Janice Kim is an American professional Go player, author, and business-owner.

Early life and education

Kim was born in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

in 1969 and grew up in

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...

. She earned a bachelor's degree from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Career

As a teenager, she studied Go in

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

under Jeong Soo-hyon. She represented the U.S. in the first

World Youth Go Championship The World Youth Go Championship (WYGC) is a Go tournament that has been held annually since 1984 making it the second longest running amateur Go tournament in the world. This event is sponsored by the Ing Foundation, and therefore Ing's rules ar ...

in 1984, placing third. In 1986, she played for the U.S. again and won the event. In 1987, she became the first westerner to be accepted by the

Korea Baduk Association The Korea Baduk Association, also known as Hanguk Kiwon (), was founded in November 1945 by Cho Namchul. Baduk is a game which was present in Korea by the 5th century. It originated in China, but the West is more familiar with the Japanese name ...

as a pro. She remains one of only five western females ever to attain professional status (with Joanne Missingham, Svetlana Shikshina, Diana Koszegi and Mariya Zakharchenko). In 1997, she created Samarkand, an online store for go-related items. Samarkand later became wholesale only. In 2003, she was promoted to a 3-Dan professional Go player, the first female westerner to do so. Kim is the author of the ''Getting Go'' articles that accompany installments of

Hikaru No Go is a Japanese manga series based on the board game Go, written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The production of the series' Go games was supervised by Go professional Yukari Umezawa. It was serialized in Shueisha's ''Week ...

, a manga about a boy who releases the spirit of a famous Go player, in the American magazine Shonen Jump. She also writes occasionally for ''The American Go E-Journal''.

Personal life

Kim lived in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, and

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

before settling in

with her family. She has since become a professional poker player.

Bibliography

*Learn to Play Go: A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game () *Learn to Play Go: Volume II: The Way of the Moving Horse () *Learn to Play Go: Volume III: The Dragon Style () *Learn to Play Go: Volume IV: Battle Strategies () *Learn to Play Go: Volume V: The Palace of Memory ()

References

External links