Go kills babies!

Well. Whoever said you need to be smart to play go never met this doctor.
I won't trash this man too much, I mean go is a good a reason as any to forget about your responsibilities...

Taken from http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26344685-23109,00.html

"A FIVE-month-old baby boy suffering from an eye infection died in hospital in eastern China as the attending doctor was playing a game online, state media has reported, citing health officials.
The ophthalmologist has been stripped of his licence and fired from his post at Nanjing Children's Hospital following the baby's death on Wednesday, the China Daily reported today.

The hospital initially said the doctor, Mao Xiaojun, was working on his thesis when the baby's condition worsened and he subsequently died, but an internal investigation revealed he was in fact playing an online game of Go.

"Mao lied to us a few days ago,'' Li Shandong, director of health care reform in the Jiangsu provincial health department, told the newspaper.

"He admitted to playing the game of Go online after our computer experts checked out evidence on his computer.''

Eleven other hospital employees, including the facility's president and party chief, will be punished over the incident, Xinhua news agency reported, citing investigators, without specifying what the punishment would entail.
More than 10,000 lawsuits relating to medical disputes have been filed in Chinese courts every year since 2002, Xinhua reported."

There it is. Go is great and all but lets not forget about our lives.

Mets <3 Yankees

Just a cute old Asian couple I saw on the train today

The Go Students

The New York Go Center has undergone many changes recently. Primarily Vincent Liu has become the full time host. I am not sure if this is the main reason, but many more people have started to show up. I came to the center today and about 10 people came to play and study go. It is quite nice to have some really young kids playing at the center. There is one 5 year old Japanese boy who aspires to be a professional. His name is Ken-chan, perhaps he will be pro one day, but for now he has to learn to sit through a 45 minute lesson on life and death ^^.

Vincent (Yong Xin) Liu 6d

There are also two young kids who have been under Vincent's tutelage since this March, have been getting quite good. Well at least at life and death. They are able to solve some of the more difficult problems already. The two brothers are 4, and 8 years old.

Also, the main reason for this post, I am taking a photography class and wanted to share my first printed photograph. It is of the two brothers.

Camera: Nikon SLR; Film Tri-X kodak 400 iso.

Exposure 30@1.8 printed on fiber paper. Click on image to view full size

Andy Liu 9D vs Kim Seungjun 9P

This is the game that Andy played against Kim Seungjun when we had the workshop in New York 3 weeks ago.

As I mentioned earlier Andy lost this game. The two played a blitz game with a clock, and apparently Andy felt the time pressure a lot more than did Kim Seungjun. This is an incomplete record, but it stops right after Andy feel he made the game losing move.

Kim Seungjun kept a very calm face throughout this game, while Andy looked nervous and uncomfortable.

Also please disregard the last two move ^^

Diana and Kim Seungjun workshop report.

Hi All, I have not been writing for a while, and after considerable procrastination, I have finally decided to sit down and write a post about the great workshop that we had in New York about 3 weeks ago.

Well, Kim Seungjun and Diana arrived in New York late Thursday night, and arrived at my house by 2am. After some catching up and a few cups of tea, we all went to bed. Friday was spent sleeping/in Times Square. But you guys don't care about that stuff do you?

There we are, Saturday, the workshop. Arriving almost late, we quickly proceeded to collect registration fees and hand out life and death problems. The two pros decided to use problems from the "Speed Baduk" series. It was rather amusing/disappointing to see all of us struggling with a set of problems, that was meant to be solved withing 5 minutes, for about 40 minutes.

Afterwards, we were broken up into groups and instructed to play games while the pros went over the problems. I stepped out after the game, so i missed the rest of saturday, however, I know that the Dia, and Kim went over some basic Joseki that they saw people have trouble with, reviewed the games that we played, and played simultaneous games.

Another little event happened post workshop, Andy Liu, our local champion, had a game with Kim Seungjun. It ended rather quickly, as Andy was apparently nervous and played to quickly, unfortunately I don't have the game record to show.

Sunday was rather similar to Saturday as far as the program goes. We solved life and death, played our group games, reviewed, studied some joseki, and played simultaneous games with the pros. Overall everybody seemed to really enjoy the workshops. We had a total of 16 different people with, 11 on Saturday and 12 on Sunday.


Overall I think that the workshop was a success, however, next time I will try to make it more organized with better food for lunch, and perhaps some celebrating after it is done. Thanks to everyone who came and participated, and thanks to the Pros for coming halfway around the world to teach us. :)