19th annual aga go congress
successfully concluded august 10th, 2003
at houston university, houston, texas, usa


goddess relaxing outside the banquet hall
Report by Terri Schurter
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Wings Go Club was well represented at the 19th annual U.S. Go Congress held in Houston Texas from August 2nd through August 10th. Twenty-two Wingers and Wingettes participated in the event. There might have been even more Wingers in attendance that we didn't know about. We found at least one participant from the KGS Wings room, Terry Fung, who had not officially registered with the web site. Terry played John Stephenson in one of the rounds of the U.S. Open. We also met a registered Winger, Paul Myers, who had never logged on to KGS or the wings room, although he plans to do so soon.

An official meeting of Wings Go Club took place in the lobby outside the main playing area Thursday at 4:00 pm. The following were in attendance:

  • Steven Bretherick (steveb)
  • Nicole Casanta (FionaSidhe/SilverStar)
  • Terry Fung (sss)
  • Mike Heinich (mdh)
  • Paul Myers (no kgs handle yet)
    • ,
  • Terri Schurter (goddess)
  • John Stephenson (mitdahand)
  • Kory Stevens (utwig)
  • Kevin Yi (Kyrie)
Kory Stevens took first place in the dan category of the 9x9 tourament. John Stephenson took first place in the 3 dan band of the U.S. Open with Kory Stevens coming in at 2nd place. They both went 5 and 1 in the tournament, and interestingly enough they played each other in the 6th round of the Open where Kory defeated John by resignation, but John still got first in their division via the SOS tie break calculation.

While John and Kory were fighting it out Terri Schurter and Mike Heinich were going head to head in the sixth round where Terri squeaked by with a 1.5 victory. Mike and Terri were lucky to meet in an even game across the board given their three stone rating difference. However, Terri's losing record and Mike's winning record made them a reasonable pairing.

Nicole Casanta took 2nd place in the 4k band of the U.S. Open tournament. As reported in the AGA eJournal, she had a brief run as the Grasshopper (most improved rating) in the Self Paired Tournament. Her best story from the Congress is being forced to give a two stone handicap and reverse komi to a woman professional, Xiaoren He 5 dan, during the Pair Go competition.

John and Terri won both of their games at table 4 in the Pair Go Competition making them first place winners at their table. Jeff Shaevel (JustForFun) ran the Pair Go Tournament consisting of 36 eager pairs of male and female players.

If you are a winger who took a prize at the congress but we failed to mention it please let us know so we can include it in this report. I am hoping to see many of you in Rochester, New York next year (2004) at the 20th US Go Congress.

Christopher Vu has written us with supplementary information:

Lionel Zhang and I were there to sweep up all the Youth events for the Wings Go Club. He entered the Pair competition and I don't know how well he did in any of the Youth events. I won the Youth 9x9 and Youth Lightning for my divisions as well as I got the Champion award for the Self-Paired tournament. I also won the Youth Essay competition. Ask Lionel what awards he won.

Nicole Casanta has written us with supplementary information:

Hey guys! Nice job on the report. You missed Kevin Yi though. He took 3rd place in the 2k division of the Open.

Terry Fung has also written us:

Hi there. I want to add one item on the prize won by Wingers; I managed to take 2nd place in the 9x9 dan section. Thanks!

Great job Wingers and Wingettes!


mitdahand and utwig showing off their award plaques

goddess and mitdahand winning their table at Pair Go
Jeff Shaevel, Pair Go TD; sitting next to him on his right, None Redmond, who is Michael (9p) Redmond's mom.

silverstar leaning on kyrie's shoulder
steveb, who translated the Strong Player books

mdh at the wings meeting
sss at the wings meeting