Meant to play a quick 13×13 game last night, but work came up. Big time. I was up until 5am getting things put back to rights and crashed hard afterwards.

I just got a chance to watch the second two rounds of the US Youth Go Tournament going on now at the Seattle Go Center. All of the participants were under 18, and most all were better than shodan on the AGA ranking scale. Some of the participants were only 9 years old, but playing at levels I can only dream of at this point. There’s a lot to be said for starting this game early in life, as many other skills it comes much easier to children I think. Congratulations to Lawrence Ku, who went 2 for 1 for the day. The last game which I was watching was quite close indeed until the very end. I saved local copies of the games I was watching for later review. At the end of the second round, I attempted to interest some of the watchers to play through and review the second game, looking for the turning point, but wasn’t really able to interest anyone except for Antic, and he and I were chatting privately on his IRC server anyway. I’d like to make it in person tomorrow to see these fine young minds and the awards portion after the final game.