The Columbus Go Club would not be what it is today if Devin did not take control. His constant effort to promote the Go community in the Columbus area has led the Go club to where it is today. Devin saw a need for a new meeting location and made it possible to meet at the current location instead of the former meeting place of North Market. THANK YOU for picking up the reigns of the Columbus Go club and turning it to what it now is.

The owners of Tea Zone Bakery & Café get a big THANK YOU for giving us a unique place to meet and play our games. There is such a good menu of drinks and food that there is plenty to choose from while playing our games. The setting inside is a perfect theme for Go games and the club.

Tim Kington, a Columbus Go Club member, has given permission to use some of his videos regarding Go AI. One video is a Tech Talk regarding AI for Go and How long it would take to defeat top human players and the other is related to AlphaGo after it defeated the top European player, but before the matches with Lee Sedol. THANK YOU Tim for the use of these videos. Tim is also the creator of GoGrinder, a program designed for practice of life and death problems, or other Go problems that are loaded in.

Ray wants some thanks to go out to Ohio Water Tech and Sean Jones for giving him the ability to come out and play Go regularly, even with heavy schedules.

 

UPDATE:

A big THANKS goes to James Kerwin for permission to use the Go Workshop videos. I wanted to link to any of his material or promotions, but unfortunately he is retiring as a Go professional.  I still hope we can get him for one last Go Workshop in Columbus.

Daniel Martin donated some go equipment to Ray. He is the owner of First Floor Remodeling. I found his G+ page here, and from there found his website. Anyone who knows a business owner, let them know we take donations to promote Go in our community. You never know what the suggestion will yield

Go Stones and Bowls Donated by First Floor Remodeling

Big THANKS to Dajiang as well. Every year he organizes the spring tournament at a local school and the games section at the Asian Festival. It always falls on the weekend before the US Memorial Day Holiday. The Asian festival for 2016 is now passed, but we look forward to future festivals!

miagc Invitation Letter

I have received an open amature Go tounament invite and have received permission to post it here. The Word document below has detail for the tounament. Please contact the organizers directly if interested.

The contents of the document are as follows:

MALAYSIA INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIP (MIAGC)

Dear Sir / Lady

We are pleased to inform you that the Malaysia International Amateur Go Championship (MIAGC)  will be held in Syeun Hotel, Ipoh, Malaysia from 11th to 16th March 2017. This event host by Perak Non-Islamic Affairs Department and organize by Ipoh Wei Qi Enterprise.

Ipoh Wei Qi Enterprise would like to extend our invitation to you Weiqi (Go) Association (Club) to participate in this coming event. Each Association / Club can send up to unlimit players to join this event. This tournament is only open for Amateur players and also extended to whole worldwide.

For your information, the championship consists of three sessions, including Preliminary (online selection), semi-final (online selection), and final match. For preliminary and semi-final will be conducted online on OGS server. Final match will be held in Syeun Hotel Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia. The prize for champion is RM 50,000 or more.

Registration fee is needed for Preliminary (online selection). However, if there are 5 person or more to register the Preliminary, each person has 20% discount, please refer diagram below.

 

Date Categories Fee per pax (Ringgit Malaysia)  Fee after discount per pax(Ringgit Malaysia)
August 8-31, 2016 Early Bird Promotion Registration 160 128
September 1-30, 2016 Registration 180 144
October 1-31, 2016 Registration durng Preliminary Round 250 200

Please make payment via bank:

Payment make through                                                : Maybank

Name of account holder                                               : Ipoh Wei Qi Enterprise

Account no.                                                                        : 558118511927

International money transfer swift code              : MBBEMYKL

 Please submit the registration form (http://www.miagc.org/registration) to us from 8 August 2016.

For further queries, please visit our website www.miagc.org or contact Mr. Liew Toong Hin, president of Ipoh Wei Qi Enterprise at +6011-2010 8567 and email ipohweiqienterprise@gmail.com.

 

We look forward to welcome for this championship.

 

Mr Liew Toong Hin

President

Ipoh Wei Qi Enterprise

I want to run an idea past the group. I know the US Go Congress has just ended, but I want to run an idea related to our next Go tournament. Why don’t we have a limousine service pick us up and take us to the tournament? Arrive in style! I recently had the privilege to meet Mike Collins, the owner of Blacklick Limo Service, and I had a chance to look at some of his vehicles. I’ve never considered a limo outside of a wedding or prom setting before, but Mike offered to give me a discount that could make it more affordable. Mike’s limo website is http://www.blacklicklimoservice.com. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Tim has supplied me with the missing Kerwin videos, so the Kerwin video page is complete. If you would like to download the videos, simply “right click” on the image you want and “save link as…”. I will add an exclusive downloads page if there is enough desire for it, but for now this can suffice.

Additional videos reviewed by Kerwin will be uploaded to the site soon. I hope to include game records on the page as well, but it depends on my formatting ability.

As always please send any questions or suggestions to my email kwostu@gmail.com

Hello Columbus Club!

I hope things continue to go well. Here is a game I played recently at Sung-So baduk school. The opponent is I Il Lam (“21 Man”), owner and head teacher at the school. We have played many 3-stone games. Hoping for a better result, I tried a different first move.

I do not know how to embed sgf files so here’s a link to an OGS upload of my review. Please forgive any mistakes: https://online-go.com/game/5242716

May this be of use! I have learned a lot from the Sung-So team–they are fantastic!

