Website of The International Go Federation

Moving North from Latin America’s deep south we encounter Brazil and Colombia: our next stops on this journey.

Brazil

Near the Atlantic Coast we find Sao Paulo, one of Brazil’s biggest cities. Here, the Brazil Nihon Kiin was founded 30 years ago by Iwamoto Kaoru 9p, setting a pivot point for the development of Brazilian Go.

Nowadays the Kiin receives around 20 players every day from all range of levels. It also holds a traditional handicap tournament on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month.

Since 10 years ago they annually celebrate the Copa do Brazil, the official Brazilian Championship which gathers on average slightly more than 50 players. Nonetheless, this year Copa do Brazil will not take place, as Sao Paolo will be the host city of the 3rd Latin American Go Congress. The Congress includes the 21st Ibero American Go Championship, whose best Brazilian player will be crowned Brazilian champion.

The Kiin also has a plan of running other tournaments following the Copa do Brazil model, and so far they’ve organized the Iwamoto Cup earlier this year with over 30 participants.

On the youth arena, since 2016 Brazil Nihon Kiin has been working with the Sao Paulo City Prefecture in a project to include go in schools, preparing teachers of São Paulo municipal schools to be instructors of the game in the over 1,000 public schools in the city. At the time of writing, nearly 500 teachers and over 4,000 children have been initiated to the game. The biggest challange this project faces is the difficulty for schools to adquire go material to use in the go lessons.

Besides this, Youth Championships have been held over the last few years, with different levels of attendance, ranging from 20 to 70 players.

In the country’s provinces, most of the capitals have small go clubs or group meetings on a weekly basis, esspecially those where the Japanese community is more present. The Brazilian Go community has been very active online, mostly via the efforts of the OGS’s Go Brasil group admins, constantly organizing both live and correspondence tournaments.

You can follow more of Brazil’s go activities on their Facebook page.

Colombia

From Sao Paulo we head northwest across the enigmatic Amazon rainforest to arrive in Colombia.

Before 2016, Colombian Go was largely disorganised, and while there were some weekly meetings where players studied English go material and professional games together, there was no single agent pushing to promote or spread the game.

It was at the beginning of 2016 that a group of players came up with the idea of organizing a national tournament, which eventually led to the constitution of the Colombian Go Association.

Before long, an annual tournament calendar was fixed. This calendar includes 3 national tournaments, 2 extended handicap tournaments lasting 16 weeks each, 2 one-day tournaments and a one-day handicap championship. If we add to this list the Latin American Team Championship on the Pandanet go server and the Latin American Go Congress, we realise that Colombian go players are extremely active nowadays.

The activation of this calendar produced a new wave of beginners which have now improved their game level. It has also motivated a new interest for studying the game among the most experienced players. Even some of the first-generation players have restarted their participation in tournaments and are promoting the development of the whole Colombian go community.

Besides the tournaments, some players work as go teachers and thanks to this they have achieved a slow but steady progress in the recruiting of new players. In addition they’ve started producing go stones and boards, which has helped reach other cities inside the country and has allowed the creation of small playing groups that meet with relative frequency.

Colombian Go Association is well aware of the challenges of the epoch. The most important goal they identify is amassing players on a national scale. Nowadays their database gathers around 40 players from 10 kyu to 5 dan, but the problem is that almost all of them belong to the same generation, averaging at more than 30 years of age, which means that it’s urgent for them to promote the game among the younger generations as a short and mid-term goal. They realize that in countries where go is developing, the level of players forms a pyramid shape with a lot of inexperienced players, an adequate number of mid-level players and a small number of experienced players.

We wish the best luck to Colombia in their efforts towards the future!
You can follow the progress of the Colombian Go Association on their Facebook page.

We have now gotten all the way from Punta Arenas at the bottom of the continent up to Bogota, and in the next episode we will be visiting the Caribbean sea. Stay tuned for more surprises on this journey!

Thanks to Felipe Herman van Riemsdijk and Felipe Moreno for providing information for this article.

Report by Emil García

This is the first of a series of articles in which we will be sharing with you some insights of Latin American Go through a review of many of the countries of this region in which several activities are being held for the promotion of this game. This time we travel south to Chile and Argentina, our first destinations on this journey.

Chile

We begin far south of the American continent in Punta Arenas. This city is one of the many places where the Chilean Go Federation has organized several National Go tournaments this last year, along other northern cities like Caldera, Valdivia, Santiago and Valparaíso. Besides this, several activities have been performed such as online tournaments, children-related events, workshops, courses, camps, pair go meetings – and even a special visit by the Cuban Go Champion Carlos Pérez palacios was held.

