The United States Youth Go Championship was held in Somerset, New Jersey at the Madison Suites Hotel on the weekend of May 24 and 25. This event was organized nationally by the American Go Association and locally by the Feng Yun Go School. The Ing Foundation provided financial support. You can view photographs of this event.
There were two age divisions, junior (under 12 years of age), and senior (under 18 years of age). The respective champions will go on to compete in the World Youth Go Championship in Guiyang, China.
At the conclusion of the tournament, Feng Yun analyzed some of the top board games with the players.
| Place | Name (AGA ID) | Number of Wins |
Tiebreak | Updated Rating |
| 1 | Zhou, William (11151) | 5 | 7.80673 | 7.13869 |
| 2 | Zhao, Zhongxia (11312) | 4 | 6.42748 | 6.82988 |
| 3 | Guo, Jimmy (10810) | 3 | 5.43101 | 6.83945 |
| 4 | Ku, Lawrence (10804) | 3 | 4.30695 | 6.18053 |
| 5 | Shen, Cherry (11495) | 2 | 3.71961 | 6.28880 |
| 6 | Shang, Kevin (11449) | 2 | 3.17277 | 4.05678 |
| 7 | Zhuang, Vincent (13597) | 1 | 1.91099 | -1.72507 |
| 8 | DeSouza, Alex (15556) | 0 | -1.44193 | -6.35242 |
| Name | Seed Rating |
# | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 |
| Zhou, William | 6.98429 | 1 | + 6 b | + 5 w | + 4 b | + 3 b | + 2 w |
| Guo, Jimmy | 6.87863 | 2 | + 5 b | + 6 w | − 3 w | + 4 b | − 1 b |
| Zhao, Zhongxia | 6.80176 | 3 | + 8 b | + 7 w | + 2 b | − 1 w | + 4 w |
| Shen, Cherry | 6.40014 | 4 | + 7 b | + 8 w | − 1 w | − 2 w | − 3 b |
| Ku, Lawrence | 6.35288 | 5 | − 2 w | − 1 b | + 8 b | + 7 b | + 6 w |
| Shang, Kevin | 4.06198 | 6 | − 1 w | − 2 b | + 7 w | + 8 w | − 5 b |
| Zhuang, Vincent | -1.72507 | 7 | − 4 w | − 3 b | − 6 b | − 5 w | + 8 b |
| DeSouza, Alex | -6.35242 | 8 | − 3 w | − 4 b | − 5 w | − 6 b | − 7 w |
| Place | Name (AGA ID) | Number of Wins |
Tiebreak | Updated Rating |
| 1 | Sun, Calvin (12602) | 5 | 6.17628 | 6.96046 |
| 2 | Zhang, Hugh (13150) | 3 | 3.69170 | 6.19440 |
| 3 | Kiguchi, Christopher (12038) | 3 | 3.63314 | 5.63407 |
| 4 | Lin, Maverick (12720) | 3 | 3.59781 | 4.88890 |
| 5 | Zhao, Aleck (15165) | 3 | 2.14804 | 4.96492 |
| 6 | Lu, Andrew (14956) | 2 | -1.44710 | 3.39698 |
| 7 | Vel, Sudhir (12724) | 1 | -3.12704 | 2.07117 |
| 8 | Ponader, Sam (15555) | 0 | -5.01900 | -20.07343 |
| Name | Seed Rating |
# | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 |
| Sun, Calvin | 6.91175 | 1 | + 6 w | + 4 b | + 5 b | + 3 b | + 2 w |
| Zhang, Hugh | 6.42301 | 2 | − 5 b | + 6 b | + 3 w | + 4 w | − 1 b |
| Kiguchi, Christopher | 5.68793 | 3 | + 8 b | + 7 w | − 2 b | − 1 w | + 5 b |
| Zhao, Aleck | 5.03620 | 4 | + 7 w | − 1 w | + 8 w | − 2 b | + 6 b |
| Lin, Maverick | 4.22290 | 5 | + 2 w | + 8 b | − 1 w | + 7 b | − 3 w |
| Lu, Andrew | 3.38902 | 6 | − 1 b | − 2 w | + 7 b | + 8 w | − 4 w |
| Vel, Sudhir | 2.10530 | 7 | − 4 b | − 3 b | − 6 w | − 5 w | + 8 w |
| Ponader, Sam | -20.07343 | 8 | − 3 w | − 5 w | − 4 b | − 6 b | − 7 b |
In the Senior Division, all three players from California, Jimmy Guo, Lawrence Ku, and Cherry Shen, lost to either the defending champion William Zhou or Ricky Zhao in the first three rounds. Round 4 featured an exciting matchup, as the two then undefeated players in the Senior Division, Ricky Zhao and William Zhou, played each other. During the middle game, Ricky and William engaged in a fierce battle in the corner, and with Ricky in byo-yomi, Zhou managed to kill his corner and force a resignation. In round 5, Jimmy Guo and William Zhou fought a fierce battle, with Jimmy managing to live in William's moyo; however, William won by less than komi as the two fought several kos in the end.
The Junior Division was filled with many close games. Hugh Zhang was upset by Maverick Lin in round 1, and Calvin Sun almost lost to Aleck Zhao in round 2, narrowly escaping defeat by capturing Aleck's group near the end of the game when Aleck was in byo-yomi. In round 3, Hugh beat Christopher in a close game. At the end of 3 rounds, only Calvin Sun was undefeated. Calvin continued his winning streak, playing Christopher Kiguchi; in a battle with two large groups being exchanged, Calvin pulled out a victory by about 10 points. In round 5, Calvin played against Hugh Zhang; although he made a mistake in the endgame, he managed to pull out a ½ point victory to keep his championship title.
William Zhou and Calvin Sun will be representing the United States at the World Youth Go Championship in Guiyang, China.
An Accelerated McMahon system was used to pair the players. This system uses ratings, which are updated after every round, to predict likely winners, and defers decisive pairings until the last round. All players were seeded with their current AGA rating.
The tiebreak was a rating calculated solely based on tournament performance. For purposes of this calculation, each player started with the average rating of the group, so there is no bias in favor of players who were higher rated coming in to the tournament.
Questions regarding the tournament methodology or any of the data can be addressed to the tournament director, Paul Matthews at pgmatthews@stanfordalumni.org.