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The Brock Go Club
Wednesdays 5-8 pm
MCJ434, Brock University
St. Catharines, Ontario

SPECIAL PARKING
Courtesy of NPCC (Niagara Peninsula Children's Centre)
Wednesdays 5-8pm
567 Glenridge Ave.
When Go Club is in session.



CONTACT:
President:
Justin Grossman
jg10is (at) brocku.ca

Co-Organizer
Thomas Wolf
twolf (at) brocku.ca
Mackenzie Chown J413
Office: 905-688-5550 ext. 3803
Home: 905-680-0575

17 March 2013
Here is a short report about our tournament.

15 Feb 2013
Our club invites everyone to our 3rd Brock Go tournament

9 Feb 2013
Oliver (AGA 3.5 Dan) was invited to play in the Canadian youth team against the youth team of the US in an annual friendship match. Oliver won against Vincent Zhuang (AGA 6.4 Dan). In the match the US won the first 3 games that were completed but Canada won the next 3 games and because Canada won at board 1 which is the tiebreak, Canada also won the whole match. (See AGA news letter and individual results of the match.

22 Sep 2012
Our club plays for the second year in the Collegiate Go League. With two more matches to go, Brock is at place 2 (Feb 2013).

5 Sep 2012
Organized by Justin and helped by John we were well represented with a stand and our large magnetic Go-board at the Brock Club fair held each year at the start of the new academic year. Thus, our first club evening was well visited with about 20 students in total.

5 Sep 2012
The Brock Weiqi (Go) Club and the Brock Confucius Institute discussed how to support each other in the coming year. Our contribution will be to run a course or sessions to introduce Weiqi in Chinese culture courses.

4 Aug 2012
Thomas gave a talk at the 2012 International Go Symposium (Black Mountain, North Carolina) video file , pdf file

21 July - 4 Aug 2012
In the 2012 European Open (Bonn/Germany) Oliver participated and achieved a 57th place out of 608 and was 12th from Germany. He also won the children tournament. Congratulations! A highlight for him was a game against Nie Weiping.

2 - 13 July
Oliver participated in a 2-week Feng Yun summer camp.

29 June - 2 July 2012
A few members of our club participated in the 2012 Canadian Go Open in Ottawa.

12 April 2012
Here is a short report about our tournament.

April 2012
At the Niagara Science Fair held on March 25, Oliver obtained a Bronze Medal in the Juvinile group for his project "Semeai Against Common Sense" describing the analysis of optimal play in semeai positions in Go with approach moves.

25 March 2012
Our club invites everyone to our 2nd Brock Go tournament

3 March 2012
Since this week our club is member of the American Collegiate Go Association. Today, 2 days later, we had the first match in their league. Brock won against Cornell with 3:2 through wins on boards 1 (Oliver Wolf), 2 (John Dew) and 3 (Chris Gaudaur). That gave us an article in the Brock News.

4 Feb 2012
Five of our club members went to Waterloo to take part in the U of Waterloo Go tournament and had a good day.

1 Jan 2012
Over XMAS an article on semeai with approach moves was written by Thomas. pdf file

12,13 Nov 2011
In the Young Lions Tournament 2011 Oliver Wolf reached 2nd place.

30 July - 7 Aug 2011
At the 2011 US GO Congress in Santa Barbara, Oliver won the 3 Dan Section and was 2nd in the Die Hard tournament.

25, 26. Juni 2011
At the German Youth Go Championship U18 held in Darmstadt (Germany) Oliver tied for 2nd place with two other players.

May 2011
The team "Slaughterlake" (league 4 in 2010/11) in which Oliver plays finished in the top of the group and moves up to the 3rd league (Liga 3B) in the coming year 2011/12.

17 April 2011
In the 3rd TransAtlantic Youth Go Match Oliver represented North America in the U12 section and won against Stepan Popov (Russia). North America lost with 5:6.

March 2011
With Justin Grossman as our new Club president the number of our members is constantly rising.

5 Feb 2011
Our club holds the first club tournament. The adult section has 12 players with a wide range of strengths (9D,6D,4D,3D,3D,2D,1k,1k,3k,9k,18k). The children section had 5 participants. We also had a 13x13 side tournament.

Sep 2010 - Feb 2011
Former Korean 1st class insei, winner of 4 national and 2 international tournaments Yutae Seo visits us for 5 months. In this time he taught us during club times and co-authored 2 book manuscripts pdf file, pdf file During this time he played a few games on KGS and became quickly 10dan on KGS as sky77 (on the rank graph).

