Seven Cups

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Jonathan

The glory that is Seven Cups

The Tucson Go Club has fallen in love.

One of our players has become a regular of this fine establishment (inviting me at one point) and so one week while the Student Union at the University of Arizona was closed for winter break I thought about giving Go a shot here for my second visit. Low and behold everyone in attendance loved it, so why not keep it going? The Student Union is loud, difficult to navigate, not the best target audience, and overall pour atmosphere for playing the greatest game ever created. I admit my poor choice in venue and apologize for putting people through that.

Thus I shall declare with the support of active club participants; Seven Cups it is for Saturdays! However, keep in mind the tea house is rather small (compared to a place like IHOP) and has been busy the last couple times too, so I think it is of even greater importance that for however much space we take up we partake sufficiently in the services they offer. I don’t think I really need to convince anyone to do that once they try something though. Easily the best tea house in Tucson.

Where is it, you ask? 2516 E 6th St Tucson, AZ 85716

The meetings are now as follows (and will be listed on the meeting page with maps):

Wednesdays 7pm-whenever IHOP @ Grant and Rosemont

Saturdays (except 2nd of month) 4pm-8pm Seven Cups @ 6th and Tucson

2nd Saturdays 4pm-9pm Bing’s Boba Tea @ Orange Grove and La Cholla

Please let me know how things are and what you are thinking with regard to the places and times we meet. I appreciate any help I can get with expanding interest in this group.

Oh, and before I forget, shoutout to Bing’s Boba Tea for ongoing support of the Go Club!

Mid-week Revisited

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Jonathan

A player of Tucson Go Club, Sarah, has offered to be the host of the Wednesday night meeting! Thus Wednesday night shall continue as before, and it has been adjusted from 7:00 pm to 7:30 pm. I will definitely continue hosting Saturday. Club meetings page has been updated, sorry for any confusion. So be sure to join us Saturdays and Wednesdays!

Players page has also been updated to show the hosts of the meetings.

Quadruple Ko!

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Jonathan

It is ridiculous how some games of Go end up! This is one example of a pro game from the group stage of the 17th Samsung Cup. Gu Li vs Lee Sedol were battling it out when a quadruple ko formed. I’ve seen a few examples of triple kos, but never did I imagine it would go this far.

Download SGF

As seen on GoGameGuru.

University of Arizona

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Jonathan

University of Arizona Student Union

As you may know, yesterday’s meeting was held at the University of Arizona Student Union Food Court, and so shall it be for every regular Saturday from now on. I’ve gotten requests to have an earlier time to allow for people to have a life Saturday nights, so we are seeing how 4pm goes for a start time (same as Bing’s Boba Meet). We have plans to advertise to students and get them interested, if you have any good ideas let us know! If you happen to be here because you stumbled into us, we invite you to read up on some of the resources here and play go.

So the updated meeting times are Saturday UA Student Union (food court for now) 4pm with 2nd Saturday of the month at Bing’s Boba Tea on Orange Groove and La Cholla;
and Wednesday IHOP 7pm on Grant and Rosemont.

The address and map can be found on the Club Meetings page.

ASR League Lecture

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Jonathan

View the lecture here!

ASR League Lecture from Yunguseng Dojang on Vimeo.

Hello people of Tucson and elsewhere! In my recent experiences of the Internet, I had the luck to run into an excellent lecture; perhaps the best lecture I have ever watched concerning go. This lecture is by In-seong Hwang 7dan over in Europe. It does a good job at advertising the ASR League, maybe we should look into that as a method to improve our go over silly blitz games where nothing is on the line.

In summary, Hwang notes 4 different important principles of the opening and how to attack groups.

Of the opening, you always want to play the urgent move before claiming any territory. Urgent moves are defined as moves that either make a base for your group (making your group safe) or break a base of your opponent. Even more important is a move that does both!
Next is if the opponent approaches your corner stone, do not care about the corner, but rather which side is important and you want to build. If you want the opposite side that was approached, you answer, and if you want the side played you pincer.
Build influence can be a good strategy, but it is most important that if you do so you should extend from the influence. Your opponent playing in the shadow of your influence first nullifies the usefulness of the stones.
Finally, if you see your opponent with a fourth line stone left open, approach it on the third line because it may threaten to remove the base or a large amount of territory, and the exchange from a response is usually quite good.

For attacking, Hwang points out the best attacking strategy is to think about which ways you can chase your opponent, how to apply forcing moves that necessitate a local response (if opponent ops to save weak group from attack, you can make enough points by following up on the forcing move), and once enough backup has been produced for the direction you want to chase a weak group, to strike! Of course, actual fights may not be so easy to read out, but watch the examples in the lecture and try it out in your next game. Most importantly, you shouldn’t attack immediately, rather make preparations elsewhere first.

Bing’s Boba Meet

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Jonathan

We have been discussing since the summer event a few weeks ago, and some of you guys expressed great interesting in going back, so we will be meeting at Bing’s Boba Tea once a month. The first of these will be this coming Saturday, so make sure you come to Bing’s and not IHOP.

When? 4 pm till close, 2nd Saturday of every month.
Where? 2040 W. Orange Grove Rd. Suite 104.

Bring your game brains and make sure to offer a game to interested onlookers!