Good evening, all.

If you're reading this, you're known to the Australian Go Association as a tournament player, or you're in one of the many go mailing lists around the country, or we think you might be interested. This will be posted out at regular intervals, please forward it to anyone who wants to know about Australian go and repost at will.

TOURNAMENTS

2014 Wellington Open (Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 November, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand)
37th Australian National Championships (Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 December, Sydney City Go Club, Surry Hills, New South Wales)
1st Australian Baduk Conference (25 to 31 January 2015, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales) - registrations and enquiries now open at http://ozgocongress.com/
35th Queensland Open (February 2015, St Lucia, Queensland)
Otago Open (March 2015, Otago, New Zealand)
5th Hoju Dong-A Cup (March 2015, Eastwood, New South Wales)
4th Mainland Chinese Society of Queensland Cup (March 2015, Mount Gravatt East, Queensland)
3rd Autumn Leaves Go Tournament (April 2015, Woden, Australian Capital Territory)
Auckland Championships (May 2015, Auckland, New Zealand)
6th Golden Aussie Go Tournament (aka Victoria State Championships, May 2015, Melbourne, Victoria)
New South Wales State Championships (June 2015, Philas House, Surry Hills, Sydney, New South Wales)
Australian Capital Territory Championships (July 2015, School of Art, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT)
11th Korean Ambassadors Cup (August 2015, Sydney, New South Wales)
New Zealand Open (September/October 2015, Auckland, New Zealand)
5th Gold Coast Classic (October 2015, Helensvale, Queensland)
(insert your tournament here, or correct details if you're directing the above tournaments...)

The 2014 New Zealand Open was Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 October in Auckland. Report from Colin Grierson: "Winner was Wellington's Chahine Koleejan with an emphatic 5-0 result. His final game with Denis Liu was particularly exciting. A complex fight developed early in the game that grew and grew. Eventually, when it looked like all groups might live Chahine made a rash looking cut. Denis tried to capture the cutting stone (he had to) but Chahine had it all read out and caught Denis's stones in an shortage of liberties - killing a large group in the process." Full results at the link.

The annual Sydney Spring Tournament was Sunday 17 October at the Sydney City Go Club, Surry Hills. Report from An Younggil: "Division A - Winner: Thomas Debarre, 2nd Place: Jeff 3rd Place: Ken. Division B - Winner: Aaron Chen, 2nd Place: Francois Beaussier, 3rd Place: Justin Shao".

The 4th Gold Coast Classic was Sunday 26 October at the Gold Coast Country Club, Helensvale. Eyewitness report from the tournament director: "This year's Gold Coast Classic had a sudden influx of quite strong players on the day, so we had three (!) divisions. The 2014 Gold Coast Champion is Kevin Jiang 7d. Second place in division A was Warren Zhou 4d and third place Kaile Su 6d. Division B was won by Robin Garner 4d, second place Erli Qiu 2d and third place to Sam Nakagawa 3d. Division C was handicap for 2k and lower, first place to Ravi Pache, second place to Tim Henningsen. Kudos to Erli Qiu for organising the social teams match afterwards and the trophies, Mark Bell for his usual sterling job with the logistics, and Yoko Usami for managing to herd the cats via email from Japan." Full results at the link.

CLUB AND FEDERATION NEWS

Melbourne University Students Playing Go club has, um, died. Despite worldwide interest from club alumni and heroic efforts by club leader Yu Gerry the actual general meeting this year did not muster a critical mass of students playing go. Discussions are underway to consolidate the remaining weiqi players into the university's Chinese Cultural Society. This leaves the Victorian Go Club as the only mainstream go club in Melbourne. Has anybody heard from them lately?
Armidale and Lismore go clubs are looking at standing up a northern New South Wales tournament to complement the Gold Coast Classic. Interested players should contact either of those clubs, details are on the AGA club directory.
Sydney City Go Club Christmas party will be on December 12. Location and further details TBA, or turn up at the club and ask Daviid or Younggil.
Perth Go Club celebrated their anniversary of starting to meet weekly at Tzu Chi Perth by doing an extra long Saturday meeting on 1 November including lunch. Report from Colin: "Eng and Bing and I lunched at Dragon Palace along with welcome surprise young Chinese lad 5-dan."
Brisbane Go Club is looking to have *their* end of year party in the octave of Christmas. Players interested in whole roast meat animal on spit and a pleasant day/overnight in the Conondale Ranges of Queensland at Mark Bell's farm should contact him at mbell@go.org.au or via the Queensland Go Society. A date and full details will be announced closer to Christmas iff there is enough interest.
The Australian Go Association has to have an annual general meeting each year. It is held during the Nationals so there is at least a representative cross-section of Aussie go players. There will be one in December, Neville Smythe of Canberra Club has already sent out the agenda to the australian-players mailing list. Questions, concerns, motions on notice, items of general business, mad urges to volunteer for national office: all by return email to him or verbally to whoever runs your local club.

ONLINE

The Australian Go Association Facebook page has come back to life. Like it, follow it, post to it and most of all click "Going" on the page's first event. Kudos to Andrew Fischof for volunteering to administer the page.
The Australian Go Association twitter account is in its fifth week of renewed operation, and starting to attract followers. If you've got news and want to pass the word, or want to get the word, favourite, follow and PM.
The Australian room on the Online Go Server - http://online-go.com/group/261 - is holding steady with 48 members from 22k (silvia.loveza, Western Australia) to 6d (jackguo, Sydney). Despite a few rough edges, it's a good place for correspondence go.
The Australian Go Ladder on OGS is up to nine competitors - the increasingly incorrectly named Mr Newby is still at the top of the ladder and holding off four challengers. Ever wondered if you have what it takes to slaughter your way up the ranks?
The Australia Room on the KGS Go Server is also popular (by Southern Hemisphere standards )- if you'd like to organise online events there, talk to Matthew Crossman (matjet) the room administrator.
Don't forget the Australian Go Association board on the famous Life In 19x19 go forum. If you want to discuss Australian go (or bag the AGA) this is the place to do it.
We're due for another Queensland vs New South Wales friendly match on OGS before Christmas. Talk to Daviid at Sydney City or Yoko at Gold Coast Go Club to sign up for an afternoon of live reviewed go and sudden death.
The australian-players@lists.australiango.asn.au email list ([AusGo]) is for announcements to Australian go players. Post anything you think might be interesting - it's moderated to filter out the spam.

INTERNATIONAL

Amy Song 3d (Sydney) and Wei Xu 5d (Melbourne) (right side of table, above left) ably represented Australia at the 25th International Amateur Pair Go Championships in Tokyo October 25 and 26, with Neville Smythe (Canberra) and Yoko Usami (Gold Coast) as supporting volunteers (above right). Australia came 21st, with victories over France and Indonesia, and losses to Singapore, Hokkaido, China. Full results at the link. We understand that the next IAPGC will be either New Zealand or South Africa's turn in the barrel.

The 13th World Students Go Oza Championship wants YOU. (well, if you're an Australian or New Zealand university student who can fight through the preliminary qualifying rounds held on Pandanet. There is one slot for an Oceania college student. It could be yours! But you have to move fast. Get yourself an IGS Pandanet account, and contact igoworldau@gmail.com by November 16, which is when applications close. More details, including the cool trip to Japan to get crushed by the best university go players in Asia, at the link.

...and that's all the news that's fit to print. If you have some, share by return email or hit up @australiango on twitter.

Cheers,

Horatio