8. Aug 2010
At the US Go Congress 2010 Oliver won the match for the Junior Redmond Cup 2010 (link to the games) and became 2nd in the 2-Dan section of the US Open. A note shall appear soon on the Redmond Cup home page. Our former Club president John Dew, now founder of the Newmarket Go Club, also scored 5 wins in 6 games in the US Open. A report about the trip (in German) is available here.

28. July 2010
Oliver was invited to play at the 10. Korean Life Insurance Cup where 288 children under 12 years old participated. He became 16th among 64 players in group 3. He had a great time when being allowed to play in a simultaneous game against the probably most famous Korean player Cho Hun Hyeon . Pictures and a tournament report are under 1, 2, 3. (As one of very few with blond hair he is easy to spot in the background of some of the pictures.)

3. June 2010
Today was the crucial face off between the German Bundesliga team "Slaughterlake" (currently league 4) in which Oliver plays on board 4 against the team "Steinfuchs Rhein-Main1" (currently league 3). As "Steinfuchs Rhein-Main1" won that match (results on "Berlin Slaughterlake") both teams will stay in their leagues next year. One of Oliver's Bundesliga games in the past season (played as bsl4 against Bremen04 on 11 March 2010, see archive of KGS) was discussed in detail by Franz-Josef Dickhut (fj[7d] on KGS) in the "Deutsche Go Zeitung" no 2, 2010, p. 27-30.

1. June 2010
Oliver won the Internet pre-selection tournament of the Junior Redmond Cup 2010 which is open to players under 12 years old from the USA, Canada and Mexico. He now has to play a best 2 of 3 match against 2nd place Henry Zhang at the US Go Congress 2010 in Colorado Springs to win the title.

24. April 2010
This years High School & University Go Tournament was organized by our Brock Go Club President Nelson Ing and by Jeffrey Fung (Toronto). It was held at the Chinese Cultural Center in Toronto. We had 2 teams from Brock taking part reaching places 4 and 5.

3-4. March 2010
This years European Youth Goe Championship (EYGC) 2010 was held in Sibiu/Romania on the weekend of 4-7 March. Oliver participated in the 'Under 12' tournament and reached a 4th place. One week later he played in the German Youth Go Championship (under 18) and reached a 6th place. Here is a report on this trip.

5. Nov 2009
Our club member Oliver Wolf plays in 2 leagues. One is the Canadian Go Association League which is strongly recommended for anyone to take part. Oliver is currently in group A6 and got promoted to 1 Dan end of October, congratulations!
    The other league is the German Bundesliga where he plays for the team "Berlin Slaughterlake" (team members) which started last year in the lowest league 5 and was able to become second winner of over 20 teams and thus to move up and play in league 4 (A) this year. So far (5 Nov 09) Oliver playing on board 4 won all games (all against 1 and 2 Dan).

1. Nov 2009
A small team from our Brock GO Club took part in the Laurier Goban's 1st Annual Fall Go Tournament . Two of our games played there even made it as a video into EuroGoTV. One video shows Oliver giving 9 stones handi and winning after 19 min with 80 points.

9. Sep 2009:
Following the advertisement for our club on the Brock Club Fair on Tuesday 8.Sep. and Wednesday 9.Sep. we will have our first club evening in the coming academic year on the same day, Wed 9. Sep, 5pm at the usual place.

3. Aug 2009:
Go tournament at his home.

27.June-24.July:
Thomas and Oliver went to the Feng Yun Summer Go Workshop in Shantou/China.

July-August:
We are on summer break.

16. Apr 2009:
With the end of term we for now will meet only Wednesdays not Thursdays. That might change in the fall depending on demand.

11-12. Apr 2009:
We were represented at the Rochester 2009 spring tournament, and got one of the generously provided random prices.

8. Apr 2009:
Thomas gave computer go talks at workshops at the Univ. of Oklahoma and at Menlo Park/California (Feb 2009).

28. Feb 2009:
Five of us participated in the 2008/09 High School & University Go Tournament. As this was a no-handicap tournament with only 3 players in a team we did not too well, as our strength is to have a good mid field with about 5 players in the 2-5kyu range. But it was fun.

14. Jan 2009:
We are grateful to our club member Joyce Rustenburg for another generous donation!

11. Jan 2009:
Oliver takes part in the 2009 CGA Winter Cup and had his first game as sinsai (Black) against Ram 3k (White) on KGS.

25-26. Oct 2008:
Peter, John, Kelly, Oliver and Thomas went to Toronto to take part in the Toronto Open.

23. Oct 2008:
This is the first day that Oliver plays for a go-team from Berlin/Germany (bsl1..bsl4 on KGS) in this seasons (Sep 2008 - May 2009) in the "Bundesliga 5" - a nationwide Go league in Germany. Good luck!

