RANKA YEARBOOK 1995 - The International Go Federation

Go A round the Worldchess at being as important as Fred's goskills. Since Kurt's death last year, Fred hasbegun playing go with the seriousness on~ereserved for chess, out of homage to hisfather.After a close struggle among our top fourplayers, decided by one SOS point, Yu FeiWang became the new Australian Championand will be the strongest player we've yetsent to Japan. Andrew Chi will have to bepatient for one more year. .Meanwhile, following the Nationals, theintensity between our top players continues.Our four best are now engaged in a protractedleague-style struggle to determineascendancy.Other news includes the beginnings ofsomething close to all go players' hearts:commercial sponsorship. Our great thanksto the Po Hong company, who are nowsponsoring an annual tournament with prizemoney for both dan and kyu levels as part ofMelbourne's Chinese Arts Festival.Clubs across the country continue toprosper and if you are ever in our pa~t of theworld every single one of them will welcomeyou with delight.Address for correspondence:GPO Box 65Canberra ACTAustralia 2601Tel. 61-6-249- 2709 (bh), 273- 3108 (ah)Fax 249- 5549Electronic mail: Neville Smythe@anu.edu.auAGA Office Bearers for 1995President: Sang Dae HahnSecretary: Neville SmytheTreasurer: Patrick CulshawEditor: Peter JohnsonIGF Director: Brad MelkiCommittee Members: Jim Bates, Paul ClayCanadaThe 17th Canadian Open GoChampionshipFor the first time, this preeminentCanadian event was held in Victoria, thecapital of the province of British Columbia.However, this is the third time in thehistory of the Canadian Open that thisprestigious event was held in that province(the first time was in 1981 and the secondtime in 1992). Directed by Kirk Westergaard,with the assistance of Roy Langston,and organized by Richard Neil and theVictoria Go Club, this tournament attracteda total of 56 players. That is a rather lowturnout for the Open (the averageattendance for the preceding 16tournaments is 70 players) but understandablegiven the geographical location and ~erelatively smaller number of go players mWestern Canada.The main tournament of this six-roundevent was held over the Labour DayWeekend of September 3rd and 4th at themagnificent Empress Hotel facing VictoriaHarbour and just down the street from theprovincial legislative assembly building.The winner of the tournament was EungsooChoi 6-dan, a visitor from Korea. SinceChoi is not a Canadian citizen, the secondplacewinner, Sunghwa Hong 6-dan fromVancouver, became Canadian Championand Canada's representative at the 1995World Amateur Go Championship. Thewinner of third place was Stanley Chang 5-dan from Ottawa. There was a tie for fourthplace between Keiji Shimizu 6-dan andDino Cremonese 5-dan. After a playoff,Dino won, and both he and Stanley willrepresent Canada at the 1994 North AmericanFujitsu Qualifying Tournament.The winners of the other sections in thisevent were: Shiro Amano 3-dan, Woon­Seok Yang 1-kyu, Masa Kagami 5-kyu, andDonald Foxford 8-kyu, all from Vancouver.On the Monday of the long weekend, aplayoff was held to determine Can~da'srepresentatives at the 1994 InternationalAmateur Pair Go Championship. Thewinners were Stanley Chang 5-dan and his- 49 -