Life In 19x19

I am not sure I'll write about every day, partly because the level of interest is not that great and honestly by now it's somewhat of a blur.

Day 1:

I started playing go in about 2004 and that was also the year I attended my first U.S. Go Congress in Rochester, NY. I have only missed one since then, which was last year’s in New York City.

This year’s USGC was at the University of St. Thomas, specifically the campus in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was quite easy to get there from the Minneapolis / St. Paul airport, being only about 15 minute taxi drive.

My first impression was that it was very clean. I knew it was a Catholic liberal arts school before I arrived and it definitely looks the part. Even the student center where the main playing room was looks like a church.




The registration process was pretty easy, although I had a weird problem with my room. I had requested a single room in a suite in an air-conditioned building, but when I got to my room it was the wrong kind of room and people’s stuff was in every room in the suite. So I went back to the congress registration desk and they assigned me another room on a different floor of the same dorm (Morrison). After that it was fine.

The suites are quite nice; they have two individual complete baths (rather than the shared shower room situation one often sees) and there was a laundry room with 1 washer and 2 dryers right across from the suite, so I could do my laundry in the middle of the week. The air conditioning was good and much appreciated as there were some hot days. This particular dorm was only a few minutes’ walk to the student center.

A typical schedule for the U.S. Go Congress involves the U.S. Open, which is played in the mornings Sunday-Tuesday and Thursday to Saturday, followed by lectures, simultaneous games, and game reviews in the afternoon in evening as well as fun evening tournaments such as 9x9, 13x13, Lightning go and Crazy Go. There are also separate youth events. (I am 47 and my daughter is 6 and not yet old enough for the youth events, so I don’t follow them much. Maybe next year I’ll bring her to the Congress in Boston.) Wednesdays are typically off days to give players a chance to tour the area either on their own or as part of organized events. There is also a 1-day, 4-round rated tournament called the “Die Hard” that players can join if they aren’t interested in the local tourism.

So I had dinner, went to the opening ceremony which featured a great talk by Teacher-of-the-Year Xinming Simon Guo 1d and got some rest to be ready for my 1st game in the U.S. Open.

A few years ago, I heard that pro activities at US congress require fees by the participants - is this correct?

Why is a 6 years old child not old enough for youth events? Were there age restrictions requiring a minimal age or is it just your daughter who would not be skilled or interested enough yet?

RobertJasiek wrote:A few years ago, I heard that pro activities at US congress require fees by the participants - is this correct?

The scheduled pro lectures and simultaneous games are free of charge for Go Congress attendees.

However, some pros offer paid private lessons outside of their scheduled (free) lectures. On the other hand, even if you don't pay money, pros are sometimes willing to chat and answer questions if you ask them, especially if you approach them politely.

Kirby wrote:

RobertJasiek wrote:A few years ago, I heard that pro activities at US congress require fees by the participants - is this correct?

The scheduled pro lectures and simultaneous games are free of charge for Go Congress attendees.

However, some pros offer paid private lessons outside of their scheduled (free) lectures. On the other hand, even if you don't pay money, pros are sometimes willing to chat and answer questions if you ask them, especially if you approach them politely.

Yes, I remember at some past congresses a few pros would have sign-up sheets for paid group lessons, but I don't think I saw such invitations this time. If I recall correctly, some pros needed it the past to help cover travel expenses, but this year the travel package was more generous.

RobertJasiek wrote:Why is a 6 years old child not old enough for youth events? Were there age restrictions requiring a minimal age or is it just your daughter who would not be skilled or interested enough yet?

I am not sure there is any restriction, really. The Summer Go Camp has a minimum age of 8, and I think Steve Burrall told me at one point that he started taking his kids to tournaments around that age. My real question would be: how young can a child be such that I can drop her off in the youth room for a bit? It's not a day care, after all; you can't just leave an infant there.

Day 2:

I lost my U.S. Open game and may post it in the analysis forum. I already got some pro comments on it, but there is always much that is left unsaid and unexplored in the short reviews provided in the group analysis sections. In any case, I have to review it again myself because I looked at the record again today and there are some things I don't believe. (I believe the recording which I did on an iPad Mini, and I don't recall losing track. It's just I don't believe my own moves!)