16. Oct 2008:
Today was the first day that our club run on a second day of the week - from now on not only on Wednesdays but also on Thursdays.

15. Oct 2008:
We got 6 new go books for our club library. Please check them out!

6. Oct 2008:
We are grateful to our club member Joyce Rustenburg who made a generous financial donation to our club. That will take care of the hot chocolate to be served during club time for the next months :) . Thank you, Joyce!

14. Sep 2008:
Peter hosts a small tournament at his home.

10. Sep 2008:
With the start of the new academic year we also resume playing in our club.

30. Aug - 1. Sep 2008:
John took part in the Canadian Open in Quebec City on the occasion of its 400th anniversary.

July 2008:
Thomas' Go book "Mastering Ladders" went in press and is available from "Slate & Shell".

5-12. July 2008:
Oliver took part for one week in the Feng Yun Summer Go Workshop in New Jersey.

5. Apr 2008:
Five of us (John, Graham, Kelly, Oliver and Thomas) drove to Rochester this weekend and took part in the 'Empty Sky Go Tournament'. We even got a couple of prices including a nice go board from bamboo wood which is now in use in our club.

24. Nov 2007:
Peter McMain, John Dew, Thomas + Oliver Wolf (starting as 3,3,7,8 kyu) took part as Brock University team in the 'High School & University Go Tournament 2007' at the University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus (http://hsu.ahed.ca/). From 8 teams we took 3rd place. Winner was University of Toronto at Scarborough team A. In parallel there was also an open tournament with separate games to which games of the team tournament contributed. With a win/loss ratio of 3:1 for John, Thomas and Oliver and 2:2 for Peter in category B (1-9 kyu), John became overall winner and Thomas was 4th in this group. Other groups were Group A: 6 dan - 1 dan, Group C: 10 kyu - 19 kyu and Group D: 20 kyu - 30 kyu.

20-21. Oct 2007:Four of us (John Dew, Graham Sharp, Thomas + Oliver Wolf) drove to Rochester this weekend and took part in the 'Third Annual Greg Lefler Memorial Tournament' ( http://www.emptysky.org/tourn.html). Thomas became second in the low kyu category.

12 Sep 2007:
The first playing evening in the new academic year. On Thursday we had a stand at the Brock Club Fair and 13 new students signed up!

18 Apr 2007:
Until further notice we continue playing Go each Wed also after end of term. On this day Thomas will be away but Sylvie and Beate will take over.

28 Feb 2007:
Normal play scheduled.

21 Feb 2007:
This week we will not play as Thomas and Sylvie are both away.

14 Feb 2007:
We will play tonight despite of the heavy snow fall :)

7 Feb 2007:
We welcome Jiangnan Fan, a 2 Dan from Niagara Falls who had already last week interesting games with some of us.

Go, is a game based on strategy and tactics and is the oldest game that is still played, being developed in China about 4000-4500 years ago. Even though Go is not as well known as Chess in the West it still has developed a large player base in North America.

The rules are simple and can be learned in 15 minutes, but the depth and strategy of the game is unsurpassed. Children of all ages have shown that they can compete with adults who have been playing for years, so anyone has a chance at being a good Go player.

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We have many different levels of players in the Brock Go Club, from beginners with a few weeks experience, to those who have been playing for over 20 years. Go is a game where amateurs and experienced players can sit down and still have a really close game against each other.

We welcome all players and age groups for our weekly meetings. Currently scheduled for Wednesday from 5-8pm at Brock University MC J-Block Room 434. However this time and day is flexible based on when the majority of people are available to play. So dont be discouraged if you cannot make this time.

Since Sep 2006 we teach Go to children ages 5 and older. This is scheduled for Wednesdays from 5:00-7pm in MCJ434. We would also like to thank the Niagara Peninsula Children's Centre for offering us free parking during our meetings.

Hints for Beginners:

• Start by visiting, reading and going through http://playgo.to/interactive
• When you know the rules and got some experiences after a number of games you can visit the online server http://www.gokgs.com and study more introductory material and/or play online 24/7 against hundreds of people or watch games and read comments other observers of games make or make your own comments.
• A complete overview about Go and all its faces is given at http://senseis.xmp.net

Here are some pictures taken of our Go Club members.
The following pictures are from the tournament in Rochester Oct 2007. These pictures are from the tournament at the University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus, Nov 2007. The following pictures are from the tournament in Rochester April 2008. The next pictures are from a small tournament at Peter's home Sep 2008. These pictures are from the Oct 2008 tournament in Toronto.