B R I T I S H

J O U R N A L

Number 140 Spring 2007 Price £3.50

British Go Journal 140 Spring 2007

CONTENTSEDITORIAL 2UK NEWS Tony Atkins 3OUTGOING PRESIDENT’S REPORT, 2005-6 Simon Goss 910 YEARS AGO Tony Atkins 11THREE PEAKS Ian Marsh 13REFEREEING QUESTION Nick Wedd 14BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIP 2006 17COUNTING BY AREA AND TERRITORY Andrei Sokolov 18WORLD NEWS Tony Atkins 21REVIEW: BADUK MADE FUN AND EASY Ian Davis 25AMATEUR PAIR GO CHAMPIONSHIPS Natasha Regan 26VISIT TO KOREA - OCTOBER 2006 T Mark Hall 29KOREA Tony Atkins 33HOW TO GIVE A GAME REVIEW Nick Wedd 35WEAK GROUP THEORY Ron Bell 37UK CLUBS LIST 43GLOSSARY OF GO TERMS 44

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EDITORIALjournal@britgo.org

Welcome to my first attempt at producing your Journal.It has been a steep learning curve, selecting and editing the material and learningthe typesetting process; most of which is directly inherited from Jenny Radcliffe’sapproach.Some time ago, there was a brief discussion on GoTalk about the permanentrecord of the BGA, so some changes have been made in this issue of the Journal.Your new editor looks forward to your feedback with some trepidation.

In This IssueThere is obviously a struggle to get the balance right in every Journal. This issuehas fewer game records than usual for technical reasons (lack of contributions,my ineptitude and time). This is balanced with some great travelogues fromT Mark, Tony, and Natasha of their, and other travellers, adventures representingthe UK in the Far East.A response from Nick to Geoff Kaniuk’s series on refereeing shows how theleast obvious rules can have a significant effect. Also included is a technicalarticle on Chinese counting by Andrei, and our President has dug in his archivesfor a teaching approach.Mixed in with this is a little light humour, a book review, the 2006 outgoingPresident’s review and a few problems. I hope you will all find time to enjoythis Journal.

CreditsBiggest thanks of all go to our contributors. Without them there is no Journal.Especially for the UK and World News from Tony, without whom there wouldbe no true Journal, and for his significant help with proof reading.The technical help and advice from Jenny, Andrei, Brian, and Jan van der Steenwas most appreciated. The moral support from Andy Brixey, accompanied bythe management support from Ron and Brian were the driving factors that ’madeit happen’. More thanks to Ron, with PhotoShop, for making the pictures lookso much better, and typesetting his own article.Proof Readers for this issue included all the contributors, and extra help fromSimon Goss, Jon Diamond, Nick Wedd, Edmund Stephen-Smith, David Wood-nutt, Bei Ge and Matthew Macfadyen.My thanks to all; the remaining mistakes are all my fault.

The Final GameMy friend and I offer a personal thanks to Nick Wedd for hosting the final gameof last year’s British Championship and accepting us as spectators.The electric atmosphere during the latter moments of that deciding game remainunforgettable.

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Size and frequencyThe changes in UK postal rates have strongly suggested that the Journal berestricted in size for most issues to stay within the basic 100g band; with thestrong intention to return to 4 issues per year.Consequently some regular sections such as the glossary and clubs list havebeen pruned to make more space for articles. All that information is availableon http://www.britgo.org

I hope the future of the Journal will concentrate on being ’a good bedtime read’,a true historical record of the state of UK Go, whilst still providing technical arti-cles for those spare moments when you want to sit down alone with a gobanand just forget the world.

Technical / More of the FutureWhilst trying to avoid the proverbial bus, it would be useful if more of us learntthe processes of making this Journal. Technology changes of course, but thisMiKTeX LATEXapproach seems a very sound core for now. Many thanks again,Jenny.The benefits: well anyone can do it with a reasonable PC and using Free GNUlicense style software. sgf2misc on gobase.org provides some of the diagrams.Direct LATEXsetting with igo.sty provides some others and the little stones formove numbers in the commentaries. Our thanks to all those software authors.Andrei has provided a modified part of sgf2tex to produce his diagrams.All Journal contributors are encouraged to learn some of these techniques oftypesetting Go board positions. Barry Chandler

UK NEWSTony Atkins ajaxgo@yahoo.co.uk

Thames Valley Team Tournament

Eight teams competed for the BrokenGo Stone Trophy and the handmadechocolate egg. Edwina Lee hostedthe event at Bourne End CommunityCentre on Easter Monday on behalfof Maidenhead Club, who graciouslycombined their two teams to make aneven number.

They won the event beating a guestteam from Cambridge in the final.Prizes went to best individuals andto Xinyi Lu who won the 10×10 sideevent again.

London International TeamsFour teams of five players attendedthe Nippon club in Piccadilly for theSpring International Teams matchon Saint George’s Day. The CentralLondon Club was the victor again,with 11 points, ahead of Cambridgeon 8, Nippon on 7 and Wanstead on4. The Autumn event was held atISH, home of the Central LondonGo Club, on 16th September. Thehome team proved the strongest andwon the event for the fourth time in arow, scoring 11. Cambridge scored 8,Nippon Club 6 and Wanstead 5.

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British Go ChampionshipThe British Open and British Lightning(held in 2006 at Lancaster GrammarSchool and the Gregson CommunityCentre) are separate from the events ofthe British Go Championship.The Candidates’ Tournament, the firststage of the Championship, movedback to the May Bank Holiday andchanged to 6 rounds under the modi-fied system. Also the qualifying levelwas reduced, so that 28 players tookpart having achieved a rating at orabove 1900 in 2005. The venue thisyear was Cambridges Selwyn College.Winner with a straight 6 was Bei Ge.With 5 wins were Des Cann and AlexRix. The top four on 4 wins also qual-ified: Matthew Cocke, Paul Christie,Francis Roads and Alistair Wall.The Letchworth Settlement, an educa-tion centre, was in mid-June the venuefor the long weekend of the Chal-lengers’ League. The above quali-fiers joined with British ChampionMatthew Macfadyen to decide whowould play this year’s title match.Two players took an early lead, withMacfadyen and Ge getting ahead.They stayed ahead and Matthew wontheir encounter to take first spot. Beiwas second and so would challengeMatthew for the title. Neatly all theplayers beat the players placed below,so the rest of the ordering was: Cocke,Rix, Cann, Roads, Wall and Christie.The title games were held from theEpsom Tournament in July through toearly December. Each game was wonby white, with the result that Bei Gebecame the new British Champion by3 games to 2.

Bar-Low17 players (plus a dan-grade ghost)attended the Bar-Low kyu-players

only tournament in Cambridge on 7thMay. It was part of the Mind SportsOlympiad weekend held at NetherhallUpper School. Paul Tabor, 1k Epsom,was the overall Bar-Low winner with 5wins. Ukrit Mankong, 2k Cambridge,came second with 4. Third place wastaken by Maria Tabor, 5k, and KenDackombe, 13k, also won 4.

BracknellA week later was the Bracknell Tour-nament, again held at its venue inWokingham. Best of the 50 playerswas Roman Pszonka, the Polish 3dfrom Maidenhead. Second place (alsoon 3) was local player Clive Hendrie,2d. All on 3 wins got prizes, as didWill Brooks for the caption contest andJim Clare for the Go Puzzle compe-tition. Ron Bell won the 13×13 andthe new team prize was shared byMaidenhead and Brighton. At lunchtime Simon Goss gave a lecture aspart of the new Shodan Challengeprogramme.

Pair GoThis year the British Pair Go Cham-pionships were held as usual at theFoxcombe Lodge Hotel, Boars Hillnear Oxford on 21st May. The plantsselected as prizes by organiser FrancisRoads were cacti and bamboo to avoidwilting, though it did not matter asthe sun did not appear until it wastime for the group photo at the end.Last year’s winners Natasha Reganand Matthew Cocke lost in round2 to Kirsty Healey and MatthewMacfadyen. These two managedto beat new pairing Jenny Radcliffeand Tim Hunt in the final, to take thechampionship for the tenth time. LizzyAbbott and Matt Scott got the fightingspirit prize at their first appearance.In the 7-pair handicap group the

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winners were Bournemouth’s JackieChai and John Johnstone. FrancisRoads deserved the handicap sectionfighting spirit prize for playing soloagainst the 23k pairing, but actu-ally it went to that pair, Pip andPatrick Ridley from Cheshire, foreasily beating him on 26 stones. Bestdressed pair was Elinor Brooks andFrance Ellul. Music quiz winnerswere Pauline and Steve Bailey withJil Segerman scoring 35 out of 40, andsecond was Alex Selby with 31.

Scottish OpenThe Scottish Open moved south againthis year to the Mason’s Hall in thecentre of Dundee on the weekend of27th May. A big increase in attendancesaw 38 players take part, with lots ofnew local players, as well as playersfrom North-East England and somefrom even further away. The nightbefore the tournament, a 14-playerlightning small board handicap eventwas won by Peter Clinch with 8/9.The winner of the Open was the strongChinese 5d from Glasgow, Ben He,who won all 6. Second on 5 wins wasJiang Dongming, 1d Glasgow, andNeil McLean, 2k Elgin, was third likelast year with 4.5. Four players on 5won generous book token prizes andeveryone went home with Dundeemarmalade and jam, thanks to sponsorReal Time Worlds.

Welsh OpenThe 14th Welsh Open at Barmouth on10th/11th June was won as alwaysby Matthew Macfadyen, 6d; thisput him on 68 wins unbeaten at theevent. David Ward, 4d Cambridge,was second on 4/5. Prizes for 5 winswent to Phil Ward-Ackland and PaulTrebbett; Luke Oram won 4. 30 playerstook part and enjoyed the venue of the

Min-Y-Mor Hotel, the glorious seasidesunshine and evening meals at localrestaurants. A lecture by Matthew,on how and when to read, was wellreceived (part of the Shodan Chal-lenge). For the first time the draw wasdone by computer with no ill effects,apart from David Ward having to playdown against a 2k, Geoff Kaniuk, inthe last round, yet having some scarymoments.

DurhamThe following weekend, Durham onlyfound a venue for the tournament (theShincliffe Room at St Aidan’s College)with a week to spare and the Chal-lengers’ was on (results texted directto Durham), so an attendance of 32was pretty good. Guest lunch speakerDavid Ward won all 6 games to takethe first prize. Club mate Will Brookslost only to him to come second andAlan Thornton was third with 4 wins.Some local players did well with ChrisBarnett, 4k, coming fourth with 4.5,Andrew Thurman winning 4 and WillHornby winning 3 out of 4. York’sAndrew Smith, 10k, was unstoppablewinning all 6.

On-lineOver 150 games were played in thethird BGA KGS Tournament, playedon the Kiseido Go Server duringJune and directed this year by StuartBarthropp. The joint tournamentwinners were Alan Cameron andAndrew Simons. There were lots ofother category winners.

UK Go Challenge26 of the best players from 10 schoolheats, and other youngsters, met forthe finals of the third UK Go ChallengeFinals at Loughborough GrammarSchool on 2nd July at the start of

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National Go Week. Overall top placewinners were first William Brooks,second Maria Tabor (also Best Girl)and third Matthew Hathrell. Top boyand girl won a LG Chocolate mobileand all the age-group winners won LGMP3 players kindly donated by LGElectronics UK Ltd. There were manyother prizes for those winning games,in fact something for all. Trophieswent to Aston, the champion school,and Milton, the champion primaryschool.

EpsomThe fifth Epsom Tournament washeld in July (on the 8th), instead ofthe usual August, so that it was partof National Go Week. It attracted 48players. Winner for the third yearrunning was young Li Shen. He beatAlex Selby in the last round.

