AGA News - Kyu Tourney Deadline Feb. 3

The deadline for young kyu players who want to compete in the North American Kyu Championships is Feb. 3rd, with the tourney itself held Feb. 7th, on KGS.  Kids and teens (under the age of 18) who are members of the AGA, CGA, Gimnasio de Go, or MGA, may all enter in the event.  With thousands of dollars in scholarships available, to both the AGA Go Camp, and US Go Congress, kyu players of any rank should enter.  Prizes will be awarded roughly every five ranks, starting at 25 kyu, and working up to 1 kyu.  The registration form is here, more information is available here
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KIL - Insei league and its complete revamp

Just today Alex mailed around the new annoucement for the Korean-style Insei league. Here is his message with new promising changes:

The Insei League – new concept and rule changes (Starting from March, 2012)

The major difference between the KGS and Korean insei league used to be the age of players – we worked generally with adults and the Korean schools focus on children under 18. This result primarily occurred due to a large fee and the absence of discounts for children.

Nowadays, when the American Go Association and the European Go Federation proclaimed their first steps towards creating their professional systems in Go, the development of youth Go becomes particularly vital.

Go ceases to be just a hobby, we call for young players who are ready to devote themselves to the game and to compete later with Asian professionals.
Since 2012 we have changed our pricing policy leading to extreme simplicity of entering and participation in the League for any promising children.

The first three prizewinners of the European and the US Youth Go Championships under 12 and 18 (totally 12 people) get the free places at the Insei League.
Go Champions under 12 and 18 of any country get 3 month at the League instead of 1 for $95.
The young players who took 2-5 places during the last youth Go championship of their country can play for 2 months instead of 1 for $95 (is equal to 50% discount).
The rest of young Go players under 18 (stronger than 10 kyu) get the 15% discount.

There are still a lot of adult players in the League so to avoid misunderstanding between players of different ages we ask to put the real photo of every player in his KGS profile (not a mandatory requirement)

We set up a special jackpot that will be monthly increased by $250. What can you do to get it?
-       Be a current member of the Insei League
-       Take 1-3 places at the World Youth Go Championship under 12 and 18 or 1-3 places at the World Amateur Go Championship or 1-3 places at the Korean Prime Minister Cup.
Every year the League will store about $3000 and we hope that this jackpot helps to develop a more serious approach to Go studies.

In December 2011 during the last session of the Insei League we noticed the lack of people who are ready to review their games with the teachers. In order to increase the amount of people who wish to get their games reviewed we decline all offline reviews that have lost any notable popularity. It is still profitable to play as much as possible to get the maximum amount of game reviews, but all the games can be commented only on KGS in real time.

As in December 2011 Alexandre Dinerchtein will conduct 50% of all simultaneous games. The rest of the simuls will be conducted under KGS nickname “sabom”. Some simuls will be held by roln111, solaris, aguilar, Wichmaster, Karnesun, HappyLook and other 5-8 dan players.

Like in December the prize money will be available only for top-group players.

The major innovation of the League:
Every day we will spend several hours watching the Korean Baduk TV with live translation provided by Alexandre Dinerchtein. Part of the programs will be translated into English, part – into Russian.
The live action on the screen will be transmitted to KGS. During commercial breaks on TV Alexandre will answer your questions.
Any people who wish to watch lectures and Baduk TV broadcasts without playing in the League can get the room access for $25.

If you like the new system, feel free to register for March, 2012

I think the Baduk TV with commentary will be extremely interesting! I suggest to check it out!

ABL Live - First try at a live review~~

This was the first attempt of an live commentary for ABL. Still needs prctice...

Skynet plays Baduk! Zen reaches 5dan on KGS!

Long time ago when I started play Baduk the Gnugo bot could give me 9 stones until eventually I improved and started giving handicap to it, but now with the new MC stuff and lots of computer power programmers are making very strong bots these days. Zen19d on KGS reached 5dan by being hosted on a cluster of probably quite expensive computers.

Maybe one day in the future bots will make good training partners for higher dan players. Down below three games of Zen on KGS. Enjoy!







- adoreme