 

Download SGF

 

Ray vs JaliSelasiHere I’m posting a new game, but this one was played on KGS. Last week at the Columbus Go Club, I did not play a game, only watched. This week I played a great game with Jeff, but neglected to record it. I don’t recall game well enough to replay them from memory, so today’s game is probably lost forever. This game is a match I played on KGS. My opponent liked to cut instantly. I played OK in the upper left corner, but played poorly on the lower left corner and the upper right corner. As it was, I seemed to come away with a great deal of potential territory before my opponent’s time ran out. I would have loved to see what he might have come up with, but I believe the lag was the end of it. As the game stood I felt like I was ahead. I might start to upload the sgf files as well as the game records in the future, but I’m not sure.

 

Dylan vs Ray

I’m posting two games here today. The first one is a game played between Dylan and myself at the Columbus Go Club on Sunday the April, 17 2016. I won the right to choose color, so I chose white. Dylan played a blitz style game while I thought my moves out slowly. Dylan seemed to read better than I did in a number of places. I think he might have won if he played slower and looked for more options even if the first move he saw looked right.

The game below was played between Dajiang and Jeff at the Go club on the same day. This one was a fun game to watch. Dajiang wanted to remind us of the Asian games section of the Asian festival coming up on May 28-29 at Franklin Park on Broad St. Some of the Go club members will be there as well. If you’re interested, the Asian festival is held annually on Saturday and Sunday of the memorial day weekend.

Dajiang vs Jeff

Getting better at Go requires that the game is played, and preferably reviewed. But when a match isn’t possible due to time or lack of an opponent, studying life and death problems can very helpful. I recommend starting with the basics, like low level problems. Some joseki and fuseki problems are ok too, but life and death, in my opinion, will serve you better. My first introduction to life and death was a book. That book is: “The Elementary Go Series, Volume 4 Life and Death”  This book is a good start, but where to go from here. There are many books on life and death, and some additional ones can be recommended if you ask.

As mentioned in the THANK YOU post on the home page, Tim Kington wrote a program called GoGrinder. This program is excellent for life and death problems, and the incorrect buzzer is a good deterrent for making a guess rather that reading the scenario out. You can even load problems from a book into the program. GoGrinder is available for android devices from the “Play Store”, on any computer that runs java linked from GoGrinder’s homepage, and on older iPhones. Unfortunately, Tim discontinued updating for iphone devices early on, but it will still run on older iPhones.

Move to harder and harder life and death problems as you get better, but go back to the easier problems on occasion too. Reading skill can be developed by the hardest problems you can manage, but the easier problems still help to make flaws instantly recognizable. In addition, easy life and death problems are built on common shapes that are exploited. Harder life and death problems will still fall back on these shapes, but the situation will be less developed and harder to see.

I wish you the best of luck with you Go journey, and as always, feel free to contact me at kwostu@gmail.com

Week 3 Game 1

This was an embarrassing game for me, and I almost didn’t post it, but take the good with the bad. All games have lessons in them. I missed an opportunity at H17, but I was still pleased with my game until I played move 94 at O3 instead of N5, even though. I was too cocky and thought I could get away with playing slow. I didn’t read the situation well at all and was relying on my walls instead of reading the situation out. To further my blundering I played move 104. There was no real reason to push in here. I was greedy to separate stones and again did not read this out very well at all. I later missed the reason behind my opponent’s move at R14 on move 155. This was the point where I wanted to resign but played on. To add to my dismay I mistakenly played move 178 at G14 instead of F81. Anyone interested in reviewing this game, please let me know what blunders I missed from my opponent were. I’d like to see where I could have done better.

The first step to getting good at playing Go is to learn the basic rules. One of the easiest ways is to use an interactive learning system. One of my favorites is “The Interactive Way to Go” (click the name for a link directly to the site) I like this one because it goes through the rules and gives playable examples as you proceed. The link takes you to a flash version, but a downloadable java version is available as well.

After the moves in the interactive tutorial series is second nature, I suggest playing a Go variant called the capturing game on a 9 X 9 board. This game plays like go, except the winner is the first to make a capture. This game helps to instill the need to keep stones connected as well as helps new players escape from traps designed to capture. Eventually a new player will get good enough that no stone or group of stones is captured until the very end, and the winner ends up being the player that surrounded the most territory.

At this point play Go as it is meant to be played. Record the games and ask someone to review them for you. I like to play though a game with a much stronger player one move at a time, while I identify the thoughts behind the move. The stronger player will show the flaws in reasoning that the opponent missed, as well as better moves that could have been made on both sides. Playing games and reviewing them is, in my opinion, the best way to improve. Life and death problems are good help as well, but can be frustrating if hard problems are tackled too early.

Go game board

Go game board

Go game board

Play games in person if possible. Go players have something in common with each other, and we love meeting new players regardless of their strength level. On the right panel of this site is information regarding the Columbus club’s meeting times and location. If the address is confusing, just remember next to Microcenter. I attend here when I can, but everyone there likes to see new players and will help anyone they can. Just ask.

There are many Go recording apps on iPhone and Android, just make sure it saves and allows undo moves for the random mis-click. If you are new to recording games, you can ask someone to record it for you so that you can concentrate on you game play itself.

That’s it for now. Please let me know with a comment or email if there is anything I can do to improve this site. My email is kwostu@gmail.com. I hope to see new players at the Columbus Go Club soon.