All players on two and three wins gotprizes thanks to sponsor ForbiddenTechnologies. Harriss Cook wonthe 13×13 side event, and the 9×9was won by Peter Fisher with 9/12.Cambridge won the team prize uncon-tested. In a side room Bei Ge and

Matthew Macfadyen were competingfor the British Championship, withgame one also being broadcast on KGSthanks to some of the players takingbyes; commentary was by Guo Juan.After the tournament Bei analysed thegame in the nearby Yates’s.

Isle of Man Go WeekThe Isle of Man Go Week in Port Erinis the best Go holiday week anywhere.It happens every two years and thisyear, starting on the 19th August, itwas made even more internationalthan it usually is by hosting the Euro-pean Women’s Championship over thefirst three days.Unfortunately players from somecountries had to withdraw becauseof the then current transport difficul-ties, so only eight women took part,half from the UK, and the number ofrounds was cut from 5 to 3. Unbeatenwinner was the student from CzechiaKlara Zaloudkova. Second wasNatasha Regan and third was SuePaterson. The Women’s ended with areception attended by Manx politicianMrs Pam Crowe MLC, who presentedthe trophies.47 players took part in the maintournament. After 5 rounds playersunbeaten were the winner, PiersShepperson (for the third time in arow), and Ingrid Jendrzejewski, 14kCambridge. All players on 4 wona wooden Go stone. The 33 playerafternoon tournament was won byMatthew Cocke who was the losingfinalist in 2004; this time he beatWill Brooks in the final. Only twoothers won all 3 games, namely StuartBarthropp, placed second, and WimVerstegen, 5k Netherlands.The Handicap Tournament was splitby SOS tie-break as four players won4/5. The winner was Simon Billouet,

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3d France, second was DemianWalvisch, 11k Belgium, third ChristianScarff, 2d Swindon, and fourth AlexSelby, 3d Cambridge. The Rengo (PairGo) winners were Matthew Cockeand Jenny Radcliffe; they beat GeoffKaniuk and Sue Paterson in the final.The 13×13 winner was JonathanEnglefield and in the ContinuousLightning Demian Walvisch won theplay-off beating Will Brooks (stoppinghis four year reign on this title). Thequiz was won by Off We Go (Bailey,Bailey, Bell, Pusey and Kaniuk). PaulBarnard won the first entry prizeand Charlotte Bexfield won the SandCastle Competition.As usual the week rounded off withthe prize giving dinner and somesinging. Congratulations must go toDavid and Leo Phillips, Ed and CeliaMarshall and the Isle of Man playersfor running this substantial event yetagain.

Mind Sports OlympiadThe 10th MSO moved back to Londonfrom Manchester. The venue was theMarylebone Road building of theUniversity of Westminster, thoughlack of signs outside made it lessthan obvious that anything wasgoing on. The main event on BankHoliday Monday was the Rapid.Six players played all-play-all andthe winner from Spain was PacoGarcia de la Banda, 3d. In an excitingbattle between two 3k for Silver,Andrei Sokolov won by 3.5 pointsagainst Brian Dackombe. Also inthe morning was a beginners’ eventwith three competitors, won by 17year old Nicholas Calderwood fromLondon, who had only been playing5 days. The main Open Go event tookplace on the last Saturday. 16 playerstook part, including the arbiter Tony

Atkins, which (according to the organ-isers) was disappointingly less thanthe number who played Scrabble.Winner again was Alistair Wall with3/3. Silver place and Junior Gold wentto Will Brooks.

Bronze went to Brian Dackombe, thistime beating Andrei Sokolov in thelast round. Two lads from NorwichSchool took the other junior places:Zaichen Lu took the Silver and HenryAnderson Brown took Bronze and alsothe prize for best kyu player with 3wins.

Cornwall23 players took part in the CornishHandicap Tournament on theSaturday 9th September in the YachtInn in Penzance. Winner of the GoBowls trophy was local player RobertChurchill, 16k. He beat another local,Rob White 17 kyu, in the final. Fiveplayers won 3 games. Also 23 playerstook part in the Cornwall Tourna-ment on the Sunday. Winner of theDevon Go Stone for the first time wasEdmund Shaw from Bracknell whobeat local John Culmer in the final.Players winning all three were Swin-dons Eric Hall and Elinor Brooks.

East MidlandsOn the following Sunday, with thehelp of several of the clubs in theEast Midlands area, a new event took

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place at the National Space Centrein Leicester. 36 players took partand had a chance to visit the exhibi-tions as well as play Go. Winner wasSimon Shiu, who had often won theformer Leicester Tournament. Secondwere Alan Thornton and Sam Aitken.Two other players won all 3, namelyEdwina Lee and Ken Dackombe.

Milton KeynesA week later, 46 players attended theOpen University for the 18th MiltonKeynes Tournament. Bei Ge, thelocal 5 dan, was playing in the titlegame, so there was a new tournamentwinner. This was Alex Selby who beatGranville Wright in the last round. 6players got prizes for 2.5 or 3 wins.The final game to finish decided thatthe best team was Farnborough Villagewith 7/9, just ahead of Cambridgeon 10/14. The MK Go winner wasJonathan Englefield with a perfect 7.At lunch time T Mark Hall gave a talkon how to study professional games,as part of the Shodan Challenge.

FifeOn the first Saturday in October, thesecond Fife Go Tournament attracted

16 players to the Age Concern Hall inCupar. This was the perfect numberfor a 4 round handicap tournament.The deciding match saw Neil McLeandefeat Pete Clinch, 12k Dundee, in ahard fought 9 stone+24 komi game;other players winning prizes for 3wins were Donald Macleod, PhilBlamire and Karl Naylor.

The third title game was taking placeat the same time in Cambridge; manyplayers took a keen interest in thisgame thanks to the live relay on KGS.

Wessex

The Wessex Tournament saw a new 3round format and a new venue of theJ.N. Fear Institute in Keynsham nearBristol. It was, however, still the lastSunday in October, the day the clockswent back. Winner was Mike Charles.Second was Matthew Crosby, tied withNatasha Regan and Matthew Cockeplaying as a pair. Players winning all3 were Helen Harvey, Martin Harvey,Steve Bailey, Ron Bell, Andrew Smith,Duncan Fowler and Patrick Ridley. 48players took part.

Up-to-date news is available at http://www.britgo.org/news/and via subscription to the e-Newsletter.

THE BGA ANALYST dward1957@msn.comDavid Ward would like to remind the membership of the analysis serviceavailable to members; and to mention that with age he has mellowed sowill now refrain from making any disrespectful comments.

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OUTGOING PRESIDENT’S REPORT, 2005-6Simon Goss simon.goss@sky.com

Member ServicesIn 2005 JennyRadcliffe tookover from AndyBrixey as JournalEditor and TonyAtkins from TimHunt as Tour-nament Coordi-nator. Anna Grif-fiths stood downas Press Officer,a role which is currently fulfilled bythe President. All the other officialsproviding member services remainedthe same throughout the calendaryear. In 2006 Geoff Kaniuk has takenover from Toby Manning as Cham-pionships Organiser and David Hallfrom Steve Bailey as Journal Backnum-bers Officer. I thank all the officials fortheir excellent work and the generousdonation of their time and effort.In the Summer we held a survey ofthe membership’s views on the BritishChampionship system and, as a result,made some changes, especially toqualification for the Candidates’ Tour-nament, which is now more inclusive.Council has made this year’s changes,not expecting them to be the finalperfect answer, but in the hope thatthey will prove to be a step in the rightdirection. Further review is likely andthere may be further adjustments.

Player DevelopmentYuki Shigeno led a women’s studyweekend in Oxford in October. 12women took part.The teaching day that regularlytakes place on the day before theWest Surrey Handicap was attended

this year by about 20 people plus 4teachers.

UK Go ChallengeThe second UK Go Challenge attracted18 schools, down from the 23 of 2004,but the number of participants inthe final more than doubled from19 in 2004 to 46 in 2005, partly dueto the ideal venue at LoughboroughEndowed Schools, and partly due tothe extremely generous prizes of musiccentres and mobile phones donated byLG Electronics UK Ltd. Tony Atkinsmanaged the event very skilfully andstayed well within the budget thatCouncil had voted to underwrite theevent. Tony is once again managingthe 2006 UK Go Challenge.

European Pair Go ChampionshipsWe hosted the 2005 European Pair GoChampionships at the Hitachi officesin Maidenhead, with their generoussupport. Anna Griffiths managedthe project with flair, and it was agreat success. A novel side event wasthe Triangle Tournament, speciallyconceived by Tony Atkins to allowparticipation by players who wantedto but could not find a partner. Tonyand Steve Bailey generously arrangeda buffet dinner and barn dance for theSaturday evening.

OutreachThe high rate of Go introductionshas continued thanks to the ongoingefforts of Peter Wendes, who hasachieved over 12,000 introductionsin the past four years, and many BGAvolunteers. The 60th anniversary ofthe Atom Bomb Game was marked by

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an event led by Peter at the ImperialWar Museum in London.

FinancesIn last year’s report I predicted a lossof about £1000 for 2005, and a return tobreak-even in 2006. In fact, we show aprofit of about £600 for 2005, but this isa result of sending out only two issuesof the Journal, which costs roughly£1500 per issue. A larger number ofjournal issues is predicted for 2006, butlast year’s increase in subscription andlevy rates will have greater effect, so Isee no reason to amend the predictionof break-even for 2006 provided thatthe new Council continues the policyof tight financial management adoptedin 2005. Council is not proposing anychange to the subscription and levyrates for 2006.

Salve et ValeNormally I conclude my report witha brief list of major projects plannedfor the coming year, but this year Iam moving on, and my successor willpresent next year’s plans at anotherstage of the meeting.It is a huge privilege to be the presi-dent of an organisation like the BGA,and I thank the members who havegiven me the opportunity to do thisjob, and the Council members and allthe BGA officials for their generoussupport throughout my five years inoffice.Sometimes it has been a bit of a whiteknuckle ride – in my time there havebeen three BGA secretaries, threejournal editors, three webmasters andthree championships organisers. But,thank heavens, just one treasurer, onemembership secretary, one book seller,one newsletter editor and one auditor.These jobs are vital to the success and

indeed the viability of the BGA, and Ispecially thank Mark, Kathleen, Gerry,Jil and Alison for their constancy andtheir professionalism in doing them.A lot has happened in the last fiveyears, but the most notable by farhas been the promotion of Go inschools. When I was first elected in2001, four school visits to introduceGo in one year would have been arecord, and neither I nor (as far as Iknow) my predecessor had heard ofPeter Wendes. Today, Peter alreadycounts over 12,000 people to whom hehas introduced Go, and is still goingstrong.We now have an army of nearly 30BGA volunteers ready to visit schoolsto introduce Go, and teachers’ packsconsisting of 9x9 sets and displayboards in 5 regions for their use. TheUK Go Challenge, conceived andintroduced by Paul Smith and nowmanaged by Tony Atkins, is in its thirdyear. A new development this year isan on-line BGA Youth Go Grand Prixbeing run by Mike Lynn on the KurnikGo server.Promoting Go to youth like this isa long game. Few children join theBGA or go to tournaments, whichare quite adult-oriented. Many whotake up Go for a while as pre-teensdrop it as teenagers, especially whenexams loom. But in time at least someof these youngsters will re-emergeas adult Go players, and/or as theparents and teachers of the next gener-ation of young Go enthusiasts.The work we are now doing withyouth is, I believe, the foundationfor a growth in British Go in a fewyears’ time, and I deeply hope that thenew officers and Council will want tocontinue support for it. But I must sayalso that I feel that there is no point

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promoting Go unless we can then offersomething really attractive to thosewho take it up. While outreach is vitalto creating interest in Go, memberservices, in the broadest sense, areessential to sustaining it. People whotake up Go do so not merely as analternative to Snakes and Ladders,but because they are intrigued and

inspired by its challenges. So it is vitalthat we have an interesting champi-onship, interesting publications forestablished players, tournaments, andactivities to support improvers.I wish the new officers and Councilsuccess in sustaining and expandingthese activities, and as much fun andsatisfaction as I have had in doing it.

