Go Orlando

It looks like Tuesdays look better after all.  We’ll be at Broadway’s tonight, and we’ll stick with Tuesdays for a while.

Normally, we meet on Tuesdays.  However, attendance has been down … and, indeed, even I have had trouble meeting on Tuesdays this semester.  We’re going to try Thursdays for a few weeks.  If that works better, we’ll change the official meeting times, etc.

We’re still meeting at Broadway’s Ristorante & Pizzeria, 12279 University Blvd. at 7p.

Paul.

Every start of term, we see a few new people.  Some are new to the club but not new to Go, but many are just beginning to learn about the game.  If you are just learning about Go, you might find it helpful to see what resources are available for learning more about the game.  Of course playing regularly is the best way to learn … so come to the club meetings!  But, in addition, this old post contained some useful information, as well.

It looks like Natura’s will be unavailable on Tuesday nights for a number of weeks.  So until further notice, we will meet at Broadway Pizza, over next to where Pom-Pom’s used to be:

Also, Philip B., John S., and John C., would like to move the Wednesday meeting at the Milk Bar to Saturday.  More information on this to follow.
Paul.

John Snapp can’t make the Tuesday night meetings.  He’s considering starting another meeting on Wednesday nights that’s closer to where he is — perhaps at the The Milk Bar on Robinson (see below).  Who is interested?

The 5th annual Orlando Go Tournament (OGT) was held the weekend of April 2nd and 3rd on the campus of the University of Central Florida.  The strength of players ranged from 30k to 5d.  Most players were from the Florida go community; however, there were also players from Georgia, South Carolina, DC, and even Missouri.  Notably, of the 34 participants, there were eight players between the age of 7 and 16:  Brandon Zhou (4k), Guan Lim (29k), Taylor Beauchamp (25k), Joshua Manning (16k), Ghianyra Forestal (30k), Heather Crawford (16k), Ben Botwin (17k) and Spencer Moleda (4k).  These young players provided much appreciated energy and enthusiasm to the event, and more often than not also provided some pretty tough competition.

The five round, two day tournament included four strength divisions, with a total of 13 prizes awarded (generously donated by Yellow Mountain Imports and Slate & Shell). In the Dan division (1d and up), Kurt Lin (5d) placed first, Karsten Henckell (5d) second, and Joshua Lee (5d) third.  In the Lower Kyu Division (1k – 4k), first place went to Miki Hirama (1k), second to Stephen Barberi (1k), and third to Efrain Davila (2k).  First place in the Middle Kyu Division (5k – 10k) went to Shannon Jones (5k), second and third to Jonathan Sarry (5k) and Jason Ruiz (5k), respectively.  The Upper Kyu Division (11k – 30k) was particularly close, with first place going to 10 year-old Heather Crawford (16k) followed quite closely by Austin Diehl (11k) and Guan Lim (29k).  In addition to the placement awards, Ghianyra Forestal (30k) took an award for perseverance and fighting spirit.

Checkout the tournament results summary!

The 2011 Orlando Go Tournament is less than a week away.  If you are planning on attending and have not done so, please register.  Also, please download our helpful informational packet for participants.

Shannon has organized a Go Cookout for this coming Saturday for the youth she teaches.  We are also invited.

Date: Saturday, Feb. 26

Time: 11a — 4p

Location: Sylvan Park, Sanford

Bring: Food (e.g., ships, soda, side dish, etc.) and Go equipment

Please attend the 5th annual, Orlando Go Tournament on Saturday & Sunday, April 2 & 3 at UCF.  More information, including promotional flyers and posters, is available here.

In spite of the dearth of students in this post-exam season, there are still a handful of us who will face the cold and the goban with fighting spirit this evening.  That is, Go Club meets tonight (Tuesday) at 7p at Naturas.

For those who will be in the area during the semester break but haven’t been attending Go club:

This is a great time to come to the club! Presumably, it will not interfere with your studies, and the atmosphere between semesters is more casual (if that’s possible).  Maybe we can even liven it up a little.  There are some “fun” variants of Go that offer a bit more entertainment and less serious play.  For example, Rengo and Lottery Go are both very fun for people at all strength levels, especially if the players do not take the game too seriously.

Also, I speculate that Naturas will have fewer people (i.e., fewer smokers) given that the semester is over.

In general, I’d like feedback from those who are interested in Go but do not come to Go Club anymore as to what some of the deterring factors might be … or how we might arrange things so that people are more likely to attend, etc.