The Second North Carolina Workshop with Yuan Zhou was held May 2nd through May 4th, 2008.

Yuan Zhou is a long-time Go teacher based in the Washington, DC area. Mr. Zhou is skilled at teaching students of all levels.

For Triangle Go Club members, the cost was $50.00 for adults, and $25.00 dollars for students under 22. Costs for non-Triangle Go club members were $90.00 for adults and $35.00 for children for the entire workshop.

The location was the the Crabtree Valley Hampton Inn on HWY 70/Glenwood Ave in Raleigh, NC. A mapquest link to this location is here.

This workshop was sponsored by the Triangle Go Club.

Biography of Yuan Zhou follows:

Yuan Zhou was born on April 5, 1975, in Tianjin, China. Tianjin is a major city in the northern part of China, near Beijing. His father, Xin-Li Zhou, taught him to play go at the age of six, and a year later he won the Tanggu District Junior Championship. After this auspicious beginning, Zhou began professional training while he was still seven years old. He was twice invited to represent Tianjin in the All China Prodigy Cup.

In 1989 Zhou immigrated to the USA and joined the American Go Association, becoming a US citizen in 1990. He helped develop an active go program at the University of Maryland, from which he earned a BS in Electrical Engineering, and became increasingly involved in AGA events, winning his first AGA tournament, the Mid-Atlantic Open, in 1990. In 1992 he won both the Eastern Open Tournament and the NoVa Cherry Blossom Tournament and was also the US representative to the World Youth Championship, finishing in fifth place. The next year Zhou won three AGA tournaments: the NoVa Cherry Blossom, the NoVa Pumpkin Classic, and the University of Maryland Open.

Zhou has continued to be one of the top competitors on the American go scene, winning the New Jersey Open, one of the biggest US tournaments, four times. Twice he has also won the Maryland Open, another major tournament that attracts strong players. Zhou is regularly invited to play in the North American Ing Cup, which involves the strongest US players, and the North American Fujitsu Qualifying Tournament, which also includes US pros. Zhou has twice defeated pros in even games: Hak Soo Kim 6P in the 1995 Fujitsu and Xuefen Lin 1P in the Eastern Oza in 2001. In 2004 he won the Ing Redmond Cup, the Virginia Open, and, with Kristen Burrall as partner, the US Pair Go Tournament. He and Burrall represented the US in the 15th World Pair Go Championship in Tokyo. Zhou was also the US representative in the 3rd World Student Oza in Tokyo in 2005.

In addition to his competitive successes, Zhou has become a popular teacher and lecturer, frequently giving lectures and doing game analyses at various go clubs in the mid-Atlantic region. He has also published two books: Understanding How to Play Go and How to Play Handicap Go. These consist of very thorough analyses of some of his games and are available at www.slateandshell.com. Zhou resides in Germantown, Maryland.

Here is a list of the US tournaments Zhou has won:

Mid Atlantic Open 1990
Eastern Open 1992
NoVa Cherry Blossom 1992
NoVa Cherry Blossom 1993
NoVa Pumpkin Classic 1993
University of Maryland Open 1993
Maryland Open 1994
New Jersey Open 1995
University of Maryland Open 1995
New Jersey Open 1996
New Jersey Open 1997
Philadelphia Open 1998
NoVa Congress Tune Up 1999
Mid Atlantic Open 2000
Pennsylvania Open 2000
Korean Baduk Eastern Open 2001
New Jersey Open 2001
Maryland Open 2002
Pennsylvania Open 2002
Virginia Open 2003
Ing Redmond Cup 2004
US Pair Go 2004
Virginia Open 2004

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