PROBLEM 1

Black to play

10 YEARS AGOTony Atkins ajaxgo@yahoo.co.uk

In May 1996, local Berkshire player JimClare won the Bracknell Tournamentand John Rickard broke the Wansteaddominance of the Scottish Open. TheChallengers’ Tournament, a changefrom normal format as a seeded Swiss,was won by Matthew Macfadyen whowent on to Challenge Shutai Zhang forthe championship. Scoring three winswere Cocke, Rickard, Matthews andCann. Des Cann won Leicester andMatthew Macfadyen won at Barmouthdespite bad weather grounding theseagulls and dragons.

The British Pair Go at the CrossroadsHotel in Weedon was won for the firsttime by Tony Atkins and Alison Jones,

as Matthew Macfadyen and KirstyHealey were not playing together thatyear. Thorstein Thorsteinsson wonthe second Devon, whilst Alistair Wallwon the tournament run to celebratethe wedding of Yvonne Mao and PaulMargetts at Epsom Downs. MatthewCocke and T.Mark Hall squeezedMacfadyen out of a tie-break to winthe Northern in Manchester; T Markalso won in Milton Keynes at the OU.

A one-off event at the Bank of Chinain London attracted 88 players, best ofwhom was Shutai Zhang; Shutai wasalso top scorer at the London Inter-national Team Tournament. Laterin the autumn Joe Hampton won

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Shrewsbury and John Rickard wonthe Wessex.The Three Peaks was won by Readingclub’s Hennie Groot Lipman (1 dan).T. Mark won both Swindon and theWest Surrey Handicap. At both eventsShutai and Matthew were playinggames in the title match, which wentto the Chinese doctor 3-1.New at the BGA was the web sitewhich had been started by HarryFearnley in Oxford and soon movedto its own Demon domain.Matthew Macfadyen attended theWorld Amateur in Omachi, Japan.China was first and Matthew came19th out of 45 countries thanks to atough draw. In Europe, CambridgeClub raised a team to represent theBGA at the European Team Champi-onships in Zlin, Czech Republic. Theydid better than they expected.Amsterdam had been won by Watarufrom Paris, whilst Guo Juan wonHamburg. Lazarev won in his nativeRussia and in Helsinki. Guo won theFujitsu Grand Prix by one point fromVictor Bogdanov, thanks to her win atthe European Go Congress. The 40thCongress was held in Abano Termenear to Venice. Rob van Zeijst was

second in the championship and LeeHyuk won the Weekend Tournament.Des Cann was the Liar Dice champion.The US Go Congress in Cleveland waswon by Danning Jiang.At the FOST Cup for computer Go,Handtalk beat Go++ by Mick Reissinto second place. In the ObayashiCup in Amsterdam Shutai Zhang lostto Chinese girl Pei Zhao in the semi-final, but she lost to Guo Juan in thefinal. Sue Paterson represented theUK at the Womens World Amateur inJapan.Also in Japan, Cho Chikun waswinning most of the top titles. Hewon the Kisei (against KobayashiSatoru), Meijin (against Takemiya),Honinbo (against Ryu Shikun) andboth the NHK and Lightning TVtournaments. Ryu won the Tengen(against Rin Kaiho) and Oza (againstO Rissei), whilst Yoda won the Goseiand Judan and the first internationalSamsung Tournament. In China,Ma was winning everything but helost the Fujitsu Cup to Yi Chang-ho.Yi won nearly all the Korean titles,graciously letting his teacher ChoHunhyu win two. Feng Yun won thewomen’s Bohae Cup.

PROBLEM 2

Black to play

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THREE PEAKSIan Marsh Ian.Marsh@uk.fujitsu.com

If you think bits of this article arewritten in a strange way and not inmy normal old peculier style, the chal-lenge was to write an article on theThree Peaks tournament mentioningall 15 of the real ales that were avail-able over the weekend.The tournament takes place at theMarton Arms near Ingleton, Yorkshire(30 miles north-east of Lancaster as theaviator flies), a county famous for DickTurpin’s ride, the dales and good beer.The Marton Arms hotel, one of thetop pubs in the country, boasts 16 realale taps serving beer & cider frombreweries as far apart as Cornwalland Cumberland. Ale is not the onlyattraction as the bar has a selection of300 whiskies on display, all at theirgolden best.There has been a pub on the sitesince the 13th century, the landlordis friendly, the food good, and thepub is well frequented by Go players,potholers, hikers, and other tourists.The decor is such that the traditionalblack cat taking a catnap before thefire would not be out of place. Defi-nitely more like an old tuppenny bitthan modern decimal coinage. Unfor-tunately central heating has now takenover though the old fireplace remains.Situated in the Three Peaks district, itis a great venue to combine Go witha short holiday, although many Go

players come on the Saturday anddepart on the Sunday. The scenery andlocal walks are spectacular throughthis limestone country.Ingleton itself boasts the Waterfallwalk that is quite do-able on theSaturday morning prior to the tour-nament that starts about midday. Aswell as the spectacular scenery, see ifyou can spot the lone black sheep thatthe local farmer keeps with each flock.Whether this is traditional I have notbeen able to find out.Taking place in November the tour-nament misses the summer splen-dour of such flowers as hawkshead,red campion and the like, or even theautumn fruit bonanza of apples suchas Golden Pippin. There is however arugged winter beauty even when therain is falling; stone walls and lime-stone outcrops setting the scene.As well as the Marton Arms, there areplenty of guesthouses in Ingleton andthe surrounding area. Ingleton is aproper dales village, far removed fromcity scenes like Canary Wharf. Meis-tersingers would wax lyrical about thecountryside.Definitely this is one of my favouritetournament venues, even if it meanshaving to slip Deuchars IPA into anarticle somehow.

The answers are at the back.

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REFEREEING QUESTIONNick Wedd nick@maproom.co.uk

In the previous issue of this Journal, Geoff Kaniuk gave the final installment ofhis ”Referee Exercise”. I have found this Exercise interesting and instructive,and I agree with almost all of his answers. I think it is very useful see it statedclearly in this way how the rules of Go are to be applied.However, in this last installment, there is one point on which I disagree withGeoff. It is his exercise 9:

9 A close game was in the 1 point in gote stage.White has four stones arranged in a bent fourshape as in the diagram with live outside stones.

Both players have passed, White thinking that ”bent-four-in-a-corner isdead”. Black is a self taught rapidly improving player and she passedthinking ”I’ve captured 4 stones on the edge and so I am alive”. Havingpassed, they now discover that they have differing views on the cornersituation. They call the referee.

His answer was as follows.

9 ”Bent Four is Dead” is no longer a Rule.You can ask the players if they know the rules about game resumption;and you will probably end up having to explain it. The game has stoppedbecause both players have passed, but now there is uncertainty concerningthe lower left groups. The game is therefore unfinished in the sense thatthere are legal moves left which would affect the result. What the playerscan now do is this:Whoever passed last, presses the clock and now it is the opponent to play.All moves are allowed including ko. Thus the players just play out thesituation and so resolve the uncertainty.Of course in the meantime while you have been explaining this, the playerswill have re-read the situation correctly, and you may now find that noone wants to resume! The way to resolve the issue is to apply the followingin the order stated:

A Players agree to follow the rule as above i.e. continue from the lastpass.

B Players decide for themselves who is to play first.C Record the result as an Unresolved Game.

In the UK, option C means that each player gets a half point for the purposesof the draw for the next round, but this would not count as points towards

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prizes. In European tournaments the players might score zero. Again thisimplication will need to be explained.If the players do go for Option B, then you might give them say 5 minutesto decide between themselves who is to play first. This discussion is ofcourse pursued away from the board.In the end, the moral of this story is to play out your game to comple-tion, including all the dame to avoid unresolved issues! Then pass andbe happy!

I agree with some of this, but there is one point on which I disagree stronglywith Geoff’s recommended way of handling it. This is with the sentence”Whoever passed last, presses the clock and now it is the opponent to play.”I believe that ”whoever passed last, presses the clock” is definitely wrong. Ibelieve this for two reasons. One is that nothing in the Japanese 1989 rules (inuse for this event, I assume) justifies this. Indeed, nothing in any rule set that Ihave come across justifies this. The other reason is that such a rule would leadto pass fights, and pass fights are a Bad Thing. I had better explain what a passfight is.

Pass FightsSupposing you are playing Go, using a rule set that uses the ”whoever passedlast, presses the clock” rule in dealing with disputes. You are near the end ofa game, and it is too close for you to be sure who is ahead. You have a cornerwhich you are sure is alive, but your opponent keeps staring at it, so you suspecthe may have something in his mind.You fill the last dame. Your opponent passes. What should you do? You mightpass - but then the game stops, and if it turns out that your opponent disputesthe status of that corner, it will be he who gets to play first in it. You do not wantthis. Instead, you make a ko threat, he replies to it, and you pass. Now he canpass, giving you the first move in the corner if there is a dispute; or he can makea ko threat. Maybe he knows that your corner is alive, but he suspects that youhave some other dispute you intend to make - so he makes a ko threat.Thus it is in the best interest of both players to fight a ko about nothing, afterthe game ought to be over, for the right to make the first of the two passes thatbring the game to a stop. This is known as a ”pass fight”. No-one thinks thatpass fights are a good thing. They are boring and pointless and slow down thegame and possibly the whole tournament. This is why no sane rule set has arule that encourages them.(Technically, what I have described here is not properly a ”pass fight”, as it isnot about anything that can be valued in points. With perfect players who knowthe status of all the groups, such a pass fight would never occur. What I havedescribed above is a ”virtual pass fight”.)This is not the first time I have encountered the idea that the player makingthe first of the two passes that stop the game earns some privilege by doing so.

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This idea is a myth. There is no justification for it. I would like this myth to besuppressed. I hope that no-one who has read this article will continue to propa-gate this myth.

How I would handle this disputeI would handle this dispute in a way that is based on the Japanese 1989 rules, asfollows.

1 Explain to the players the rule about resumptions. Wait to see if eitherrequests a resumption. If there is no resumption, continue:

2 Explain to the players the rules governing the confirmation phase, includingits ”pass-for-ko” rule. (I understand that there is a difference of opinionhere. The EGF believes the confirmation is done by the referee, who mayseek the opinion of strong players, using backtracking if necessary, to findthe true statuses of the groups. The BGA however believes it is done bythe players themselves, without taking moves back.) Ask the players eachfor their opinion about the statuses of the groups involved. If these opin-ions differ, get them to perform the confirmation process for any groupsabout which they differ.

3 We have now established the status of the black group and of the whitegroup. If the players are both competent, the black group is dead and thewhite group is alive. But they may achieve other results, with problemsfor the counting which will need to be handled carefully.

4 Inform them that either of them may still request a resumption.

5 If they found that the black group was alive, explain the little-known rulethat any group adjacent to an unfilled dame is in seki, and scores no terri-tory. Inform them that either of them may still request a resumption. Thisis relevant because e2 is now a dame, and so the c4 group can encloseno territory; but I would not mention this, it is for White to deduce it forhimself.

PROBLEM 3

Black to play

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BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIP 2006Is there Luck in Go?

The 2006 British Championship wasone of the more hard fought series ofrecent times, requiring a deciding fifthgame and with the slightly curiousresult that white won all five. Detailsof the championship history, 2006game records and free audio lessonsby Guo Juan are available at the weblinks listed at the end of this article.

The introduction to the 2004 cham-pionship article in BGJ 136 profiledthe long-running champion MatthewMacfadyen. The new 2006 champion,Bei Ge, is a recent arrival on the BritishGo scene. He has kindly shared someof his history and thoughts for theJournal.

