CGA News from 2008

2008 Ottawa Embassy Cup Results

2008 Toronto Fall Tournament Results

International selection process updates

New WMSG photos and study materials

Other Items

• North American Fujitsu qualifying will take place this weekend(November 22-23), starting 9am PST(12pm EST). Two Canadians will participate; Gansheng Shi and James Sedgwick by virtue of their third and fourth place finishes at the 2008 Canadian Open. See pairings and other information here.
• The North American qualifying for the World Student Oza has completed. 5 players 5D+ participated, including CGA member Jeffrey Fung from Toronto. The tournament was won by Jie Li 8D. You can see all the games here.
• The first World Mind Sports Games has now concluded in Beijing. You can see the complete Go results here. The event was a success for the whole team, but I think three results are particularly worth noting
  • Xianyu Li made it to the final 16 in the Men's individual. There were 8 groups of 24 players, each with two pros from China, Korea, Taiwan, or Japan. Two players from each group made it to the knockout. Xianyu Li was the only player not from the seeded countries to make it to the knockout. He had a favorable tiebreak in that he only played one of the two pros in his group, finishing ahead of the other by SOS, but even so his 5-1 performance was very impressive.
  • Yongfei Ge made it to the final 8 in the open event. This event had for groups of 24 players, with two players from each group making it to the knockout. In the knockout he lost to a chinese representative in the first round, but he and Jie Li from the US were the only non asian representatives to make the knockout.
  • Our men's team finished 5th in their group, just missing the knockout. They had tough draws in the pairings, facing both China and Japan. They managed to win their match with the US 4-1, a very impressive result. They didn't get to face Romania or the Czech Replublic, which would have been have been a very exciting pairing. The Czech Republic seized the final knockout spot in the group with a upset win over Romania.
  For all the participants I believe it was a wonderful event, and we are very grateful to the Beijing organizers and the IGF for making it happen. In the closing remarks organizers expressed strong hopes another one will be held in London following the next Olympics. If that does not happen they stated there are alternate cities willing to step in as hosts. Given that my advice to Canadian Go players; start studying now, the 2012 WMSG will be very exciting!
• There has been recent press coverage of the upcoming World Mind Sports Games and the Canadian Go Team attending. First an interview transcipt from Quebec Hebdo, a Quebec City area newspaper. It talks about Go, the WMSG, and the father son team of Francouis and Daniel Gourdeau who will both be on the team. Second, the video of an interview on TVA, a Quebec wide TV channel.
• The World Student Oza takes one North American representative. The qualifying tournament is now open for registration (deadline October 18nth). To be eligible you must be a full time student at a North American University (there is no citizenship requirement). See full details here.
• The 2008 Canadian Open has just concluded in Quebec City. Congratulations to the organizers, it was a wonderful event. The Huang family has a nice set of photos up of the event, they can be found here. There were 88 players in the main tournament, and 11 pairs in the Pair Go. I believe that was the largest Pair Go tournament held at a CGA event, and the main tournament although not the largest ever was bigger than several that have been held in larger centers like Toronto or Montreal. The setting in old Quebec was beautiful, and the organizers were well prepared. The professional lectures, reviews, and simultaneous game from Guo Juan also added greatly to the experience.

  In the open division Gansheng Shi looked set to win after winning his first 5 games including his game with the pre-tournament favorite Juyong Koh, and entering the endgame of his round 6 game with Jun Fan with a slight lead. However Jun Fan managed to win an extremely close 0.5 decision, leaving Koh, Shi, and Fan tied at 5-1 and playoffs required to decide the trip prizes. Fan Jun was leading on SOSOS (SOS was tied), so he got a bye in the first tie break round. Mr. Koh defeated Gansheng Shi by resignation in their game, and also defeated Jun Fan by 1.5, so he is our 2008 Canadian champion. He will represent Canada at the World Amateur championship, Fan Jun will go to the Prime Ministers Cup in Korea. Gansheng Shi (14 years old currently) will again represent Canada at the World Youth. I know the other youth are excited about his twice in five years attendance now being completed, the last two years he's been very tough to compete with. The rest of the open field is worried about how strong he'll get over the next few years!

  SGF files with highlights from two of Juyong Koh's games are now up on the web site. One is a fairly complete game record from his round 4 game against James Sedgwick with Mr. Koh's comments (found here); the other is the opening of his playoff game with Gansheng Shi featuring a brilliant sequence to rescue a group in difficulties. Please keep an eye on the web for more Canadian Open info. The tournament site http://www.goquebec .org/quebec2008/ should have full results and photo's up soon, the main Canadian Go Association site http://www.go- canada.org now has updated ratings and Pair Go points totals.

• The US Go Congress just completed in Portland Oregon with almost 400 participants in the US Open, and more than 500 total registrants. The Canadian's participating compiled a very impressive record, which I believe should be highlighted. Here are the events of note I'm aware of:
  • The Senior division of the Redmond Cup (for youth's under 18) was won by Gansheng Shi from Toronto. Going in to the congress William Zhou 7D had racked up 15 consecutive victories against top US youths, and was heavily favored, but Gansheng won 2-0.
  • Andrew Huang 5D, a Canadian currently residing in New Jersey placed second in the Junior division (under 12).
  • Yongfei Ge from Toronto was the highest placing amateur in the US Open in 3rd place.
  • Juyong Koh from Vancouver was the top amateur in the ING Masters tournament, also in 3rd place. His record included a win over Mingjiu Jiang 7P.
  • James Sedgwick from Toronto won the 6D division of the US Open.
  • Terry Fung from Edmonton placed second in the 4D division of the US Open.
• Chuck Elliot has provided a writeup of Go history in Alberta 1970-2008. You can view it here.

• Louis-Paul David is interested in setting up a CGA Team League
  
  I would like to organise a "permanent" internet tournament. The idea is to try to recreate the spirit of NHL within the Go world. Team to cheer for, a regular season with many games to watch your team, playoffs,… The main goal is to try emulate a spectator sports. If we can make the thing look big enough, then maybe we can convice the media that it's big enough to cover.

  See more details on his proposal here. The idea is being discussed with the CGA executive, but we would appreciate more general feedback; if you have comments let Louis-Paul or the CGA executive know.

• The CGA has a new grant application page (which includes the American Go Foundation programs for schools and youths). See details here.

• The CGA is assembling a team to attend the first World Mind Sports Games to be held in Beijing Oct 3-18. See general information here and information about the ongoing qualifying tournament on KGS (including game times, results, and SGF files) here.

• We are looking for a Canadian Club to host the 2009 Canadian Open. You can see some information on what is involved here. Please contact us if your club is interested.