Their last tournament was celebrated on February 23rd and 24th on the Island of Mancera ubicated on a priviliged spot where both Valdivia and Tomagaleones rivers meet the sea. A great place for a summer tournament.

On average their events have had around 27 participants, not a small number for the Chilean standard and something which makes them believe Go is growing in Chile. Such events have been jointly organized by the local Clubs and the Chilean Federation.

We encourage you to follow their Facebook page or visit their website.

Argentina

Parallel to Chile, another country where Go has stablished a steady growth path is Argentina. 2018 represented a great year for them.

One of the activities ran by the Argentinian Go Association Aago, which generated most enthusiasm was the Argentinian Super League, where players can freely set up their matches on a one-month period, adding 3 points for each victory and one point for each loss. This Super League is held every two months and it has between 30 and 45 participants, around 50 games taking place each week. The games can be played face-to-face or online, searching for opponents through out the Whatsapp league group which has helped connect players from all around the country.

Clubs have sustained a steady increase: as of today there are almost 20 clubs and gathering-places across the country. In order to promote club participation, inter-club tournaments are organized both face-to-face and online. The last face-to-face inter-club tournament, held last December, hosted a 42-player field divided into 14 teams, and on the last online tournament 63 players in 9 teams clashed for the title. This has been one of their largest tournaments in the recent years.

Another point worth mentioning is the recent creation of the Aago Gender Commission which is in charge of promoting female participation and has organized a variety of events and tournaments. As a matter of fact they’ve just launched the 2º Argentinian Female Go League with 9 players registered.

Meanwhile, a youth go program called “AmiGos” has been launched, where workshops are given for children and clubs. Last October they celebrated the 1st Youth Go Tournament and in December two teams participated in the 5th Latin American Go Orion Championship, whose top team gets sponsored by the American Go Foundation to visit the 35th US Go Congress.

Argentina expects to keep this pace on 2019. As of now the 15th Go Super League is taking place with 42 players and 142 games played so far. This league will have as a special prize a teaching game with Stephanie Yin 1p from the New York Go Institute. Also, this month the 4th Japan Cup Handicap Go Tournament is taking place.

Last but not least, activities have been relaunched in the Japanese Garden in Buenos Aires, which has always been a great place for recruiting new players due its good traffic connections and general interest in the game.

To follow the Argentinian Go Association, please check their webpage, Facebook page, and Instagram page.

Thanks to Miguel Muñoz Piña and Santiago Laplagne for sharing the info for this article.

Keep yourself updated for the next chapters in this series.

Report by Emil García

On January 20 2019, the first round of the 3rd Pandanet Go Latin American Team Championship took place on Pandanet IGS.

It was a historic day as Uruguay and Dominican Republic made their first appearance in this Championship; although both lost with a 3–0 score against Brazil and Peru respectively.

What came as a big surprise were the victories of Guatemala and Costa Rica against Venezuela and Chile, considering that the latter countries ended in 2nd and 3rd place of last’s year Pandanet Latin American League. This is a clear signal that nobody knows what is to come.

Colombia swept Ecuador by 3–0, and in a very heated match Mexico managed to prevail against Argentina. Although losing on the 1st board in a preponed game against Argentina’s Fernando Aguilar, Mexico managed to win on the remaining two boards to claim the match point.

You can check all the kifus of this round here.

Next round is scheduled to take place on February 3 at 19 hrs. UTC-6.

This season promises to be full of surprises so keep yourself updated on the Pandanet Latin American League website.

– Emil Garcia

The Ibero American Go Federation has recently appointed Brazil to be the host country of the 3rd Latin American Go Congress which will be held in Sao Paulo from October 10th to 13th 2019.

2019 is a very important year for the Associação Brasil Nihon Kiin since they are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the São Paulo – Nihon Kiin da America do Sul which was built by Japanese pro player and promoter Iwamoto Kaoru in order to spread Go in South America.

The 3rd Latin American Go Congress will hold several activities such as the 21st Ibero American Go Championship, the 3rd Latin American Youth Go Championship, the 4th Latin American Pair Go Championship and the final match of the 3rd Pandanet Go Latin American Team Championship in which top tow Latin American teams will get to play an over the board final match with transfer expenses sponsored by Pandanet.

Also pro players will be invited from all major Go Associations around the world such as Nihon Kiin, Korean Baduk Association, Chinese Weiqi Association, American Go Association and European Go Federation. It promises to be a great event.

Keep yourself updated with the latest news about this event on the Ibero American Go Federation website.

See you in Brazil!

Report by Emil García