Bei Ge ProfileBei started tolearn Weiqi asa high schoolstudent in 1985inspired by theexceptionalachievement ofNie Weiping 9 Dan, a national heroat that time, continuously defeatingtop Japanese Go players in the China-Japan Weiqi contests from 1984onwards.

Bei initially learned the game withclassmates and particularly with agroup of four Bridge-playing friends.They challenged each other andimproved together, checking bookswhen in doubt. And hence a hobby ofcollecting Weiqi books arose naturally,with much book learning to follow.

The first formal game he played wasin a local tournament in Beijing afteronly 3 months of self-learning, andhe was awarded a 7k rank. Then aftergraduation from university, most ofhis working time was spent in Africaand the Pacific Islands where therewas almost no chance to play Weiqi.Bei first came to Britain in 1998, andsettled down here in 2000. In 2006 hebecame a naturalized British Citizen.The 2005 London Open was his firstprize money event, winning e200 for4th place. Bei considers this result tobe 70% luck!In 2005, he started to play at somelocal Go tournaments, and at theMilton Keynes club, where he appre-ciated the help from Des Cann to findthe feeling of playing serious games.His first game with a professionalplayer was in April 2006 at OxfordUniversity against Miss HaeWonHan (she played more than 10 gamessimultaneously) and with a 3 stonehandicap, Bei achieved jigo.Bei Ge now lives in Bicester, havingpreviously lived in Telford, and worksin procurement for a telecom companyin Milton Keynes. He is 36, marriedand currently ranked 5d by the BGA.The championship games withMatthew Macfadyen were very tough,as obviously Matthew, through experi-ence, has the upper hand. Bei feels hedoesn’t have enough time and energyto focus on playing Go, and giventhe pressure from his new job, feelsextremely lucky to have won 3-2.

http://www.britgo.org/bchamp/history.htmlhttp://www.britgo.org/bchamp/2006/

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COUNTING BY AREA AND TERRITORYAndrei Sokolov andsok75@hotmail.com

Even though I prefer Chinese rulesbecause of their simplicity, I’m nota big fan of the Chinese way ofcounting. I originally learnt to scorethe game by counting territories andcaptured stones. On the other hand,in the Chinese method one countsterritories and stones on the board,ignoring all prisoners. I didn’t knowthere was an equivalence betweenthese two counting methods untilI learnt about the North American(AGA) rules. However, I didn’t likethe idea of pass stones, neither did Ilike that White had to pass the thirdtime. I understood what role the thirdpass plays after studying the proof ofequivalence that was posted on theAGA website. Naturally, since I wasguided by simplicity, I disliked theidea that such an important propertyhad to be proved.Fortunately, I did find a simpler and,in my opinion, much more naturalapproach to equivalence that did notdepend on the pass stones. I came

across a page on Sensei’s Librarythat talks about equivalence. On thatpage Bill Spight mentions that if ”eachplayer has the same number of stoneson the board for counting (when theprisoners have been placed inside theopponent’s territory), the players mayignore the stones and simply countterritory, instead of counting area(territory plus stones)”.

The point is that once the number ofblack and white stones on the boardis the same it doesn’t matter what youcount, area or territory. This simpleidea allows one to use Chinese ruleswith a counting procedure tradition-ally employed in Western countries.The equivalence arises as a matter ofcourse in the counting method basedon this idea.

In this article I will show how theequivalence in the number of stonesplayed can be easily achieved in mostcasual games between amateurs. In allexamples zero komi is assumed.

Example A.

The moves of a game on the 5×5 board are shown in the diagram on the far left.The final position of the game is shown in the middle diagram. In the right-mostdiagram, Area Counting is used to count Black’s area directly starting from theupper left corner and scanning all rows in a zigzag line until the bottom rightcorner is reached.Black’s area equals 14 points. There are no neutral intersections left. Since thereare 25 intersections in total on the 5×5 board, White’s area must equal 11 points(25–14–0). Thus Black wins by 3 points.

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Now let’s score the same game by territory plus prisoners counting. Firstly, allstones that have been removed from the board are put back on the board. Whitestones are placed inside White’s area and black stones are placed inside Black’sarea. In this game only one black and one white stone were removed from theboard. Putting these stones back results in a position shown below on the left.

Secondly, recall that Black played the first and last moves of the game. This meansthat Black has one more stone on the board than White. In order to equalise thenumber of black and white stones White must put an additional stone insideWhite’s area. This additional stone, marked with a triangle, has no effect on theareas as it does not change the boundary between black and white stones. Alsonote that this stone has nothing to do with passes, it is only needed to restorethe balance in the number of black and white stones. Now that Black and Whitehave equal number of stones on the board, only remaining territories need to becompared. Black has 4 points of territory and White has 1 point. Thus Black winsby 3 points as before.

Example B.Another game on the 5×5 board.

is at

Black’s area equals 14 points. There are 2 neutral intersections. Therefore, White’sarea must equal 9 points (25 - 14 - 2). Thus Black wins by 5 points.Let’s score this game by territory plus prisoners counting. This time we will countthe removed stones directly without putting them back on the board. There is noroom on the board for all captured stones anyway (note that neutral intersectionsmust remain empty). If Black played the last move, then White would need togive Black an additional stone to restore the balance. Since in this game Black andWhite played equal number of moves, no additional stones are necessary. Black

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has 4 points of territory and 2 captured white stones, 6 points in total. White hasno territory and 1 captured black stone. Thus Black wins by 5 points as before.A reader familiar with Japanese rules will notice that the presence of a many eyedseki can introduce a large discrepancy in score between Chinese and Japaneserules. However, in most games the discrepancy does not exceed one point.

Example C.A three stone handicap game on the 5×5 board. Black makes three moves in arow at the start of the game. At the end of the game Black and White agree toremove one black stone from the board.

Black’s area equals 14 points. There are no neutral intersections, so Black wins by3 points.Let’s see how we can get the same score by counting territory plus prisoners.Firstly, no stones have been captured during the game but White has one pris-oner, the black stone removed by agreement at the end of the game. This stoneis treated in the same way as the other stones captured and removed from theboard during the game (all such stones can be called prisoners). So White putsthe prisoner back onto the board inside Black’s area, which results in a positionshown below on the left.

Secondly, recall that Black made three moves in a row at the start of the game andBlack played the last move of the game. This means that Black has three morestones on the board than White. In order to equalise the numbers of black andwhite stones White must put three additional stones inside White’s area (thesewhite stones are marked with a triangle in the diagram above). Now that Blackand White have equal number of stones on the board, the remaining territoriescan be compared. Black has 3 points and White has none. Thus Black wins by3 points as before. Note that White may also give these three white stones to

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Black to be counted as prisoners without putting them back onto the board. Thisobviously gives the same result.A careful reader might have noticed that compared with area scoring Japaneserules give an extra advantage to White that is roughly equal to the number ofhandicap stones (the exact number depends on who plays the last move of thegame). This can introduce a noticeable discrepancy between area scoring andJapanese scoring if the handicap is large. In order to avoid such discrepancyChinese rules make a concession to Japanese rules by use of an extra compensa-tion for White that is equal to the number of handicap stones. So in example Cthe final score will be as follows. Black has 3 points of territory. White has noterritory but 3 points of extra compensation. Thus it’s a tie according to Chineserules.5 by 5 board games: http://senseis.xmp.net/?5x5BoardEquivalence: http://senseis.xmp.net/?EquivalenceScoring

The 5×5 board games will lead dedicated followers to:E.C.D. van der Werf, H.J. van den Herik, J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk.Solving Go on Small Boards. ICGA Journal, 26(2):92–107, 2003.http://erikvanderwerf.tengen.nl/publications.htmlJ.Davies. 5x5 Go. American Go Journal, 28(2):9–12, 1994.J.Davies. 5x5 Go revisited. American Go Journal, 29(3):13, 1995.

WORLD NEWSTony Atkins ajaxgo@yahoo.co.uk

Paris and Ranking

Only 302 took part in the 34th ParisOpen on Easter weekend 2006. Fourplayers were from UK. Paris forms thefinals of the Toyota - IGS-PandaNetEuropean Go Tour, so lots of strongplayers come to battle for the topplaces and the Tour points. Winnerthis year, beating the French-Chinesefavourite Fan Hui, 8d, was Bao Yun,7d, Beijing. Fan had to be content withfive wins and second place and ChoSeok-Bin, the Korean from Germany,had to be content to be third withfour wins. Also on four were Roma-nians Cornel Burzo and Catalin Taranuand from Czechia Radek Nechanickyand Jan Hora. Also taking the points

places were Cristian Pop, Hwang In-Seong, Jean Michel, Ondrej Silt, PierreColmez, Csaba Mero and MerlijnKuin. Cho Seok-Bin, however, scoredenough to win the Tour with 120points from six events, so collectingthe 1500 euro prize. Young OndrejSilt was second for a second yearwith 98.48. Radek Nechanicky wasthird with 83.73. Fourth was the otherKorean in Germany, Hwang In-Seong,followed by Cornel Burzo, VladimirDanek, Jan Hora, Catalin Taranu,Csaba Mero, Fan Hui, Tibor Pocsai andBao Yun. Best UK residents were J-K.Shim in 20th and Ben He and Bei Ge in26th.

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World Amateur68 countries took part in the 27thWorld Amateur Go Championshipsat the end of May. This year it washeld at Huis Ten Bosch theme parkin Sasebo near Nagasaki. Playerswere surrounded by windmills,tulips, canals and the like. Erik Puyt,Europe’s International Go Federa-tion director, said it was all very real-istic but he didn’t recall views of thedistant hills in his native Nether-lands. After seven rounds the 13-year old from China was unbeaten,but he lost in round 8 to Japan. So itended with four players on seven, inorder: Hiraoka Satoshi (Japan), TangWei-Xing (China), Jo Tae-Won (NorthKorea), Hong Man-Ki (South Korea).The group on six wins was: ChunNai-San (Hong Kong), Joey Hung(USA), Cristian Pop (Romania), OndrejSilt (Czechia), Christoph Gerlach(Germany) and Ge Yong-Fei (Canada).Ireland’s Stephen Flinter ended 60thon two wins (against Morocco andEcuador) and UK’s Des Cann was30th on four wins (against Uruguay,Ecuador, Mexico and Bosnia, withlosses to Canada, Spain, Taiwan andAustria).

Spring TourThe first event of the new Toyota -IGS-PandaNet European Go Tour wasat Bled in Slovenia at the end of April.Two Hungarian 6 dans won five out ofsix: Csaba Mero was placed first andPal Balogh second. 46 players tookpart. As usual, Amsterdam, at the endof May, was a major in the Tour andwas held at the European Go Centre.100 players took part this year in the35th edition, including again UK’sMark Todkill, 3k, who won three outof six. As with many other events this

year it was the two Korean 7 danswho dominated the event with ChoSeok-Bin being the winner with sixwins and Hwang In-Seong comingsecond with five wins. A week laterthe Hamburg Affensprung (MonkeyJump) was attended by 191 players.This time Hwang In-Seong was thewinner with seven wins and ChoSeok-Bin came second with six.

European Go CongressFrascati is a small hilltop city withterraced streets, 20km outsideof Rome, famed for its wine.

The 50th European Go Congress washeld, slightly later than normal, fromthe end of July until the second weekin August.Over 290 players took part in themain tournament, but it was a littledisappointing more did not come toenjoy the wonderful Italian cuisineand the chance to explore the historiccity of Rome, visible across the plainfrom Frascati, just 40 minutes away.However there were many guestsfrom China, Korea and Japan. Starguest was Takemiya Masaki, 9p; hegave an interview on his life and Gophilosophy to a packed room. Therewere several side events, including theEuropean Masters which was playedin the museum in the ancient stables,with Roman statue heads lookingdown on the games.

