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Spring tournament turnout better than expected!34 players enjoyed 2 days and 7 rounds of Go at the Houston Spring Go Tournament 2008 over the weekend of April 26/27. Held at St. Catherine's Montessori School, the higher than expected turnout put us in their spacious gym. Winners (see below) shared over $650 worth of prizes in cash and Go books. Congratulations to all of them.Gas prices didn't deter the visitors from Austin, Dallas and surrounding communities from attending, though it might be worth noting that a big chunk of the prize purse went to the Austin (and Salado) area! However, Jim announced he was generously donating his winnings to the AGF Summer Go Camp program - go Jim! Winners
Each of these winners also received a book on Go. We awarded two new prizes this time: the Optimist - most lost games - (the winner lost all 7 games and wishes to remain anonymous) and the David & Goliath - most total handicap stones given and received - won by Victor Li who faced a total of over 50 handicap stones. Each received a book on Go as encouragement. Given the current economic climate we weren't entirely sure what attendance we could expect for our spring tournament. Using data from our on-line registration system (HGC-Online) you can see that predicted final numbers are somewhat tricky. Compared to last year's spring tournament we did better but even a MS-Excel exponential fit is off by about 6. 
Using our new on-line registration system and PyTD for pairings our 2 day spring tournament with 34 attendees went very well. We had one on-site registration and one on-line cancellation. Using the export/import features, we paired the first round in under a minute after the close of check-in. No lunch orders were filled incorrectly and the tournament Profit and Loss report (available any time) was complete once our expenses were recorded by Sunday night. The on-line system and the discount offered to club members are credited with the big improvement in paid up club membership. Before the start of the tournament we had 11 paid up members, afterwards 24! We also sold a goodly number of AGA Youth memberships the same way. Finally, during the usual downtime, when we try to figure out who won, we were pleased to show the beautifully produced documentary "The Game of Go". Our copy was generously donated by the local Chinese Consulate. The DVD is presented by the Bureau of External Cultural Relations, Ministry of Culture, China. The 20 minute program can be shown in any of the following languages: Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Russian, German, Italian and Portuguese. Thanks go to Oliver Nava for bringing it to our attention. Our thanks also go to all the volunteers who helped set up and clean up, and especially everyone for attending. Houston Spring Go Tournament 2008 StatisticsTotal Attendees: 34Youths: 18 Adults: 16 Net proceeds: $263.89(includes memberships collected, AGA fees and expenses disbursed, prizes, book sales, etc. etc.)MembershipsNew or Renewing HGC Memberships (10 Youths + 3 Adults)
Visit our gallery for photos from the tournament.
Last updated May 2, 2008 (rev 1.1) |
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