I went 1:5 in the U.S. Open, but I must say I deserved a poor record. Some years I've either regularly played go and taken lessons with gaps of a few weeks or a couple of months throughout the year, and other years I've played little but read some books and went an a flurry of blitz games and tsumego before the Congress, trying to dust of a year's worth of rustiness in a few weeks. This year I did neither. I can only endorse regular habits as the weekend warrior stuff is wholly ineffective. So this year I paid for my negligence of the game. But this year I have a new, much better job, and my wife somehow still tolerates my disappearing for a week to go to Go Congress, so I can't justify complaining. I will grouse a bit nonetheless.

I was happy to see some old friends. (No pun intended. We are all aging, after all.) I also saw Brian Kirby again for the first time in ages. We attended a workshop some time ago when he was still living in the SF Bay Area. I think I told him it was a Yilun Yang workshop but now I'm thinking it's the Janice Kim / Diana Kosegi / Seung-jun Kim workshop in 2009.

Kirby is like a superhero to me because keeps playing go even though he also has kids and go clearly brings him some angst now and then. While it's tempting to give Inseong some credit for his 6-0 record (congratulations, BTW!) I rather think it's more his own hard work and brutal self-examination. (I'll say more about Inseong later.)

I don't know if it was Sunday or some other day, but I went to Wang Qun 8p's lecture. I'm always dubious about going to lectures at Go Congress, but honestly I think it's the last thing I need---more information that's usually redundant to what I already think I know but don't have time to integrate into my games even if it's new. I try to give pros who haven't visited before a chance, though, just to show they are welcome.

I was first in the room for Wang Qun 8p's lecture. He, his translator and I were the only ones there. He suggested we start. I politely noted that some people might be late just because they have trouble finding the, but he proceeded anyway. He basically told this story with some general advice on playing better. Curiously the game he showed with that story was some 8-move masterpiece that isn't the version I've seen associated with that story before. Maybe it's just a legend. After a while, a few others showed up. While I appreciate his visit, I did not go away particularly inspired.

I am often optimistic, looking for some new nugget of truth that will transform my game. The more I do this and inevitably fail to find it, the more I am inclined to believe that the answers do not lie outside of me but inside my own head and my willingness to do what is required.

The 13x13 tournament was that evening, but I didn't go. I felt it was better to save my energy. I was still a bit sleep-deprived from the previous week and even low on red blood cells due to the fact that I donated blood just a couple of days previously. In the past, I have enjoyed these evening tournaments. I even went to the Midnight Madness once. There was no midnight madness at this Congress as the venue had to close at midnight.

These posts are great, Calvin. It makes me feel like I'm back at the Go Congress. It was certainly a great time, wasn't it?

And hey, I've got to 'Like' any post that designates me as a superhero

P.S. I was at the Seung-jun Kim workshop in 2009, so you might be right about the first time we met (it looks like I'm in the photo, too).

Calvin Clark wrote:...
Kirby ...6-0 record ...

Thanks for sharing. Wish I could have gone....

Calvin Clark wrote:Day 2:

...Kirby is like a superhero to me because keeps playing go even though he also has kids and go clearly brings him some angst now and then...

I laughed out loud when I saw this. Some may not believe me, but Kirby was calm as a cucumber in the 4am airport shuttle Sunday morning. Rest up Brian, you deserve it.

Congrats Kirby!!!!

Day 3:

This would have been Monday, by my count.

Monday was the lightning tournament. I didn't go to any of these evening tournaments this time, but for the benefit of people who have never been, I can say something about them.

Typically what happens in the 9x9, 13x13, and lightning tournaments is that at 7pm everyone lines up in the main playing area by rank. The TD explains the rules then starts counting off players in groups of 6. The groups then go to tables and arrange themselves in pairs, so 3 games per table. One player is the "anchor" and never changes seat, but the other 5 rotate around after each round so that in effect it's a round robin. The time limits are pretty short for each of these games so that the games can be finished before it gets too late. The lightning in particular is a brutal 10 minutes absolute, and with AGA rules you need to fill in the dame, too. Keith Arnold is often the TD of that one and is very entertaining, and often has a line about how it is rude to play random moves that don't work in an opponent's territory in order to run down the clock, but that this is completely unenforceable because he has no idea with a 15k would think should work. Everyone should just have fun and not take it too seriously.

With a round robin there can be ties. In fact, I think in the 13x13 the top table had a 5-way tie! In any case, table winners play each other in a single elimination with two divisions: kyu and dan, but this is by arrangement between the players and sometimes they have to be nagged to complete their games before the end of the week. I'm pretty sure I was at a tournament where one of the last games was being played right before the banquet, but maybe that's my imagination.

