Fall Meetings

Wednesday meetings, 7 pm, 1216 H.J. Patterson Hall

No meeting on November 23 (due to Thanksgiving)

Friday meetings, 4 pm, Stamp Student Union

outside of the food court, above the co-op.

Regular members range from 12 kyu to 3 dan, but players of all strength are welcome.

Our first meeting (Aug. 31) had 12 people, which is likely to be typical.

Summer meetings

The club will continue Wednesday meetings through June, and there will be a break in July.

Dates of Wednesday meetings, summer 2011 (7 pm, 1216 H.J. Patterson Hall):
May 18, 25; June 8, 15, 22, 29
No meetings: July 6, 13.

Dates of Wednesday meetings, summer 2011 (6 pm, 1216 H.J. Patterson Hall):
August 17, 24
Regular meetings resume with the semester on Aug. 31 (so 7 pm)

2011 John Groesch Memorial

The 2011 John Groesch Memorial was held on Sunday, March 20.
This year, only six players participated in the three-round tournament. Takemasa Miyoshi (9 kyu) was the undefeated winner, 3-0, of the single section, fully handicapped, three round tournament. Takemasa is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland. The final game vs. Nate Eagle (10 kyu) was a nail-biter, which Takemasa won by a half-point. Other two game winners were Gurujeet Khalsa (9 kyu) and Zarathustra Goetzel (10 kyu). By the way, Takemasa's family in Japan is all OK (living in Osaka).

This year, the John Groesch Memorial prize for the best performance by a player under the age of 20 who is new to tournament go (defined by less than two years of tournament play) was not awarded because we had no eligible players. However, John's mother provided ample refreshments, some of which we will be sharing at club meetings for weeks to come (but no meeting this week, because it's spring break at the University of Maryland).

2011 John Groesch Memorial, March 20, 2011

The 2011 John Groesch Memorial tournament will be held on March 20, 2011. Registration and check-in opens at 9:00. Please come before 9:30 if you want to play. The time limit will be 60 minutes per player (plus 15 moves per 5 minutes in Canadian overtime). The entry fee of $20 will be waived for UM College Park students.

The John Groesch Memorial Prize will be given to the player under 20 who is new to tournament go (defined by less than two years of tournament play). The prize is named in honor of John Groesch, who played at out club in 2001 and 2002. This year, the prize will again be $50. Additional prizes will be based on entries.

UM Go Club on Foursquare and Twitter

Inspired by the idea that people might want to let others know when they are at the go club I registered us with both Foursquare and Twitter.

Foursquare is a location-based service for smartphones. Users "check in" with an app or on the web. Doing this gives you points and badges. Only one person can be the "mayor" of a venue. I just created my own account and I have never checked in anywhere, so I'm not the best person to explain it, but Wikipedia seems to do a decent job. Our foursquare venue id is 14485005. Let's see who becomes mayor!

Twitter is probably familiar to you. Our ID is UMGoClub (so, twitter.com/umgoclub); I've also put the feed on our sidebar (to the left here). Twitter will be useful for making real-time announcements about the club.

Club news by email

If you have not already, join the club list on Google groups (here). Announcements will come by email and appear online here. I will ask people who plan to come each week to reply to my weekly email (I've changed the settings so they can do this more easily). The meeting on Jan. 12 is canceled. Watch this space for news about next week.

Should we use a check in system?

Go club members,
Someone suggested that we use a "check in" system such as FourSquare or Gowalla to announce when we are at the go club. Perhaps we could also make it easy to indicate an intention to come (and to check whether others plan to come). If you have have an idea about how we can do this most effectively, please comment here.
Thanks!