News

Advanced Go Class last Wed.

7 players wait at their Go boards as 1 player walks from board to board.

Yue Zhang teaching Advanced Go Class

Yue (“Vincent”) Zhang 7d taught the first of eight sessions of the Advanced Go Class on Wednesday, June 20. Seven eager students attended. Yue discussed how the value-per-move changes over the course of the game, and how strong A.I. players have changed our thinking about joseki. He played all students simultaneously, many moves through the opening and early middle game, giving individual instruction, with some of the students recording their games.

The next sessions will be Sunday, June 24, and Wednesday, June 27. More information or to sign up for the class: www.seattlego.org/2018/06/15/advanced-go-class

Advanced Go Class

Yue Zhang offers a series of classes to accelerate the learning of players 9 kyu through 6 dan.

Classes will meet twice a week for 4 weeks — Wednesday and Sunday evenings, 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM — at the Go Center, beginning June 20, 2018 and ending July 15, 2018.  Attend all 8 sessions for the most efficiency in learning (and the most favorable pricing).

Yue’s relatively novel classes will be composed of whole-class lectures, games, and game reviews. Compared to traditional teaching which emphasize whole-class lectures, the Advanced Go Class series will focus more on individualized instruction, which will be offered during the games and game reviews.

Register for the whole series of 8 classes:  $200
Register for one or more classes separately:  $35/class

More information and registration: Advanced Go Class

Strong Go player seated at a Go board

Yue (Vincent) Zhang

About Yue Zhang:  Currently rated 7.8 in the AGA, Yue placed 1st in the 2016 Seattle Anniversary Open and the 2018 Spring Open.  Yue holds a PhD from Ohio State University, and he has extensive college teaching experience.

Rengo with Pie and Coffee at Seattle Go Center

Twenty-eight players — fourteen teams of two — competed in the “Rengo with Pie and Coffee” tournament on Saturday, June 9, 2018. Pair Go stalwart Bill Thompson organized the event, brought the fancy pies, directed the tournament, and even played in it.

Man refers to paper, talking to audience

TD Bill Thompson explains the rules

The event was run with the International Pair Go Association rules, but with no restrictions to team composition. [ Read more… ]

Tuesday — Amazing

There was fresh bread (THANK YOU, Chris!).  There were visitors from far places (Bellingham, Japan by way of Los Angeles, Germany).  There were fond farewells (good-bye to Peter Nelson, and thank you for your service) and new representation to the AGA (hello Nick Wilmes, and good luck at the national meeting).

And there were players who didn’t want to wait for the weekend to play Rengo.

Four Go players, one in a bunny hat, playing a team game of Rengo

Couldn’t wait for Saturday

A couple hours later, the board looked like this:

Go board nearly filled with complicated patterns

Rengo board two hours later; Black to play

The corner held some surprises.

Go life-and-death problem from actual play

Black to play

Cullen Mott provided a kifu that covers from game start to early endgame: TheArgoGame (getting JagoPlayer working on the website will be a project for the future).

Join us Saturday for Rengo with Pie and Coffee!  $10 to register ($5 for persons under 18, and for voting members of the Go Center).  Registration opens 5:30 PM, and play starts at 6:00 PM.  More info at www.seattlego.org/events

Rengo Tournament poster for June 9, 2018

June 2018 Ratings Tournament

It was a pleasant Sunday at the Seattle Go Center, with 19 players present for the monthly AGA ratings tournament. TD Daniel Top got the pairings out on time, and ran the tournament with his customary aplomb. Rounds 1 and 2 each had nine games. But two players in the second round fought deep into byo-yomi, and only a half-dozen players stayed until the bitter end; so round 3 had three games.

There were no three-game winners. Winning two games were Zhihong Yao 2d, Steve Ling 2k, Christian de Oro 4k, Brian Dai 8k, George Schmitten 8k, and John Johnson 9k.

 

Go players thinking deeply about their games.

Lucy Lu Wang vs. Tyler Michael Moore, and Nick Collins vs. Xiangnan Chen

A woman drinks juice during a game of Go.

Lucy Lu Wang vs. Tyler Michael Moore, and Emma Huang vs. Abigail Chen

Join us for the next monthly ratings tournament, Sunday July 1st!  It’s free to play (but you do have to be a member of the AGA, and you do have to be a member of the Go Center or pay for your visit — under 18 is free, and adults first 10 visits are free).

Rengo Tournament Poster

Catherine Ozols has created a great poster publicizing the Rengo tournament on June 9!

Rengo Tournament poster for June 9, 2018

 

You can download it as a high resolution JPEG for printing, if you want to help publicize the event.  The more, the merrier!