Since your opponents in the evening tournaments are about your level, you may meet them in the U.S. Open, too, in which case maybe you can get a feel for their strength. This, of course, assumes that there is any correlation between the quality of play of a player on his third glass of wine playing 9x9 and the same player the next day with a hangover in a long time limit 19x19 game. Your mileage may vary. I have played in the U.S. Open with a hangover, which I cannot endorse. I have also lost on time in the U.S. Open (not the same game), which is shocking.

Many U.S. local tournament time limits are shorter than European ones, from what I can tell. In the Bay Area, 45 minutes main plus 5 periods of 30 seconds byoyomi are typical. For a player below about 4 dan, the main time in the U.S. Open is 1:30 + 5x30, so twice as long for main time. Add to that the fact that I was raised on 1/5 IGS games and the U.S. Open can seem to really linger, but this is a good thing. I envy the European experience somewhat.

Edit: I just noticed from looking at the handbook that the U.S. Open time limits were listed as the same for everybody. I think in some past tournaments, players 4 dan and up played with 2 hours main time plus 5 periods of 1 minute byoyomi. One of the differences this year was that the Master's was held at the same time as the U.S. Open, so a player could not play in both. The benefit for players in the Master's is that the Master then becomes a 9 round tournament which is more realistic to determine placement than in previous years when there were fewer rounds and the Masters was always in the evening.

Hey, Calvin, would you like me to post some of my pictures in your thread? Or would you rather I started my own thread?

Re age of attendees, the youngest player at the congress this year was 5. I remember him well because he beat me in the last round of the US Open.

Inkwolf wrote:Hey, Calvin, would you like me to post some of my pictures in your thread? Or would you rather I started my own thread?

Go ahead and use this one. Did you enjoy the Congress?

Inkwolf wrote:Re age of attendees, the youngest player at the congress this year was 5. I remember him well because he beat me in the last round of the US Open.

Thanks for the info!

Day 4:

I want to talk about the media, as this is what inspired me to start this thread. Actually, I think the e-Journal team does a great job. I don't have anything bad to say about their efforts, which are substantial.

One thing that was increased this year is the use of social media. A few years ago some of the staff started using Twitter, but it wasn't super-active. This year there were more tweets (@theaga) and also the use of video on Youtube. I don't follow the AGA Facebook page much, just some individual friends and really I almost never look at reddit, but everyone has their own thing and it's good for the AGA to leverage as much as they can for outreach.

As I mentioned, I try to be unplugged a bit during the Congress, but I did take time to watch this interview with Wang Chen 7d, a visiting amateur from China who has won a number Chinese tournaments, came 2nd in the WAGC, and even had the opportunity to become a pro due to being #1 in a large Chinese touranment, but turned it down. The life of a pro is not suited for everyone; there's more to it than just being strong enough. I think Kevin Hwang did an excellent interview. I also liked the interview with Cho Hye-yeon 9p and was very happy to see her again at the Congress. I remember one time years ago I played her in a simul and killed one of her groups. I did not win the game, but she showed he how I could have played very simply after that to do so.

Of course, for many people the highlight was the game between Lee Hajin 3p (HayLee of Youtube fame) and Nick Sibicky 4d, a popular amateur teacher from Seattle and Youtuber. Unfortunately, the first attempt to stream this failed due to technical difficulties and they had to have a rematch. (I don't see the rematch on Youtube yet, so maybe there was a problem with that one? I'm not sure.) I saw part of the game in person. It was weird. What I'd really like to see is both players' thoughts at the same time, though this would require some video editing as they would be talking over each other. Now that I work at Adobe maybe it's easier for me to learn Premiere properly, but first I'd rather recover some of my lost go strength if no one minds.

I would also like to call out the Girl's Tournament, which was held for the 1st time this year. I had a chance to talk to Ted Terpstra, the organizer. Of course, any female-only tournament has a risk of being controversial. One doesn't want to send the message that girls are not good enough to win the Redmond Cup, for example. Other the other hand, Go is also a very social thing and if having such an event makes girls more enthusiastic, that's a very positive thing. I asked Ted whether this was a concern for the board and he laughed and said they liked the idea but mostly argued about the name. Various people wanted to name it after their favorite female pros. Ted wisely kept it simple, so for now it's just the U16 Girls' Championship. Only time will tell if this event has staying power.