go camp

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?

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. :)