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Eight of the top European playersplayed what was the third Masters,to determine who would play in proevents in the Orient. The final wasbetween brother and sister Ilia Shik-shin and Svetlana Shikshina. Svetlanawon this to take her first of two titlesof the congress. Alexandre Diner-chtein was third. Held at the sametime, the 132 player weekend tourna-ment was won by Lee Ki-Bong fromKorea with five wins; second wasShinada Kei from Japan with fourwins. Aberdeen’s Jakub Zborowski,2d, won four games. Lasting for tendays of the fortnight is the main Euro-pean Open. Svetlana Shikshina tookher second title by becoming the newEuropean Champion with eight wins.European Open Champion with ninewins was Korea’s Park Chi-Seon;he edged Lee Ki-Bong into secondby one point of second tie-break(SODOS). The group on seven winswas Alexandre Dinerchtein, YoshidaTakao, Andrej Kulkov, Kai Naoyukiand Dragos Bajenaru. Francis Roadswas highest placed Brit in 52nd placeand John Cassidy, 12k, won six games.

AmericaThe 22nd US Go Congress was held inthe rural surroundings of Black Moun-tain, North Carolina, during the thirdweek in August. There were over 400in attendance and 340 in the Open.

Teenagers dominated all the titles.Zhao-Nian Chen, 8d, aged 17 wonthe Ing Invitational ahead of YongfeiGe and Jie Li. The US Open winnerwas Andy Liu, 7d, aged 15. He scoreda perfect six to end ahead of manystrong players including professionalMingjiu Jiang. UK’s T Mark Hall wonfour out of six to place fifth in thesection for 4 dans.The 56-pair Pair Go was won byanother young couple, Wan Chen andCurtis Tang. Tang (aged 13) also wonthe Senior Section of the RedmondCup, while Calvin Sun won the JuniorSection. Erik Lui won several othersof the many kids’ events. As FrancisRoads was not there this time, KeithArnold was allowed to win the poetryand song competition. Most excitingevent of the week was when the laptoprecording game one of the Opencaught fire during the lunch break.

Youth and StudentsThe 23rd World Youth Go Champi-onships were organised in Shenzhenin China at the end of August onbehalf of the Ing Foundation. Afterfive rounds the top four players ineach of two age groups play knock-out. None of Europeans won morethan two games, but USA’s CalvinSun won three in the under-12s andCurtis Tang won four in the under-18s, having beaten China. In thejunior section, Na Hyun of Koreabeat Calvin Sun and went on to getrevenge on China, who beat him in2005, by beating Xiao Lou Yun in thefinal. Takeuchi Kousuke of Japan wasthird. In the senior section, China’sYao Peng Li beat Kang Yutaek of Koreato be Champion. Terama Rei of Japanwas third ahead of Curtis Tang. Thesecond European Student Go Cham-pionships was held in Brno, Czechia,

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following their Tour event. 28 studentsfrom 13 countries took part, split intotwo groups. Unbeaten winner was PalBalogh from Hungary and second wasMerlijn Kuin from Netherlands, whoonly lost to the winner. Top femalewas again Manuela Lindemeyer, 3d,from Germany. The top two men andtop woman qualified for the WorldStudent Oza in Japan in February 2007.

TeamsIn October, eight teams from sevencountries took part in the Euro-pean Teams in Bratislava, Slovakia.Romania was clear winner with 11points, five wins and a draw againstHungary. Czechia was second with10 points and Hungary was thirdwith 7 points. Next were Germany,the two Serbian teams, Austria andthe home team. Russia did not takepart, breaking their run on the titlethat lasted nearly 20 years.Most strong players stayed on forthe Casino Tournament, part of theEuropean Cup. Best of the 115 waslast time’s runner up Pal Balogh fromHungary, who topped the group onfour wins too. Second was CatalinTaranu, 5p, and third again was Cris-tian Pop, both from Romania. ChoSeok-Bin was placed fourth by the tie-break.

Autumn TourAgain the Czech event in the Tour washeld in Brno on the first weekend inSeptember. 144 players attended, oneless than last year. Cho Seok-Bin wasthe winner with a perfect six, givinghim a large lead in the Grand Prixpoints. Cho also recently won the

European Cup and was having aneasier Tour than last, as Hwang hasreturned to Korea. Two Hungarian 6dans ended second and third with fivewins: Csaba Mero and Pal Balogh.Again the Romanian Tour event washeld in Bucharest. 75 players tookpart. The best of these were Cho Seok-Bin and the local Cristian Pop, 7d.They both dropped a game to endon five and, split by SOS, Cho wasfirst. 91 players attended the TampereTournament, the Finnish tour event,in the middle of October. Unbeaten onfive wins was Cho Seok-Bin. Secondon four was Andrej Gomenyuk, 5d,Russia. Topping the group on 3 winsin third was Finn Matti Siivola, 5d.UK players joining the fun were fromLondon Mark Todkill, 2k, and TuongNguyen, 2k, and William Brooks, 2d,Cambridge and Ian Davis, 3k, Belfastwho won three each.Brussels has long been on the autumntournament calendar and this year waspart of the Tour with 86 players. Yetagain, unbeaten on five wins was ChoSeok-Bin. Second on four was BelgianJan Ramon, 4d. In November, 27players attended the smallest Gothen-burg Tournament for many years,despite being in the Tour. Pal Sannes,4d from Norway was the winner withfour wins out of five.The second weekend in December theMilan Tournament was part of theItalian Go Congress weekend at thePalazzo Stelline. 57 players enteredthe Tour event. Ondrej Silt was firstwinning all five games. Second wasfellow Czech Vladimir Danek. At thisstage Cho was nearly 100 points aheadin the Tour on 156.

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REVIEW: BADUK MADE FUN AND EASYIan Davis ian.davis@durge.org

”Baduk made Fun and Easy” is a newbook written by the Korean ChihyungNam, 1p.

As you might guess, it’s written forbeginners, teaching them how to playfrom scratch. As you might not guess,it uses mainly Japanese terminology,briefly stopping to state the Korean

equivalent of the word. It contains allthe normal things one would expectin such a book, life and death, basicopenings, introduction to ko, counting,capturing and haengma. There is alsoa very clear explanation of some prin-cipal differences between Japanese andChinese rules and counting, using bent4 in the corner to explain. CaptureBaduk also sees a fleeting mention(the prescribed starting position is acrosscut).However, what I particularly likeabout it is the attention paid to culture.For instance, there is a rather nicehistorical section on Sunjang Baduk,the ancient Korean form of play.Manners and Etiquette also are giventhorough attention, with clear expla-nations of how to Nigiri correctly, howone should behave during the gameand how some professionals actuallybehave during the game. For example,”The person with seniority should sitin the better seat, which is often nearthe wall” – how many of our clubscarelessly place the comfy chairs inthe wrong positions?Overall I think this book is an excellentintroduction to the game. Well written,well structured and well presented.ISBN 89-5660-167-4

More at http://senseis.xmp.net/?BadukMadeFunAndEasy

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AMATEUR PAIR GO CHAMPIONSHIPSNatasha Regan NatashaR@aol.com

The 17th International Amateur PairGo championship tournament washeld in Tokyo, 18th-19th November2006. 21 countries took part, togetherwith 11 Japanese pairs to make up the32 pairs competing. Matthew Cockeand I were representing the UK.The route to qualification was via theUK Pair Go championship, a veryenjoyable event held in Oxford eachyear, around May. Matt and I haveplayed together since 2001 and eachtime got 2/3, losing to the eventualwinners, always Matthew Macfadyenand Kirsty Healey, except in 2005when we won it (hooray!).Points are built up to qualify as theBritish pair. Then Britain has toqualify to play in the world. This isby performing well in the EuropeanChampionships, and by having lotsof active pairs. So please everyoneenter the British and European PairGo competitions if you can. You won’tregret it.Pair Go is great fun. The teams areof one male and one female player,who make alternate moves withoutconferring. Games are fairly quick (45minutes each team on the clock) andrequire complete concentration. WhenI play with Matt I understand someof the moves and not others. Actuallyit’s rather like my own games, oftencontaining fighting and strange movesexcept that with Matt large territorieshave a habit of appearing for us in themiddle of the board without me evenbeing aware it’s happening. (Of courseother times it backfires and we loseour groups.)The venue for the World Amateur

was Hotel Edmont in Iidabashi, fairlycentral Tokyo; the guidebook mentionsit for coffee shops. It also happenedto be only one stop on the subwayfrom Ichigaya, home of the NihonKi-in, the Japanese Go Federation.We wasted no time in visiting there.A museum is in the basement witha history of Go and pictures of earlychampions. There were some amazinggobans and a video of how slate andshell stones are made. On the secondfloor is the playing room and shop;Matthew bought stones and I boughtGo bowls. And every time we wentback we bought something more; abook of tricky life and death problems(Matt), a book of children’s puzzles(me), calendars (both), tea cups, a 9x9Hikaru No Go board.I understand that in Japan a veryimportant part of business meetingsis the socialising before and after-wards. In the same way, for the Go,the opening and closing ceremoniesand social events were just as impor-tant as the games. The first gametook place after drawing of lots andsummaries of the rules in English andJapanese.After a quick change into NationalCostume we were ready to play the’Friendship Game’. We drew out ofa hat to see where we would sit andwhom we would partner and playagainst. I was partnered with theman from Kinki 2 (Kinki is a regionof Japan, by the way) and we played anice game to beat Hungary with Kinki1. Included in the draw were someprofessional players, and Matthewwas lucky enough to play against a’pro’.

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Wearing National dress produced acolourful display with the highlightsbeing the Dutch celebrating the 400thbirthday of Rembrandt, and the SouthAfricans’ tribal dress which went on towin the ’Best Dressed Pair’ prize. Seeinside front cover.The Welcome Party was on Saturdaynight. There was a Japanese buffetand a chance to meet with the otherplayers. We also each made a shortspeech on stage about what playing inthe tournament meant to us. Partyinginto the night after this proved impos-sible as jet-lag made all the Europeansvery sleepy by 10pm! We would play 4games the next day.The organisation ran very smoothlyand to time - it’s quite an achievementto get 4 games, a commentary and aparty into one day. We don’t oftenhear an announcement ’20 secondsuntil the start of the game’ in the UK!

The photograph of us here is from theearly stages of our round 2 game withKorea.

In the main competition UK scored2/5 to end 21st. This was wins againstHungary and South Africa, but lossesto Korea and two of the Japaneseteams. The results were in line with

expectations as we were stronger onpaper than the teams we beat, andweaker than those we lost to. None ofthe games was completely one-sided;the Hungarians nearly caught us ina trap at the end, we had interestingfights with the Japanese, and we evenhad good chances against the Koreans,the eventual tournament winners.

Overall the Oriental teams did ratherbetter than the Western. This is notunexpected as they have far more Goplayers.

A creditable result was achieved byNew Zealand in 16th, whose maleplayer, playing with his motherYucong, was only 10 years old! Watchout for Edwin Phease; he had theplay but even more he had the talk.A young couple from America were14th.

Korea played China in the final round,and they played well. We were ableto watch live commentary by MichaelRedmond, a 9 dan pro, and he saidhe couldn’t find any mistakes inthe Koreans’ play. They won fairlyquickly, by resignation.

That evening Yuki Shigeno took agroup of us to a Japanese bar wherewe enjoyed sushi and sake. Every-body introduced themselves. A coupleof the professional players are doingsome very interesting work to promoteGo for blind people.

On the last day we had a talk aboutPandaNet, IGS, one of the sponsorsof the event. This included problemsolving and the Korean girl amazed usagain with her life and death reading.

At the closing ceremony we ate a 2-storey box of Japanese food includingsushi.

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The tournament winners, Korea.

