’re a Brisbane player, or know someone who once played go against someone who once had a beer in Brisbane, contact John Hardy and see if there’s still a place or two open on the team.

Kickoff is at 3pm Brisbane time, 2pm Tokyo time. Games will be played in tournament time and at tournament strength.

At the very last minute, we’ve arranged a teams match between Melbourne (MU-SPGO and the Victorian Go Club) and Brisbane (Brisbane Go Club and QUGS). It’s on at 2pm Brisbane time tomorrow (Sunday the thirteenth of December) in the Australia Room of the KGS Go Server. More details at Sensei’s Library.

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….

On 18 – 19 April 2009, Brisbane Go Club met with members of the Keio Old Boys group for friendly go and social activities. The venue, a large modified residence at Stretton in Brisbane’s southern outskirts, is known as Good Hope Residence by its owner and tour guide, Mr. Kanazawa. The group of eleven go players, led by Mr. Kiga, ranged in strength from 2 dan to 7 dan and consequently represents quite a challenge to the lower ranked BGC players.

This was the sixth annual visit by the Keio group, and it is always a popular activity for the BGC members. On Saturday, BGC President Dr. Mark Bell escorted the group to a day at the races, which has proved a popular acivity with our Japanese friends. On Saturday evening we played social go and enjoyed a delicious seafood dinner hosted by the Keio group. After dinner, Mr. Nomura 7 dan kindly acted as sensei, and showed us an interesting game played by him no less than 57 years ago! It is amazing that the game record still exists after such a long time, and shows clearly how much go players revere the game.

On Sunday, we were treated to a delicious lunch of Japanese soba noodles. This was followed by the now traditional team match between Keio and BGC. We matched their eleven players in two rounds of play (handicap) , and after the smoke had cleared, Keio had won by 12 – 10. The exciting final game between Matthew Crossman and Mr. Kamota was watched by many, as the result would decide whether BGC could draw the match. It was not to be – a slip in the endgame saw Mr. Kamota win by resignation. After that, we all enjoyed dinner of fresh prawns and salad hosted by BGC.

On the BGC team, the 2009 Queensland Go Champion, Kevin Jiang 6D, matched well with the Keio top players for a 1 – 1 record. Dr. Mark Bell also scored 1 – 1 .  Matthew Crossman is a recent addition to the BGC, and has achieved his current rank of 1D after just 15 months of playing go.  Jeremy Wen 1D aged 15 also scored a win in his game. Jeremy has rocketed up the ranks in the last two years, and he also is a star of the future. The Keio boys had better look out for Matthew and Jeremy next year!

The BGC looks forward to next year’s visit for more go fun with our Keio friends.

An Young Gil was also kind enough to provide us with two reviews of games from the event, which will be appearing in the printable version of the Journal. Stay tuned.

Here are links to the game records, with some brief and slightly flippant comments by me. In each case, the first named player is white. We agreed to use handicaps according to club ranks rather than KGS ranks.

(I’m giving KGS names only, in case anyone doesn’t want their KGS identity linked to their real name. But I’ll admit to being “xela” onilne.)

Board 1: jackoheart (Brisbane) vs bestedwin

Bestedwin gave a powerful account of the high Chinese fuseki, building thickness and preparing to attack forcefully. Jackoheart’s ambitious play at move 36 met with a violent response, but white skilfully defended his weak group, leading to a close endgame.

Result: B+5.5

Board 2: xela (Adelaide) vs Nighteyes

Nighteyes threw xela off balance from the start by opening at the 7-4 point. Xela responded by building a moyo around the lower right corner, and even managed to kill one of black’s two invasions–but at the cost of leaving severe weaknesses in the centre and top left. Surprisingly, neither of white’s two weak groups died. Nighteyes chose to finish the game with an all-or-nothing ko fight rather than playing out a close but unfavourable endgame.

Result: W+R

Board 3: Greenfuse (Adelaide) vs powidl

This was a fighting game from beginning to end. Powidl’s early attack at move 25 backfired badly, with black forced to make small life in the corner. However, Greenfuse’s invasion at move 44 led to a big ko, and the game seemed to swing back in black’s favour at move 121 with the capture of fifteen white stones. But then white dominated the fighting in the lower left quarter of the board and made up the lost ground very quickly.

Result: W+33.5

Board 4: jasonchan (Adelaide) vs matjet

This game started calmly, but white 16 launched a messy fight. At critical points of this game jasonchan seemed to take the most complicated option each time, leaving heavy groups and cutting points, but his tesuji knowledge was enough to get him out of trouble at each crisis.

Result: W+R

Board 5: Benlaowai (Adelaide) won by forfeit

Board 6: Hello12345 (Brisbane) vs weissm (3 stone handicap)

Both players did a fine job of demonstrating classic principles of handicap go in this game. Weissm built thickness and attacked white’s groups on a large scale, sealing in the invasion at move 32, capping at move 48, and using the resulting thickness to attack white’s central stone after move 81. Hello12345 for his part handled the white stones deftly, saving both weak groups to reach a roughly even endgame position. Black 104 was probably the losing move, with the cutting point proving fatal to the stones on both sides.

Result: W+30.5

Board 7: Kifudancer (Brisbane) vs Onehan (5 stone handicap)

Onehan hasn’t played at the Adelaide University club since more than a year ago, and it seems that he’s improved quite a bit since we last saw him! Five handicap stones were just a few too many for this game. Up to move 38, black’s play was a model of how to attack in a measured way: not trying to kill the white stones outright, just herding them along and securing territory in the process. Black took a firm grip on the top of the board, and the game was essentially decided in the opening. Kifudancer had a small moral victory in killing the lower right corner later, but black was still ahead.

Board 8: aguido (Brisbane) vs Ozball (6 stone handicap)

This was another game featuring many exciting reversals of fortune. At move 28, a mistake by Ozball allowed white to live in the bottom left corner, and white was off to a good start. Aguido built an enormous moyo at the bottom, but Ozball made an even more enormous moyo at the top. White’s moyo got reduced, and black’s got invaded, and the final result came down to a question of who could make fewer mistakes in the endgame.

Result: W+22.5

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

Following the success of the Brisbane-Keio match, Adelaide has decided to join the party. The inaugural Adelaide-Brisbane match will take place in the Australia room of KGS on Sunday 22nd February. Games will start at 3 p.m. Adelaide time (2:30 Brisbane, 3:30 Melbourne/Sydney, 4:30 a.m. GMT).

Come and cheer for your favourite team, or laugh at our mistakes–you choose!

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.