Michael Redmond was born in California on May 25, 1963. Started studying to become a professional go player in 1978 as a disciple of Oeda Yusuke 9-dan. Became 1-dan in 1981and 9-dan in 2000. He is the third Westerner to become a professional in Japan and the most successful one to date. In 2009, he reached a milestone of 500 wins in Japanese professional tournaments. In 1991, he reached the quarter finals of the 4th Fujitsu Cup World Go Championship, and, in 1993, the quarter finals in 5th Dongyang Securities World Cup. His best results in Japanese tournaments for players under 25 were first place in the 9th Ryuen Cup, a lightning go tournament (1985), second place in the 5th NEC Shun-Ei Cup (NEC Rising Stars) (1990), and second place in the 17th Shinjin-O (King of the New Stars) (1992). His best results in Japanese tournaments for all professionals were perfect records in the 1984 and 1989 Oteai promotion tournaments and the semifinals of the 28th Gosei challenger's tournament (2003). He is the author of several books in Japanese and one in English: Patterns of the Sanrensei, published by Smart Go for the iPad and Slate & Shell in the printed version. Rob van Zeijst is an ex-insei (apprentice professional) and has won the European championship three times. He has played in a number of international tournaments: the Fujitsu Cup four times; the Chunlan Cup once; the Samsung Cup four times in which he won two games against Korean professionals. His highest rating in the Chinese Professional ranking system was professional 3-dan. Richard Bozulich was born in Los Angeles in 1936.From the age of four until 17 he studied to become a concert pianist.He then studied Mathematical Logic at UCLA from 1953 to 1956 under Richard Montague.He transferred to UC Berkeley and graduated in mathematics in 1966.In 1967 he went to Japan to study go.In 1968 he founded Ishi Press Inc. in Japan and published more than 45 books on go.In 1982 he founded Kiseido Publishing Company and has published more than 60 book on go under that company.He started publishing a go magazine, Go World, in 1977. 129 issues were published until he stopped publishing it in 2013.He is said to be the most prolific writer of English-language go books, having written or translated almost 50 books on the game.He lives in Chigasaki, Japan and is the president of Kiseido Publishing Company.