Mrs Taki spoke about the history ofthe tournament and of Pair Go (herhusband originally came up withthe concept nearly 20 years ago).Then each team spoke about Pair Goactivity in their country and how bestto promote this fascinating game.There was some time for sightseeingin Tokyo including the shrines atAsakusa, the fish market at Tsukiji,shopping at Ginza and Shibuya, andgetting to grips with the Tokyo under-ground. We were going to take a tripout of Tokyo, to Kamakura, on thelast afternoon but time ran short, andanyway we couldn’t stop ourselvesfrom going to the Nihon Ki-in yetagain.The picture I most wanted to showyou, which appears on the inside backcover, was taken from the top of thetower at the Government offices inShinjuku. Shinjuku has a businessdistrict to the west of the station anda crazy crazy neon commercial area tothe east.

In all, the trip was a wonderful expe-rience both for the Pair Go and for ataste of the Japanese culture. Congrat-ulations also to my partner, MatthewSelby, who looked after 3 young kidsat home on his own for a week!

More on PairGo at http://www.pairgo.or.jp/home.htm

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VISIT TO KOREA - OCTOBER 2006T Mark Hall tmark@gogod.demon.co.uk

I was lucky enough to be selected forthe 1st Korea Prime Minister Cupamateur tournament to be held inChonju (or Jeonju), south of Seoul.This was because I had accumulatedpoints at the British Open. I arrangedto arrive a day early, trying to avoidthe worst problems of jetlag and foundthat I had chosen the same eveningflight that Geoff Kaniuk and TonyAtkins were travelling on. They weregoing to help out with the organisationand the draw.It was a 10-hour direct flight in a 747,which did not have the option ofplaying baduk by computer, as thelatest flights do. However, they didencourage passengers to do stretchingexercises by playing an explanatoryvideo and it was rather amusing to seehow many were raising their arms atthe appropriate point.When we arrived, at about 5 pm thenext day, there was a group to greetus (or at least Geoff and Tony) andtake photos of us, and who explainedthe situation about buses from Seoulairport the next day. They left forChonju while I checked into an airporthotel and phoned John Fairbairn, whowas in a hotel in Seoul, to explain thetravel options. He and his wife thendecided to catch the earlier bus thenext morning from the airport and Imet them at about 9.30. I was still abit jetlagged, (and my limited break-fast having been a doughnut and hotchocolate from Dunkin’ Donuts inAirport Town) and not having had toomuch sleep.There were about 15 people on thebus for the 4 hour trip. We had onestop along the way where I spotted

the ”Dog and Chips” snack bar, whichturns out, on closer inspection, to bethe Hot Dog and Chips, although Iwas not too tempted to try it.

The weather was rather warmer thanin London, so it was definitely shirt-sleeve order, but it was also cloudyand dull.We were accommodated in a SamsungInsurance training centre some milesoutside Chonju itself, which meantwe would ride in a coach to the eventeach day. During the day more playersarrived, including many from Europethat I had seen at European tourna-ments and Congresses in the past. Thebreakfast and some of the eveningmeals were in the canteen and therewas always a supply of kimchi, whichis a type of pickled Chinese cabbagewith added chillies. In fact, I cannotremember a meal in Korea wherekimchi was not provided.

Banners and BalloonsOn the Saturday morning, the fog hadrolled in, so it was almost impossibleto see 50 feet, but it cleared up whilewe were in the ”Orientation meeting”,where I couldn’t hear a coherent word.

29

After lunch, we all boarded buses togo to the opening ceremony at theUniversity, where the star attractionwas Yi Ch’ang-ho, who was born inChonju. There were four buses andthe top 34 players were in bus 1, sothat’s where I was. It is sometimesworrying when the driver has a lookat the Korean soap-opera on the TV ashe is driving, as he did one evening onthe way back. Outside as we arrivedthere were local folk-dancers anddrummers performing on the sportsfield.One habit in both Korea and Japanis to have helium balloons holdingup banners around a special event,whether it is a sports meeting or theopening of a building. There were acouple of balloons and a banner overthe University sports hall, where wewere to play a friendship internationalmatch. I played the Chairman andCEO of one of the sponsoring banksand probably ruined my chances for aloan, because I beat him. He was theninterviewed by Korean TV, as he wasobviously a VIP.There were quite a few local refresh-ment stalls outside selling food anddrink and I tried something on a stickwith a spicy sauce. The lady indicatedthat it was chicken, but somebody saidthat it was probably something elseless appetising. However, I liked itand had some more on the Sunday.We then went to the nearby culturalcentre, where we had an open-airmany-course Korean meal and wereentertained by Korean singers, dancersand drummers. Since our table hada couple of spare seats, a Korean guysat down and started to tuck in to thefood and drink.One of our number queried hiscredentials with the organisers and

it turned out that he was a local gate-crasher, getting some free grub, and hewas quickly shown the door.

Driving Ranges and WeddingCastles

On the route into town we passed anumber of golf driving ranges whichlooked liked enormous cricket netsand a building that looked like a verymodernistic cathedral but which Ispotted one day had the sign outsidesaying ”Wedding Castle”. Sundaystarted off rather dull and then rainedall day, very heavily at times. Sincethere had been a drought for a coupleof months, the locals were happythat the crops were getting a soakingbut the banner started to sink to theground under the weight of water.This was the first day of the tourna-ment and there were many Koreanprofessionals around and a couplefrom Japan as well. I played the Azer-baijan representative in the first roundand won and the Romanian, CristianPop, in the second and lost.

There was a session with 10 Koreanpros each playing simultaneous gameswith 5 opponents and there were lotsof local kids playing in their own tour-nament; this was, after all, the ChonjuBaduk World Festival.

30

Meanwhile, John Fairbairn wasattending the seminar on Badukstudies in another part of the campus.In the evening there was anotherbanquet (indoors luckily becauseit was raining) and a Korean Hanjifashion show, which I found painfullynoisy. Hanji is a local heavy papercloth which starts out very white andcan be dyed in many colours. Whenwe got back to the Samsung facility Ifound that they had fixed the showerbracket which I had told them aboutthat morning.

No Chicken on a StickMonday was very bright and breezy,but much cooler than previously. It feltas though autumn had really arrived.Lunch on the Sunday had been a bentomeal but on Monday and Tuesdayit was a Big Mac for lunch. One ofJohn’s Korean friends had never hadone before in his 75 years and prob-ably would never want to repeat theexperience. I beat Graeme Parmenterfrom NZ, but then lost to Wei Qian

from Australia. I went into a localstore to get some drinks and, I hoped,some matches, and I showed the ladybehind the counter an almost emptybox as an example. She then carefullycounted out the number of matches tocorrespond to the hundreds of won Iowed for the drinks. I assumed thenthat she did not sell matches. The fastfood stalls were no longer there, so Imissed my something on a stick withspicy sauce. I was told that the AGAhad Matthew M as the BGA rep, soI could blame all my losses on him.Korea beat China to go into a clearlead, since Netherlands had beatenJapan earlier.Tuesday was very bright and sunnybut still with a chill in the air. I playedCastillo from Guatemala and Pedersenfrom Denmark and won both, so I had4 out of 6; will be 50% overall and yetwith two games to go! Yet another BigMac for lunch. John and Toshie go fora stroll around town, since the seminaris over and get to the temple next tothe cultural centre where the initialreception was held. Some Dutchmenturn up for the day and John hears ofyet more books that he wants me toget. I was talking to the representa-tive from Cyprus, who had not beenplaying Go for very long and he saidthat he had had great difficulty inexplaining to his parents why theKoreans were paying all that moneyfor him to play in a tournament inKorea. They obviously had severedoubts as to what they were up to.

Attack of the Killer ChilliesWednesday I lose to both Sweden andMexico, so only get the 50%. Johnand I had gone into town to lookfor bookshops after lunch and I wasrather rushed getting back, so that’smy excuse for the last game. When

31

we had walked around town we hadseen some shops selling vegetablesand spices and sacks of very dark redchillies, which looked dangerous, butthe Koreans love spicy foods. On theway back I had seen some colourfully-dressed Korean drummers and musi-cians playing outside a local hall.Thursday was sight-seeing day butit was rather dulland rainy. First wewent to a gorge to see the autumncolours and then to a local restaurantfor yet another lunch banquet. I hadrather hoped to see a Korean temple,which was on the list but I think itwas rained off and the dolmens wewent to see were not at their best inthe rain. When we went to see a giantland-reclamation project on the coast,I stayed outside for a smoke and wasmobbed by Korean schoolgirls who allwanted their photo taken with SantaClaus! Unfortunately all of the othershad gone into the exhibition centre soI could get no proof of my sudden andundeserved popularity.Friday there were 11 of us travel-ling back to Seoul, rather than to theairport, so Kim Seong-june took us by4 taxis to the bus terminal and boughttickets for all of us on the express bus.I cannot praise too much the organi-sation and hospitality of the Koreans;they went out of their way to accom-modate us and ran an excellent tour-nament. I also had several examplesof Koreans wanting to help a strangerwandering around lost, where in manycountries the locals tend to take awide berth around strange foreigners.After the bus ride, I took a taxi to myhotel and set off for the bookshopsin the centre of town to get a bookfor John and one for Alain Wettachfrom Belgium. I had known of two

big bookshops in the centre of Seouland accidentally stumbled on an evenbigger one, where I got the books Iwas looking for, although not one inEnglish about Korean pastimes.

Saturday I went to the great East gate(Dongdaemun) where I wanderedaround the second-hand books andfound the only one that admitted tohaving baduk books, but they were allnew, not old books as I had hoped.In the evening I went out to amblearound looking for something I couldeat and I was stopped by a policeman(plain-clothes) who worked for theImmigration Department, to check myID. This is the first time anywhere inthe world where this has happenedand I have travelled to many coun-tries in my time. He went on to stopother people and I wandered off. Iwas surprised by the number of placeswith Russian signs outside restaurantsand bars and then I went back to thehotel to watch baduk TV and baseball.

Sunday I caught the subway to EuljiroIlga and the KAL bus to the airport,where I had a very spicy meal forlunch, also with added kimchi. I foundthat there were very few vacancies soI ended in the same hotel I used theprevious week. However, I did findthat I could use the Internet connec-tion for nothing, so I cleared about500 spam emails from my inbox. Ilooked for a box to post some cardsbut couldn’t find one. Some kidsfollowed me around asking my nameuntil I told them ”Santa Claus” andthey went off laughing. In the eveningI had a Bulgogi pizza, beef, onionsand green peppers, so the Koreansare adapting the pizza to their foodas well.

On Monday I flew to Japan for a week; we’ll keep that story for another day.32

KOREATony Atkins ajaxgo@yahoo.co.uk

I was delighted to see Seong-June Kimagain when I met him at the EuropeanGo Congress in Frascati last August.He came there as representative ofthe newly formed Korean AmateurBaduk Association (KABA) with newsthat they were about to run the longawaited international amateur cham-pionship in Korea.

Back in 2003, when the WorldAmateur in Japan was postponed ayear due to the SARS outbreak, theKoreans ran a replacement in Incheon.They said then they would be runninganother such event and so the newevent was the fulfillment of that intent.

Of course, he said, I was expected tobe there as a guest official in my role aspresident of the European Go Feder-ation. Delightedly, I replied, as I hadnever been to Korea (Japan six times)and I only expected to make the oddspeech and look after the players alittle.

Later in the week he said they did nothave anyone to run a pairing programand would it be alright to use GeoffKaniuk’s program? I said to him thebest solution would be to get Geoff tocome and run the program and as youalready read; off we flew to Korea inOctober.

Highlights

Having missed T Mark’s ”Dog andChips” shop, what were the highlightsfor me?

