I am curious about how people view the effects of the AGA. The AGA has a few different things that they do, but some things may seem to be more cool or useful to members.

As for me, I am an AGA member so that I can participate in tournaments. Tournaments are the clearest benefit that seems to affect me.

What does the AGA do for you?

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be immersed

I joined the AGA for two reasons:

#1 For Tournaments

#2 To be an official part of the American Go community


I am unaware of any other benefits of joining the AGA, but then again I am a brand new member so I have to look into it more.

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I'm thinking...

I joined to support the American go community and to support the AGA's efforts to popularize go in the USA.

Concrete benefits of membership: 1) the annual US Go Congress, 2) the annual go yearbook, 3) E-journal coverage, 4) special promotions, like the go world archive offer.

Abstract benefits: 1) US representation at international events. 2) Fostering Go in the US with programs like the summer go camps for kids. (and many other similar programs).

Wishful thinking: 1) rated AGA on-line tournaments (rating results from on-line play may be segregated form face to face tournament).
I put together a tournament in Las Vegas with $100 first prize and trophies for first, second, and third. Only three players entered the tournament... Short of driving to California, on-line tournaments are my best hope of getting serious games.

I was a member from 1978 to 2008. I joined for several reasons but mainly because I wanted to be part of the go community and they produced a very good printed journal. Eventually I started playing tournaments and that became my main motivation for belonging. Later, I was on a couple of AGA committees.

Then I saw the benefits eroding. First the print journal was reduced to an annual version, being replaced by the E-journal. Second, I stopped going to tournaments. Third, I found the committee I was on at the time to be totally ineffective. Finally, the only remaining reason to belong was the sense of being part of a community. But even that disappeared because of the political bickering.

In 2008, after 30 years of continuous membership I eventually decided not to renew.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

+1

1) Face to face tournaments

2) Popularization of go in the US

3) Most importantly, I wanted to support an organization that represents US go players to other countries and to their organizations. ( I don't know the details, but when Ing or the Nihon Ki-in have donated money in the US, I think it often gets routed through the AGA )

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

At the US Congress membership meeting I was asked why I joined the AGA. I answered that as a new Go player I felt I needed to join to support the Go community. Particularly in my case of not really knowing what the full benefits would be to me individually at the time.

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"Play confidently. Make the best of mistakes."
- Janice Kim, Learn to Play Go Vol. 1

To be part of something larger than myself. More importantly, to get that cool new AGA membership card. I occasionally let it slip out of my wallet at the grocery store, which gives me the opportunity to say to the clerk – "Oops that's not my credit card now is it? That's my AGA MEMBERSHIP card!" That's when my wife says – "Oh for god's sake!" She doesn't understand.

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

I can just imagine the clerk thinking "What the heck is the AGA?", they then proceed to google it and come up with the American Gastroenterological Association...

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I'm thinking...

They do have a cool logo

Seriously, I joined because I had just taken on go as a new hobby and wanted to know all I could about it and participate as much as I could. I suffer from too many hobbies so when I took on a new one, I decided to go whole hog and that meant joining the relevant organization. What it meant in practical terms, for good or ill but mostly good, I didn't learn until later.

Because they won't let me play in a tournament around here otherwise.

Under the circumstances described wouldn't it be more likely to be the "Association of Grocers' Advocates"?

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Certainly, the AGA website lists this, however, I've always thought of it as somewhat deceptive. First, you have to pay a lot more to attend (unless you're one of the volunteers running it). Second, I'm not even entirely certain you have to be an AGA member to attend (I just glanced through some of my past emails received for the congress, and some of the older registration forms, and it seems that anyone can attend).

As for benefits: Tournaments, finding players in the area (I don't know if they still do this, but I seem to recall some process by which you could get mailing labels for registered players in your area [and I see it is still mentioned on the website, on the "Start a Go Club" page]), the yearbook, with CD.

That's about all I can think of (not counting the e-journal, as you can get that without membership, or just read the articles on the website... and all members-only content is included on the yearbook's CD).

That said, I haven't been a member for a few years. Might sign up again soon, since I really want to go to more tournaments.

They won't let you play in their tournaments without membership, but surely there are other tournaments in the area that you could participate in without having to be an AGA member, such as in the local Korean or Chinese communities.

This is the kind of problem that I see with the continuous membership issue from the other thread. When somebody as active in go as Araban cannot play in certain tournaments because of continuous membership rules, I think that it's a problem. Araban clearly promotes the go community, whether or not he is an AGA member.

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be immersed

Forgive me, I may not have been clear when I spoke, I should have said:

Concrete benefits of membership: 1) By continuing their role in supporting local organizers to host the Us Go Congress each year, the AGA provides me the option of attending the congress at my own cost. This option clearly would not be available if the US go congress did not exist. Which I feel would be the likely outcome if the AGA was no longer able to support this annual event.

IMO, spending one week of vacation at the Go Congress sure beats a trip to Disney Land - but hey, those two options need not even be mutually exclusive (shameless plug for 2011 in Santa Barbra).

Shopping at Costco requires membership. I can't shop at Costco unless I become a Costco member. If I don't want to be a member, then I must shop somewhere else.

Yes, but using that analogy, we can control the requirements of buying something at Costco. We could require people to be Costco members for 10 years before they can actually buy something. I doubt many would go for that, but we could do it. Or, we could have relaxed rules where somebody could be a costco member immediately if they bought it.

Same thing applies to the AGA. We can control the requirements. We can make it so that people can participate in international tournaments, despite having a lapse in membership if we want - and that is what we are discussing, isn't it?

So I think the original point still stands: If somebody as devoted to go as Araban can't participate in tournaments because of a lapse in membership, there is a problem.

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be immersed