New York Open 2008

The New York Open is a Tournament I created.

I enlisted the help of Christopher Vu to be my Tournament Director.

While I was the tournament organizer.

The Idea of it was to have a annually or Semi-Annually occurring large tournament in NYC.

I advertised it to have a relatively large first place prize of $500.

It would take place over 2 days have 5 rounds.

All games would be even, and it would be broken up into separate divisions.

Here is the report...



October 10th-
The New York Go Open is the next day. The New York Go Center was a mess. Christopher Vu, the tournament director, and I, The organizer were at the go center until 12 am reorganizing, and decorating. Hiding holes in the wall, shooing away moths and setting up all the tables.

We finally got home and to bed around 2 am. Chris stayed on my couch so that he would not have to trek 1 hour in the middle of the night.

My main concern was that we would have enough seats to fit everyone in.

October 11th-

42 people showed up for the tournament. 48 had pre-registered, and a few people promised they would bring friends. Only 42 people actually made it. The main problem with this was providing the $500 top prize that I had promised. We made it by, if the Go Center was more strict with rent, I do not know what we would have done.

Anyway it was a lot more action the our club had seen in a long time so we were pretty happy regardless.

We set up a Go In Our Garden Review Area where many player were studying in between rounds.

A notable quote from Andy Liu "When you are 1d you should be able to remember your games. This is one of the big differences between a 1d and a 4kyu"

I did awful in my games today. Although I won the first one I played by 5.5, I lost the second two. The second game, I lost when my opponenet threatened to, either a. Cut two groups in half, or b. capture a stone. I chose the wrong one. We went back and counted what would happen if i chose b....I would have won by 12.

The third game I played I just played horrendously the whole time, I lost an even game to a supposed 13k. (I think he was sandbagging since he finished 2wins 3 losses in the 9k-1k division)
BTW he was the Tournament Organizer, and he entered this division so that we would have an even number of players.

There was one incident at the event. One of the 5d players lost on time. He made a huge fuss about it. His logic was since his clock did not warn him he was running out of time, it was somehow not fair. Keep in mind the time settings were 1h base and 5 of 30 byo-yomi.

He was yelling and making threats, so to calm him down I gave him an additional 30 sec period, that beeped every second.

He lost the game by a large margin to a 12 year old 5d, Andrew Huang.

I felt awful for the kid because his opponent was creating such a fuss. I am not sure what I would have done in the kids place.

Overall the first day was a success. One thing that I must mention is that all the food that you participants ate was donated by our Tournament Director Christopher Vu. Next time you see him make sure to thank him.

Pictures from day 1.

1. Me (blue shirt) V. Chris Vu

2.Anthony Fiengold 3k John Mangual 5k
Matthew Palumbo 2k Robin Xu 4k (back to front right to left)

3. Howard Wong 5k

4. S-division (6d+)



1. Four 6d battling.
2. John David 5d vs. Andrew Huang 5d
3. Andy Liu 9d vs Jie Liang 8d
4. Dae Yol Kim 7d, and Xiliang Liu 7d in thought
5. Hyodo Shunichi 7d (second from the front)

1. Post game review
Haskel Small, Alfred Teng Michael Fodera (all 3d)
2. Kyu section

October 12th-

Chris and I made it over to the Center at 9:15 am, the tournament would be starting at 10, and we had a little work to do.

About 15 people dropped out of the second day, and 2 more joined in. The games went smoothly and people seemed pretty happy Overall.

The prizes were as Follows:

S Division
1st Place $400.00 (Andy Liu 9d)
2nd Place $100.00 (Xiliang Liu 7d)

A Division

1st Place $100.00 (Ke Lu 5d)
2nd Place $60.00 (June Joung Kim 2d)

B Division

1st Place $90.00 (Afa Zhou 1k)
2nd Place Book or Go Equipment of choice (Robin Xu 4k)

C Division
1st Place Book or Go Equipment of choice (Jesy Felicia 14k)
2nd (tie) Book or Go Equipment of choice (Betsey small 13k, and Fredrick Smadja 12k)

Winners Pictures

1. All together
2. C Division
3. A Division
4. S division

Anyway I hope everyone had a great time.

Next year I will try my best to make the tournament bigger and better, and more organized as far as starting times go.

Final standings whole tournament

OPEN DIVISION

1. Andy Liu (9893) (5-0)
2. Xiliang Liu (14179) (4-1)
3. Young Kwon (433) (3-2)
4. Oh Tae Hwan (4350) (3-2)
5. Liang Jie (11018) (2-3)
6. Zhong, Yu (8975) (2-3)
7. Kim, Dae-Yol (3039) (2-1)
8. Zhou, Xun (7316) (2-1)
9. Hyodo, Shunichi (6157) (1-4)
10. Chen, Yong (5018) (1-3)
11. Verkhovsky, Simon (6769) (1-2)
12. Liu, Yong-xin (3700) (0-3)

A DIVISION

1. Ke Lu (11746) (5-0)

2. Kim, Joung June (99999) (4-1)

3. Teng, Yu Jen (14233) (4-1)
4. Andrew Huang (13637) (4-1)
5. Chen, Walter (11796) (3-2)
6. Paul Anderson (1448) (2-3)
7. Marc Palmer (4291) (2-3)
8. Fodera, Michael (16547) (2-3)
9. Haskell Small (1062) (2-3)
10. Saul Lapidus (10587) (2-3)
11. Matthew Bengtson (19) (2-1)
12. Yu, Stephen (4002) (0-5)
13. John David (99998) (0-3)
14. Justin Johnson (14909) (0-3)

Division B – Final Standings

1. Afa Zhou (10817) [4.5-0.5]
2. Robin Xu (16845) [4.0-1.0]
3. Howard Wong (14893) [3.0-2.0]
4. John Mangual (11454) [3.0-2.0]
5. Anthony Feingold (14448) [3.0-1.0]
6. Carrie Lapidus (10828) [2.0-3.0]
7. Christopher Vu (11614) [2.0-3.0]
8. Leonaurd Baum (9420) [1.0-4.0]
9. Boris Bernandsky (13734) [1.0-4.0]
10. Avi Mowshovitz (14885) [1.0-1.0]
11. Joshua Gang (14514) [1.0-0.0]
12. Matthew Palumbo (14643) [0.0-3.0]

Division C – Final Standings

1. Jesy Feliccia (14592) [5.0-0.0]
2. Frederic Smadja (16887) [3.0-2.0]

2. Elizabeth Small (2098) [3.0-2.0]
3. Barbara Huang (14149) [2.0-3.0]
4. Diana Huang (14150) [2.0-3.0]
5. Daren Huang (14165) [2.0-3.0]
6. Joanne Huang (14145) [1.0-4.0]
7. Janis Rancourt (16005) [0.0-3.0]

-Boris Bernadsky about 4k.