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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

26 May 2009 No Comments

A day at the NEC Cup Tournament

shamim-fb-nec-12

This correspondent has somehow forgotten which day she attended at the NEC Go Tournament (blame it on assignments clogging up the brain space). She has also missed the start of the day of attendance by rolling back into sleep (again, blame it on assignments). Nevertheless when she did finally arrive, it was a cold slightly grey afternoon and just at the end of second games. This year the NEC Cup was conveniently held in the city of Melbourne itself at the gorgeous Vibe Savoy Hotel on Collins. Many players (the room was packed!) from around Australia convened in the grand hall with its gold and mirrored walls and dangling chandeliers and there were trophies, shiny and new, awaiting the winners just off to the side. I’m 98.899% sure all had a resoundingly good time as I made my way among the bowed heads and the sounds of clicking stones and the occasional laughter and winces.
As with every go tournament and go meeting, it’s obvious that this game is enjoyed by all ages and both genders, from different walks of life, and always somehow ending with a smile and a clap to the back. As games ended and points tallied up, many would group around to discuss strategies or alternate plays, going over difficulties and good decisions. Mr Kawamura, a visiting go professional from the Nihon Ki-in, with his gracious and mild mannered smile, also often made the rounds to interact with everyone as well as offering an interesting simul play with 6 young players of various ranks.
Certainly it was a successful and exciting NEC Cup in its 13th year, there was even a 50 point seki (mutual life) which I missed seeing! Well, there’s always next time ;)

Congratulations to NEC Cup top 5 placements:

Division 1 (3 dan +)
Daniel Shen 5d
Yoon Kee Jeong
Wei Xu
Kazuya Miki
Shen Feng Zhou

Division 2 (4 kyu-2 dan)
Tai Sheng Wang
Long Pan
Trithang Tran
Adam Harley
Kin Lung Mak

Division 3 (15kyu-5 kyu)
Greg Wallace
Bryce Steward
Alan Ho
Wai Chon Ho
Evan Wallace

And to all current and prospective players, see you all at next year’s Cup =)
Also look forward to the upcoming Australian Go Nationals to be held in Melbourne this year!

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More photos can be found at SPGO on Facebook.

by Shamim in Events, Life, Photos, Tournaments Tags: , , ,

21 May 2009 No Comments

Melbourne Go Lovers Club

On the evening of Thursday 14th May 2009 I paid a visit to the Melbourne Go Lovers club, currently convened by James Kaaden. This group was previously convened by Chizuko Katanaya, with a change necessitated by ill health.

Melbourne Go Lovers, Thursday 14 May

Melbourne Go Lovers, Thursday 14 May

The club meets at a large private residence and usually attracts about six players. The playing fee is $5 and some delicious snack food, coffee or tea, and wine are provided. The club maintains a small library of go books which may be borrowed by regulars. It seems to be a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, but the go games are just as intense as in the most important tournament.

Shimada-san at Melbourne Go Lovers

Shimada-san at Melbourne Go Lovers

I met some old campaigners – Shimada-san and Bao Nguyen were there, both of whom have played at AGA events in the past. James Kaaden is a young man with an interest in go administration as well as playing, and we will see more of him in the future.

John Hardy

by John Hardy in Visiting Tags: ,

21 May 2009 No Comments

SPGo Visit

On Friday 15th May 2009 I visited the SPGo club at the Melbourne University. A tram ride up town brought back old memories. The Alice Hoy Building was easy to find, and soon after 1pm large numbers of go players filled the lecture room. There were about 14 players, including Anna, one of the leaders in the club.

Pretty soon everyone had paired off, and I found myself playing Shiny from Shanghai, who said she was 15 kyu. I don’t think so! After a long drawn out battle, during which Shiny parried all my best blows and overplays, I found myself fifteen plus points behind and therefore resigned.

This being a university club, it is no surprise to note that all members are quite young. Most were of Asian background, and there was a good mix of males and females. Everyone seemed very keen, and the AGA can dream about getting such a large group to join in our activities.

by John Hardy in Visiting Tags: ,

17 May 2009 No Comments

3D GO!

Even though there are plenty of people out there who have probably been aware of it for some time, you can get 3D .sgf file generators. The one which put me onto it was from http://www.voilamonsieur.com/products/u3dc/u3dc.html and is called Universal 3D Chess… but don’t let the name put you off. It is good fun.

3DGo 1

While it is only a novelty it is still fun, and looks pretty. Why not give it a try :D

by jason in Other

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

24 Apr 2009 1 Comment

2009 Keio visit

(Report courtesy of John Hardy, photos of Andrew Gray.)

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.

by Amelia in Events, Other, Photos, Team matches Tags: ,

13 Apr 2009 No Comments

SPGO announces Annual Tournament for 2009

April 15, 2009

With Easter comes chocolate eggs and the eagerly awaited mini break for Melbourne University Students (good luck to those diligently completing their assignments) and for Students Playing Go it’s prime time for the annual tournament. As per previous years there’s a madcap dash to book rooms, sort out equipment, hijacking students for promotional purposes and of course poring over potential prizes. There will be two divisions in anticipation of the many new players, round robin style and a mini 9×9 competition, and this year a promise of a rocking fantastic first place prize (so practice now!). It’s a good chance for players to test your skills and have some fun, especially right before the NEC Cup.

Date- Wednesday 15th April, 10a.m-4p.m

Place- Alice Hoy, room 109, Melbourne University Parkville Campus

Directions- The room is tucked away under the building, please take the tram up Swanston to Melbourne University (last stop) and walk down Monash Road, look to your left for stairs going down to classrooms, there’ll be a sign saying 108-109.