Maybe it was being woken at 06:00by pop music blaring in all roomsand corridors of the Samsung centre.This only happened on the first day,to ensure the workers were up, butwas something we could have donewithout after a 30-hour day traveling.To compensate the centre had pleasantgrounds, pool, table tennis, internet,and also a gym and karaoke.Maybe it was the Go festival withthe gymnasium packed with the 66players, various guests and other visi-tors, about 400 Korean players of allages in the Yi Chang-Ho Cup andfriendship match, and the man himselfbedecked with flowers. It might havebeen the embarrassing filming by theBaduk Television, or the chance to runtwo events at once.The international championshipwas called the Korea Prime MinisterCup and the second event was theKABA Cup tournament. This was forindividuals to join, and there weresome Americans, Dutch, French,Germans and others amongst themany Koreans.Best of the 54 players was Young-Woon Park, who won with a perfecteight and by a clear two points despite

33

only being 5d. The best non-Koreanprize went to Miss Ting Li of China.She played with Geoff in the doublestournament the following day and,coming fourth, they received certifi-cates for their efforts.

Geoff (and Ian Davis) also both got toplay some of the many pros there.

Also on was the fourth Interna-tional Conference on Baduk (ICOB4).As mentioned, John Fairbairn waspresenting a paper on the history

of rule changes. Other presentersincluded Erwin Berlekamp, PeterShotwell, Bill Spight, Lukasz Lewfrom Poland, Mr Lee who visited EGCCanterbury and the professional NamChihyung. I dropped in just in time forthe ending speeches and photographs.I got to make another speech at theprize giving. Winner of the KPMCby second tie-break was Korea’s WooDong-Ha (he lost to Japan in round7). Hu Yu-Qing of China only lostto Korea to come second. On 6 wereNoh Yong-Duck of the Philippinesand Hiraoka Satoshi from Japan (whohad lost early to Geert Groenen of theNetherlands). Next places on 5 wereCanada, Taiwan, Russia (Ilja Shikshin),Hungary (Pal Balogh), USA (Eric Lui),Czechia (Ondrej Silt). T Mark Hall was32nd and Ireland’s Ian Davis won 3 tocome 55th.But actually the highlight for me wasthe wonderful welcome the Koreansgave us and the insight into some oftheir culture, music and cuisine.

PROBLEM 4

Black to play

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HOW TO GIVE A GAME REVIEWNick Wedd nick@maproom.co.uk

I believe that a good way to improveone’s Go can be to have one’s gamesreviewed by a stronger player.However I have watched many gamereviews, and received some, both face-to-face and online. I have found that,in many cases, almost all of the thingssaid by the reviewer have been uselessto the pupil.I therefore address this article to thosewho give, and those who request,game reviews.First, a little advice on requesting agame review. Most times I have beenasked for a review of a specific game,it has been one which the player won.If what you want really is teaching,this is not sensible. You should select agame which you lost. The ideal gameto have reviewed is one which (A) youlost, (B) your opponent was weakerthan you, and (C) you are not awareof having made any gross blunder. Ifa game was like that, and you never-theless lost it, then there must be someweakness in your play, and there is agood chance that the teacher can iden-tify and correct it.The rest of this article is advice ongiving a game review. You shouldstart by checking the pupil’s motivein asking for the game review. If thepupil proffers a game which he won, itis likely that he does not really want areview, and will not listen if given one;what he wants is praise. It is up to youhow you handle this, but there can beno harm in going quickly through thegame, and commenting favourably onsome of the better moves.So let’s start by assuming that thepupil proffers a game which he lost.

He may have a question about aspecific move, for instance ”I made thelow approach to this corner, would ithave been better to approach it high?”.All too often, I have seen a teacherattempt to answer a question likethis, playing out a series of long varia-tions starting with the high approach,and another series starting with thelow approach. This is (at least for thepupil) a complete waste of time. Thepupil will not remember any of thesequences, and anyway they prob-ably wouldn’t happen in a game witha real opponent and the pupil knowsit. The honest answer is likely to be”I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter.Your playing low here is not why youlost the game, you must have mademoves much worse than this one.”Sometimes the pupil may ask asensible question, such as ”is thisgroup alive?”, which you cannotanswer. Assuming the pupil is fiveor more stones weaker than you, itmay be embarrassing to admit thatyou don’t know. However I think itis useful to the pupil to find that astronger player does not necessarilyknow the answer to a status question.For one thing, the stronger player isnevertheless stronger, so there must besomething else he is doing right, andhe is therefore still worth listening to.But more important, the pupil shouldrealise that uncertainty about status issomething that stronger players havelearned to live with.While I try to answer specific ques-tions from a pupil, often with ”I don’tknow”, it is not my preferred methodof teaching. I prefer to go through thegame until I come to a move made by

35

the pupil which is so clearly worsethan some alternative, that I am confi-dent I can get the pupil to understandwhy it is worse. What matters here isnot how bad the move was, but howeasily I can convince the pupil that itwas worse than an alternative.In going through a game, I try to iden-tify one or two, or maybe three, suchmoves, explain to the pupil why analternative move was better, andcheck that they have understood myexplanation. I think it is pointless toconsider more than three moves. Iknow that I have never ever learnedmore than three things from one game,indeed I doubt I have ever learnedas many as three. I do not expect anymore from my pupils.When you think you have found a

candidate move for a lesson, a movewhich you believe has a clearly betteralternative, it is often worth askingthe pupil why he made it, before youchoose it as the object of a lesson.Maybe you are sure it was a bad move,but how convincingly you can explainthis depends on what the pupil wastrying to do when he played it. Forinstance, if his answer is ”to connectthese two groups together”, andyou can show that they are alreadyconnected, you should be able toconvince him that the move was bad.But if his answer is ”to gain centralinfluence”, it will be harder to make itthe object of a successful lesson, andyou will do better to say ”ok” andmove on until you find a better candi-date move.

PROBLEM 5

Black to play

GAME RECORDS

Following past tradition, where available the SGF records of games includedhere will be available at http://www.britgo.org/bgj/recent.html

The game records for the last issue are now available athttp://www.britgo.org/bgj/issue139

36

WEAK GROUP THEORYRon Bell ronbell@silverhow.me.uk

This article is aimed at the Double Figure Kyu player and includes a commen-tary on a game between players at around the 15-20 kyu level. At 4-5 kyu myself,I’m hoping I’m strong enough to handle this! Dans should feel free to tell mewhere I’ve gone wrong. Single Figure Kyus may make constructive comments!

I personally increased my strengthfrom around 12 kyu to around 6 kyubetween 1997 and 2001 and I believethat a growing understanding ofstrategic attack and defence was thekey to that improvement. Towardsthe end of that period, I was acting asan amateur ’sensei’ to an old friendof mine, Will Weir, who was initiallysignificantly weaker than me butcaught up rapidly.I felt strongly that mistakes inhandling attack and defence were arecurring problem with Will’s gameand, to help him, I codified a set ofrules which I called ’Weak GroupTheory’ or WGT. Here they are, as Iset them out for him in 2000.

Weak Group Theory RulesTreat Nos. 1, 2, 4, and 7 as absolute.1. Never have two weak groups ofyour own on the board.2. If you have a weak group, the mosturgent thing is to settle it quickly. Thistakes precedence over almost every-thing else.3. ’Settling’ does not mean making atight 2 eyes. The best way to settle aweak group is to extend from it andattack an enemy weak group.4. If you want to attack an enemyweak group by squeezing it betweenyour weak group and one of yourstrong groups, always extend fromthe weak group and not the strongone. That way, assuming the enemy

squeezes out and lives (as he usuallydoes) your weak group has beenstrengthened in the process. This alsoapplies too when you are trying toconnect your weak group to a strongone: play from the weak side, not thestrong one.5. If the enemy has a weak group,make territory by threatening it (fromthe direction of your weak group ifyou have one).6. If the enemy has TWO weak groups,then attack them both simultaneously(e.g. by splitting them) then see whichone he defends. If appropriate, goall out to kill the other. Do not shillyshally continuing to attack both. Gofor the kill and ignore small threats toyou.7. Finally, if, in the opening, you haveno weak group and you have sente(ah that I should ever be so lucky!)then do not extend from existinggroups. Leave them to look after them-selves and start operations elsewhere -launch an invasion into the middle ofan open side, for example.Later on, Will added an eighth:8. When settling a weak group, tryto do so with sente. This will avoidlosing momentum.However, although keeping sente iscertainly highly important - and isanother thing that many DFKs do notunderstand properly - it seems to methat it applies almost universally in Goand is not really specific to WGT.

37

WGT summaryIn priority order:1. If you have a weak group, defend it- simultaneously attacking an enemyweak group if possible.2. If you have no weak group attack anenemy weak group to get some advan-tage like gaining territory and/orinfluence,3. In the opening, when there are stillwide open areas, if you and the enemyboth have no weak groups, open anew front away from existing groups.

Clarifications and caveatsDon’t take the ’Rules 1, 2, 4, and 7 areabsolute’ too seriously - but I think it’sgood advice at this level of play - youcan deviate from it when you under-stand it better. It is meant to be adviceto someone who hasn’t really under-stood WGT yet.So what is a ’weak group’? Broadlyspeaking, I would say that it is onethat could be killed - or at least putin severe danger - if your opponenthad two moves in a row against it.However, this does not apply if youcan see a way to absolutely make thegroup live whatever move the enemymakes - for example where a groupalready has one eye and two indepen-dent ways to make a second.Another important point is not toregard all weak stones as ’weakgroup’s. Sometimes it is best to regardweak stones as dead and use their ajito help adjacent positions.I would also make the followingcomments:When attacking an enemy weak groupas in Rule 4, do not normally makecontact plays against it. Contact playsstrengthen both your stones and the

enemy’s. So use them only if your ownstones are already in serious troubleand contact plays against the enemyweak group are the only way to savethem.In fact, before moving against theenemy weak group as in Rule 4, itis often best to first strengthen yourweak group by making contact playswith enemy stones - preferably alreadystrong ones - on the side away fromthe weak group that you actually wantto attack (a leaning attack).The main exception to avoidingcontact plays is the ’splitting attack’described in Rule 6. Often, splittinga single enemy group into two weakones can only be done with contactplays - but not always.Be very careful when going for thekill as described in Rule 6. Only doit if you are confident of success. Thereason for this is that techniques forkilling will destroy your own territoryif the attack fails. If in doubt, simplyenlarge your territory by threateningto kill. It is highly beneficial to havetwo weak enemy groups on the boardeven if you kill neither.

Sample game - Figure 1Let’s illustrate WGT with a samplegame played by Will on the Internet inJuly, 2000. There are lots of possiblecomments - but I’m going to besparing with them except where theyserve to illustrate the WGT rules. Willplayed black in this game. The levelof play is probably between 15 and20 kyu - this was one of Will’s earlygames before he started getting thehang of WGT!I know this is obvious - but you willget more out of this commentary ifyou play through the game on a board

38

or a computer rather than just lookingat the printed diagrams!

c 41 3364 62 63 50 40 39 32 17 16 1455 45 44 42 38 5 35 30 31 15 13 12 1060 61 3 46 43 34 36 37 23 a 154 47 48 j 11 9 20

g 49 57 68 70 98 27 b 7 6 1852 56 69 65 71 67 i 84 97 19 8 22

89 88 86 85 29 25 24 21e 58 66 87 94 93 99 28 2653 59 72 91 95 92 96d 90

81 f 73 82 10079 83

75 51 78 7774 76 80h 4 2

Figure 1 (Moves 1 - 100)

San-ren-sei at 34 is more usual - butthis is OK. Third line play emphasizesterritory.

I would advise players at the DFKlevel to stick to simple moves. In thiscase, the usual move at ’a’ works wellwith the territorially oriented stone at5.

WGT error, Rule 6. Although whathappened in the corner is an exampleof close fighting, the principles ofWGT still apply. White failed to playthe joseki move at b, and Black shouldnow play so as to separate the threewhite stones into two weak groups(Rule 6). Playing at 20 would probablybe best.

