NZ Go Society Newsletters 1985-1989
Newsletters for the period 1985-1989 have been added to the NZ newsletter archive. To see these select News/Newsletter Archive and use the arrow keys to scroll through the archived newsletters.
The five years of NZ go reported in these newsletters shows NZ Go in a very healthy state with annual tournaments in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin regularly attracting 10-15 players.
The NZ championships were moving between different centres each year with a record attendance of 31 at the Christchurch NZ Champs in 1985, a field boosted by 4 players from Australia.
The Australians were in NZ to participate in the 3rd trans-Tasman match, won by NZ 10-6 in Hanmer. That was followed up in 1987 by an even bigger 13-3 win in Canberra.
New Zealand players were also beginning to knock over 5-6 dan players overseas which given our limited opportunity for face to face games with strong opponents was encouraging. Our WAGC results were solid if not spectacular with two 16th places and two in the mid-20’s. One placing remains unreported to this day but given that the NZ representative was distracted by the wooing of his future wife, that is understandable!
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Professional help in the development of NZ Go continued.
Mr T Aoki, Japanese consul in Wellington helped organize a Japanese professional Kawamura 7 dan for the 1985 go congress.
Wu Song Shen (9d) held Go workshops in Wellington in 1987 and 1988, organized by the society which helped to develop a great group of 5-10 players in the 3-5 dan range all eager to improve.
In 1987 the WAGC points system was introduced as a way of making the opportunity to attend the WAGC more widely available.
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In 1987, the need for a NZ based rating system was promoted to help recognize ranks of players as they improved. The practice of awarding dan certificates to NZ players had lapsed several years earlier. A discussion document appeared in the February 1989 issue, suggesting some difficulty gaining consensus on how to do this. A rating list was published in the July 1989 issue with the ranks of over 50 people calculated.
On his return from the 10th WAGC Ray Tomes was accompanied by a very fine goban which he presented as the prize in a new competition called the Go Kichi. This was competed for by challenge, with the winner retaining the goban until defeated by a challenger in a 5-game match with the holder hosting the challenger. This competition was very popular and provided some wonderfully fierce 5 game matches. It appears not to have been competed for in recent years though could be revived if we can discover where the board now resides!