Tournament opened to all players, free entry to members (and lots of free food!)

And for those going to the NEC Cup at the end of the week, whether as entrants or to support your fellow players, please say hello to the SPGO committee members who are there to cover the event and strike your best smile and challenge pose ;)

by Shamim in Announcements, Club updates, Events, 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

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

12 Feb 2009 No Comments

Sorry

Hi everyone, Jason here,

I would like to extend an apology to those who showed up for the Thursday meeting on the 12th. Due to several contributing factors (including my computer dying completely) I was unable to make it on time. However, with all computer problems aside, from next week, the 19th of February, I shall be attending the meetings. I shall also post a notice in the Australia room with the correct local time for the meetings.

by jason in Other

08 Feb 2009 3 Comments

To the internet!

Whenever I attend an Australian go event I feel a perplexing array of emotions: my own excitement and anticipation at being able to play this wondrous game, revelry in being surrounded by those who share my passion, and hope that I will be able to experience these sensations again. Yet while go events in Australia have been able to report excellent numbers of attendees, there is an issue which overshadows such accomplishments: the ability for everyone possible to be able to enjoy them.

Relatively speaking, there are few active go players in Australia and we need to travel vast distances to attend competitions and tournaments – let alone club meetings. The time, effort, and cost associated with such travel means there are often limited opportunities for interstate players to compete. However, there now exists a technology that enables us to cross these distances effortlessly: the internet. While many players – myself included – do not enjoy playing online, it is something which we need to use in order to bring our go community together.

We need to actively participate online; to have meetings and competitions online. At the very least we need to make them accessible over the internet. More than needing more members, more then needing more funding, we need to get this community active. We cannot leave it to the few to galvanise the many. I would like anyone who can to have a go at playing online, perhaps just one day a week, just to play a game or get in contact with other players in Australia and have matches online. Don’t just wait for someone else to organise a meeting, or to hold a tournament you can get to, reach out yourself and get in contact with other players.

On that note: I will be getting on KGS each Thursday evening from 6 until late to replay games, play games, and have fun.

I hope to see you there.

It will be on Thursday at 6pm EST in the Australia room.

by jason in Issues, Opinion, Other

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: , ,

21 Jan 2009 2 Comments

Photos from the Nationals

We were recently given a couple of photos taken at the Nationals (Brisbane, November 2008), and thought it would be nice to share them.

A more comprehensive report on the Nationals (and more pretty photos!) will be in the coming issue of the Journal proper, so stay tuned!

Reflections of Go

Reflections of Go

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by Amelia in Photos, Tournaments 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: , ,

27 Nov 2008 No Comments

How not to do it, part I

The last game of the last round of the kyu division at the 2008 Nationals. :)

by aguido in Other, Tournaments Tags: , ,

27 Nov 2008 No Comments

Prologue

This is a blog about go in Australia, from the point of view of the AGJ editorial staff.

I’m Horatio Davis, aguido on KGS, OGS, and DGS, Horatio at the Brisbane Go Club, and “Hey! You!” at various Australian tournaments. I’m the technical editor for the AGJ, which means I keep the site running, play tag with Adobe Creative Suite, and do most of the other things that do not require actual go knowledge around the Journal. This is just as well, as I’m far too busy playing go to actually improve. At the time of writing, I’m at fifth kyu strength, plus or minus two stones depending on my blood sugar level and opponent (more chocolate = better play).

Over there is Amelia Gray. She’s the editor-in-chief. This means we feed her extra chocolate, and in return she shakes down contributors until they cough up articles, or kifu, or both. That’s where her career track as a linguist in Japanese comes in handy. She plays on KGS and OGS as Kifudancer, has represented Australia in the International Amateur Pair Go Championship, and cruises around third kyu in strength, unless she’s angry. You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.

In the cage at the other end are our two contributing editors, Jason Mackay and Alexander Hanysz. Jason is studying at the University of Queensland to be Indiana Jones, and likes to play at second dan around the Brisbane go scene. He plays as Nighteyes on KGS. He gets to write the commentaries to the kifu, and also mans the video camera. We grimly suspect him of podcasting.

Alex is a professional pianist in Adelaide, and could in theory stop eating chocolate any time he wants. When he’s not being egged on by the rest of us to play pair go, he’s a quite strong second dan in the Adelaide go scene. Occasionally he’ll contribute news from the current reconstruction of the Adelaide go scene (like Canberra, players got a little thin on the ground a couple of years ago), a bit of local colour from the tournaments that he turns up to, and of course, commentaries on the kifu. He plays as xela on KGS and OGS.

This is what we’ll try to do: when something go-related happens in Oceania, one of us’ll blog it. Or at least blog about it. The best of that, distilled and edited for style, plus player ratings and tournament results and professional demonstration games and international go news and items of interest from the Australian Go Association, will be compiled into editions of the Journal. Those will certainly be published as PDF, free for the downloading. When the AGA has established an individual member base (mid-2009), we’ll think about distributing the same thing as a printed magazine for the membership.

We’re always interested in more people to blog here, and more contributors to write the good stuff for the Journal proper. Email amelia@go.org.au to volunteer. For your pains, you’ll get a spiffy email address@go.org.au, some good useful publicity for your club or your tournament, and a warm fuzzy feeling of connection to the rest of the Australian go community. If nothing else, we’re good for a game of three colour go whenever you spot us at a tournament.

Want in?

by aguido in Other Tags: , , , ,

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