WGT error, Rule 6. Same point asbefore. This was Black’s last chance tosplit White into two groups.

Successfully connects his stones inthe upper right into one strong group.

WGT Problem 1

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Diagram 1. Problem 1

Diagram 1 shows the positionimmediately after move 28. Cover upthe solution diagram that follows andtry analysing the position accordingto WGT. Which stones and groups areweak and which strong? Which WGTrule applies and what sort of moveshould Black play next?

28

i

a h

db c e f g

Diagram 2. WGT Problem 1 - possiblesolution.

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The WGT analysis is that all stoneson the board are strong except forthe triangled black stone (which isso weak that it’s practically dead).Note that the three stones at the starpoints (marked with squares) are notweak. Generally a single stone with nonearby enemy stone is strong since itcan jump either way if approached.So, WGT Rule 7 says ’open up a newfront elsewhere’. Exactly where isa matter of judgement not coveredby WGT. Plays at any of the pointsmarked with letters are consistent withWGT and should be considered. Theplay at point ’i’ is meant to threatento save the nearly dead triangledstone. Note it is not a direct defenceof that stone but the threat to save it isa possible way of using its aji.Figure 1. Continuing the game:

WGT error, Rule 7. As explainedabove.

This is also a WGT error for White,who should also open up a newfront by playing similar move tothose recommended above for Black.(NOTE: move 30 could be justified as’kikashi’ - see a book on the subject formore - but this simple outline of WGTignores such refinements.)Moves to All of these moves,similarly, are WGT errors (Rule 7).White may have made a live groupin Black’s territory - but the rest of theboard, distant from the existing stronggroups, is more important.

From a WGT standpoint this iscorrect in so far as it is attacking theweak group that White has created- but it is doing so incorrectly with acontact play. Better play would be at63 - a dual-purpose move that simul-taneously establishes Black’s cornerterritory and threatens to undermine

the white group’s base by monkey-jumping to ’c’.

Good WGT move. This settlesthe white group by giving it a base.It is no longer weak. Other movesthat attack Black more could also beconsidered - but defending the stillweak group was White’s first priority.

Good WGT move. All groups werestrong - so, Rule 7 says open up a newfront. The reason why this is a ’newfront’ is that it is too far away from theblack stones in the upper left to be an”extension”. That is, White can defi-nitely successfully invade betweenthem if he chooses. If White does notinvade, then a black move around 53would be territorially large.

A very aggressive move by White.

WGT Problem 2

52

Diagram 3. WGT Problem 2. Positionafter .Again, cover up the solution diagramthat follows and analyse the boardin terms of weak groups and suggestgood moves for Black consistent withWGT.

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d c52 e

a

b

Diagram 4. WGT Problem 2 - solution.

The WGT analysis is that the black andwhite stones labelled ’a’ and ’b’ areweakish but not really under threat.Stone 52 itself is weak - but, if 52 lives,the marked upper left black group hasalso been weakened. Whether thisshould now be regarded as ’weak’depends on how strong a player youare! It may be that, by careful analysisand perfect play, the group can defi-nitely be given two eyes. But to mostDFK players, how to do this is far fromobvious - certainly in this game, subse-quent play showed that the group waseffectively weak.

It is rather important here to see thatthe marked black group is weakerthan the single stone marked ’a’. Evenif you have trouble seeing that, at leastit’s obvious that the marked group ismuch bigger!

Since Black effectively has a weakgroup, WGT Rule 2 says you mustsettle it immediately. Now, Rule 3says that the best way to settle a weakgroup is to extend from it and threatenan enemy weak group. However, inthis case, it’s not easy to see how to do

that. If the marked white group wereweak, then the correct move wouldbe to threaten it - at point ’c’ perhaps.However, the white group is strong -it was settled at Move 50, remember?This is a good example of why settlinga weak group is so important.

is a shoulder hit. The correctresponse to a shoulder hit is almostalways to push in one of the twopossible directions - that is at ’d’ or’e’. Either would do here but thesimplest thing by far is to play ’d’and to defend the corner. This looksterribly submissive, but the secret ofGo is knowing when to be aggres-sive and when to be defensive. WGTmakes defending a weak group imper-ative. There may well be less submis-sive moves that work by attackingWhite’s weak stone at 52 but at theDFK level, it is best to keep it simple.Once Black plays at ’d’, his groupbecomes strong and it is White’s turnto worry about 52. If he defends that,then Black can turn his attention to hisnext weakest group, the stone marked’a’.Figure 1. Continuing the game:

Instead of defending the top leftgroup (at ’g’ in Fig 1), Black played 53.This is a difficult move to follow upand a potential disaster because it fallsbetween two stools. If it was intendedto settle the stone at 51, it should havebeen played at ’d’ (a 2-space jump). Ifit was intended to attack 52, it shouldhave been at ’e’ - this might havebeen playable - though more diffi-cult to follow through than ’d’. Theproblem with this 3-space jump at 53is that White can split by playing at ’f’.If White had done this immediately,there would have been the interestingsituation of two weak white groupsand three weak black groups on theboard.

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A good WGT move strengtheninga weak stone and attacking an enemyweak group. This shows clearly whythe defence at ’g’ should have beenplayed at move 53.

Yes, Black eventually does defendthe correct group.

This is good since it defends both ofthe weak stones at 51 and 53 simulta-neously. The upper left black groupis probably now strong enough tobe left - though incorrect responsesto White’s next few moves possiblysuggest otherwise.

White has managed to destroy allBlack’s eyes in the corner. So Blackcorrectly runs. 68 would probablyhave been better.

If the upper left black group is nowregarded as strong, this move is OKfrom a WGT point of view since itdefends a group that has been weak-ened by the previous move. There are,however, better ways to do it. Play at’h’ would probably be better.

WGT error. Rule 7. This is an exten-sion from a strong group. Black shouldopen up a new front - if he still regardsthe upper left group as strong.

This is a mega-serious attack on theupper black group. With correct Blackplay, he can almost certainly save thegroup - though, at the DFK level, itmight well have been correct to haveregarded it as weak and defended itfurther earlier.

WGT error, Rule 4. For the first timein this article, this illustrates Rule 4,about extending from the weak siderather than the strong side. is anextension from the strong side. Acontact play against this white stonemight well be a good idea - but thecontact stone must be connected to the

weak group - for example, point ’i’.Actually, the best play for Black hereis probably point ’j’ since it threatensto capture two white stones (or more)- but this is not trivial to read out andBlack overlooked it in the game.

Yes - defending the correct group.A complete disaster - WGT, Rule

2! Black has taken his eyes off theball completely. He must continue todefend the weak group, which is stilleyeless and nearly surrounded in anet.

An excellent move that, with betterWhite play would probably havekilled the black group.

Rest of game232 199 198 200 228 227 229 207 205 208

233 117 115 116 206183 125 118123 112 110 160182 121 111 113 109 108 196 197 163124 119 120 107 106 194 195 237210 122 201 202 158 159179 180 178 231 230 151 154 157209 181 177 234 114 105 193 150 149 155 238

175 176 104 126 152 153101 102 174 173 164 127 156 161

103 171 169 170 162 203191 186 184 166 165 172 204190 239 185 167 168 128 224192 213 135 131 134 222 223

211 132 133 225 226 216 217 235214 212 136 129 188 130 148 215

142 138 137 189 139 140 220 218 219 236144 141 145 143 147 146 221

Figure 3. Moves 101-240.The rest of the game is shown inFigures 3. Black succeeded in savinghis big weak group but failed to everbreak into White’s huge bottom rightand lost by about 100 points.There are lots more WGT errors onboth sides. Play through it and try toidentify them.

42

UK CLUBS LIST

The up-to-date clubs list, with a map of the UK, many ’phone and email contacts,and links to club webpages, is available at:http://www.britgo.org/clublist/clubsmap.html

Please send corrections and all new or amended information to the Journal editorand Brian Brunswick at council-brunswick@britgo.org

The proposal is to only reprint the full list here about once a year when spacepermits.

All significant changes between full lists will be published here though, in the’most recent first’ format.

Please subscribe to the email Newsletter for more frequent updates.

NOTTINGHAM Brent Cutts, brent.cutts@boots.co.uk0115 959 2404 Wednesdays 19:30, Crown Inn, Church Street, Beeston,Nottingham, NG9 1FY. Please check with the club secretary before attending.

BRIGHTON Meets on Tuesdays from about 20:00 at Grand Central pub, 29-30Surrey St, Brighton, BN1 3PA (near Brighton Station). Phone to confirm meeting:Jil 07920 865065, Sue 07740 376209, Jim 07811 583802 or Marcus 01243 514128.NEWCASTLE No longer meets

NOTTINGHAM UNIVERSITY From 7th November, meets during term timeon Tuesdays from 19:30 to 21:30. Venue may change.Contact Nathanael Carton 0115 9225473 llyznc@nottingham.ac.uk

SOUTHAMPTON New contact Fabien Oram fabienoram@hotmail.comThe club now meets most Saturdays during term time at SouthamptonUniversity campus. Please email Fabien or Xinyi Lu xl2503@soton.ac.uk

to confirm the meeting and the venue.

WARWICK UNIVERSITY Meets during University term, Wednesdays 17:00 -19:00 and Saturdays 17:00 - 19:00. Please check web page for Location of meetingeach weekhttp://www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk/portal/organisation/6560/Or Vickie.Chan@warwick.ac.ukBARMOUTH/WEST WALES Contacts Baron Allday 01341 280365 and PhilipWard-Ackland wardackland@yahoo.co.uk

EDINBURGH Discontinued Tuesday meetings. Wednesday meeting not sure.

LEICESTER Thursdays, Mayfield, Station Road, Kirby Muxloe, Leicester

OXFORD CITY Time 19:00, oxfordgoclub@goban.demon.co.ukST ANDREWS Edwin Brady eb@dcs.st-and.ac.uk

43

SHERBORNE AND YEOVIL RENAMED YEOVIL Thursdays 19:45, Mason’sArms, 41 Lower Odcombe, Odcombe, Yeovil, BA22 8TX, GoStone@gmail.com

WALSALL New club; meetings by arrangement. Can cover Birmingham toWolverhampton and points above & below.Contact Paul on 01922 429349 paultrebbett@blueyonder.co.uk

BELFAST meets during lunch at work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays.The address is 9 Lanyon Place, Belfast, but you will need to contact Ian Davis togain admission to the building. Other meetings are by arrangement, usually onThursday Evenings. Again, please contact Ian for details on 07952 184010ian.davis29@btinternet.com

GLOSSARY OF GO TERMS

The Journal has historically printed a glossary of many of the Japanese terms usedin Go. Future Journals may omit this section.More extensive descriptions of Go related terms appearing in this Journal, andmany other such terms, may be found at Sensei’s Libraryhttp://senseis.xmp.net/

This space remains open to any new terms that our contributors may feel areunrepresented on the web.

NEXT ISSUE

General Copy Date for next issue is only 2 months away. 31st March.Please send technical articles as soon as possible.Call for volunteers to help with typesetting the technical material.

ANSWERS TO THREE PEAKS

AviatorBlack CatBlack SheepCatnapCumberland Ale

Deuchars IPADick TurpinFalling StoneGolden BestGolden Pippin

Hawkshead RedLandlordOld PeculierOld TupWharfmeister

44

PHOTO CREDITS

Photos in the body of the Journal were provided by the article authors.

Front Cover: T Mark Hall as Santa Claus in Korea - by Tony Atkins

At the land reclamation project - Saemangeum Tideland

Inside Front: Liesl Gini and Chris Visser - by Natasha Regan

The Best Dressed at International Pair Go

Above: Night Lights over Tokyo - by Natasha Regan

Good Night Each & All, Barry