Michael Sean Redmond (マイケル・レドモンド, born May 25, 1963) is an American-born professional Go

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...

. He is one of only a few such players, as Go is not as widespread or developed outside of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He is the only Westerner to reach the highest grade of 9-

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Biography

Michael Redmond was born in 1963 in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

, and began playing Go at age 11. At 14, he moved to Japan and became an

insei A go apprentice is a student learning to play Go at an institution, typically with the aim of becoming a professional player. In Japan, such a student is called an ''insei'' (literally, "institution student"). Institutions for insei include ...

(Go apprentice) at the

Nihon Ki-in The Nihon Ki-in (), also known as the Japan Go Association, is the main organizational body for Go in Japan, overseeing Japan's professional system and issuing diplomas for amateur dan rankings. It is based in Tokyo. The other major Go associat ...

, one of the two major Japanese Go associations. He was promoted to professional 1 dan at age 18, and 2 dan the same year. He was promoted to 5 dan in 1985; 8 dan in 1996; and 9 dan in 2000, becoming the first Western Go professional to reach 9 dan. Redmond has not won any tournament titles but has come close. He was runner-up in the Shinjin-O, Kisei 7 dan section, and

NEC Shun-Ei The NEC Shun-Ei was a Nihon-Kiin Go competition This is a list of professional Go tournaments, for competitors in the board game of ''Go''. The tradition, initiated by the Honinbo Tournament in Japan, is for an event to be run annually, leadi ...

competitions in the early 1990s. He was also a quarter-finalist in the

Fujitsu Cup The Fujitsu Cup (富士通杯) was an international Go competition that ran from 1988-2011. Outline The Fujitsu Cup was an international Go competition hosted by Fujitsu and Yomiuri Shimbun. The players were selected as follows: * The top 3 playe ...

and

Tong Yang Cup The Tongyang Cup (Korean: 동양증권배 세계선수권전, Hanja: 東洋證券杯世界選手權戰) was a Go competition. The Tong Yang Cup was sponsored by Tongyang Securities of South Korea. The tournament was run from 1988 to 1998, with pl ...

. Currently, he is a celebrated commentator for the

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

channel. In 2005, he was voted "Best Commentator" for the NHK channel, over

Ishida Yoshio is a professional Go player and author of several books on Go. Biography By the time he was 8, Ishida started learning Go. He was a student at the legendary Kitani Minoru go school. Famous along with his fellow students Cho Chikun, Kobayas ...

. In August 2006, he taught at the AGA East Coast Go Camp in Pennsylvania, and attended the 22nd annual US Go Congress in Black Mountain,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. He has also attended several other US Go Congresses. Redmond is married to Xian-Xian Niu, a Chinese 5 dan professional. They have two daughters, Yumi and Emi. Redmond and his family are sponsors of many Go activities for children in America, such as the Redmond Cup, an annual tournament for strong youth players. Niu's elder sister, Lili Niu, is a Chinese 5 dan professional and collaborator of Wu Qing-Yuan (

Go Seigen Wu Quan (), courtesy name Wu Qingyuan ()His courtesy name was created based on his real name (''Quan'' means "spring, fountain" and ''Qing Yuan'' means "clear and pure source of water"). (June 12, 1914 – November 30, 2014), better known by ...

). Her husband is Xiangqi (

Chinese chess ''Xiangqi'' (; ), also called Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. ''Xiangqi'' is in the same family of games as ''shogi'', ''janggi'', Western chess, ''chatur ...

) champion Zhao Guo-rong. Redmond provided the English commentary along with Chris Garlock for the Google DeepMind Challenge Match between

Lee Sedol Lee Sedol ( ko, 이세돌; born 2 March 1983), or Lee Se-dol, is a former South Korean professional Go player of 9 dan rank. As of February 2016, he ranked second in international titles (18), behind only Lee Chang-ho (21). He is the fi ...

and

AlphaGo AlphaGo is a computer program that plays the board game Go (game), Go. It was developed by DeepMind Technologies a subsidiary of Google (now Alphabet Inc.). Subsequent versions of AlphaGo became increasingly powerful, including a version that ...

from March 9 to March 15, 2016. His commentary was praised in news articles as "vivid" and "illuminating".

Promotion record

Titles and runners-up

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

*
Page on Redmond from Sensei's Library
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Redmond, Michael American Go players Go (game) writers Sportspeople from Santa Barbara, California 1963 births Living people Sportspeople from Tokyo