All views expressed are those of the author and may not be those of the IGF
The first day of the real thing, getting down to business, into the groove, the zone, that state of mind bringing out the best in a person if only for short time - the first round of the 27th WAGC!
The very first round of this event usually has match-ups of which the results are predictable. Some games, however, do defy the odds, which is great, adding spice to the tournament, already most interesting because of promising players, including quite a few dark horses and red herrings.
One of the unexpected results was the defeat of the veteran Russian Federation representative Alexey Lazarev (45), matched against the tall Finnish representative Vesa Laatikainen (41).
The latter is a marketing manager and is one of the sharpest dressers at this WAGC. He also is 16-time Finnish champion, 8-time Nordic Champion, 8-time Finnish Kisei. Although the odds were considered to be against him he managed to beat the Russian mathematician Lazarev by a margin of 3.5 points.
Round 1: Alexey Lazarev (Russia) v. Vesa Laatikainen (Finland), W+3.5
Because there was no official record of this gam,e I had to ask Lazarev afterwards to show me his fuseki and early middle-game. It is not very tactful to ask the loser of a game for his willing cooperation, but he did not mind at all and quickly input the moves while criticizing his own moves.
"The move 19 (Diagram 1) is not good. I regretted this. Come to think of it, perhaps playing 17 just directly at 27 is best. This jump here to 35 also is not to my liking, I was thinking of playing like in Diagram 1a but decided against it because it is too, uh, pro-like." Lazarev said with his trademark dry humour.
To run ahead of myself, in Round 2, when the tall Finn was matched with the Korean representative Hong Manki (18), Laatikainen turned out to be a tougher opponent than Hong had expected. Laatikainen had the Korean sweating and was by no means a walkover, according to the spectators. The Finnish champion was obviously in top shape!
Farid Ben Malek (35), the participant from France, had a very grueling day. His first-round game against Cuba's Antonio Fernandez (39) was one of the last to finish and the match-up France against Singapore was actually the very last game of the second round! The game with the Cuban was almost an eye-opening result. Fernandez lost by only 4.5 points against the ex-insei Ben Malek. Now, does this mean that Ben Malek was not at his best or that Cuba is right up there with the top French players? Nice thing about an 8-round tournament like the WAGC is that, as the rounds steadily progress, the answer will become clear.
Ben Malek, by the way, spent altogether well over eight hours at the board (twice 90 minutes per player, 10 minutes/15 moves Canadian byoyomi). Unfortunately, in his game against the strong representative from Singapore, Yen Tingyu (24), he lost by 1.5 points! Perhaps Yen’s 2-dan registered level is a bit on the pessimistic side. There also are some rumors, though, that Ben Malek played below his usual level due to lack of sleep.
This is not at all a strange phenomenon because, although the organizers have arranged for some easy days before starting the tournament, jetlag is not an opponent to be taken lightly.
It was the first time to participate in the WAGC, as well as first time in Japan, for Julius Paulu (23) from South Africa. He must surely have been surprised by the press seemingly following him around everywhere. Big television cameras in his face from the local crews and smaller, more sophisticated, models about the size of a paperback from the Igo Shogi network, do not however seem to intimidate Paulu at all. His game in the first round resulted in a convincing win. After going over the game with Takahara Shuji (pro 9 dan) from the Kansai Ki-in, Paulu was once more surrounded by the press.
"I learned go about 10 years ago at school," he said. "At that time there were some people who tried to spread Go by teaching at schools in Soweto. Actually I think my teacher, a former Chess player, was one of the very few black people to play the game. In South Africa, I think that Go at first was mainly a game played by white people, but things are changing. Now, in order to help spread the game ourselves, we go to schools and talk with the headmaster in order to get him to tell the children about the game and introduce our club. The children who eventually do show up enjoy the game very much. It was the same for me, I loved the game right from the start and was serious about it, too. I usually play Go only at that club myself, I do not use the internet for playing games."
When Paulu was asked about his immediate goal for the WAGC, as well as his goals afterwards, he answered, "My goal at this tournament is to finish higher than the last representative from South Africa. I'd be very happy if I could achieve that. After the tournament, I do not have any immediate goal other than to improve and get stronger at go!"
Round 1 (moves 1 to 61) Julius Paulu (South Africa), B+R v. Diego Albuja Ortiz (Ecuador)
Black 33 is a cool move according to Takahara, as was pointed out during the interpreting, though this does not automatically mean that it is a good move. White 34 is excellent but leaving things like that is a missed chance. After Black 35, descending one space left of 7 is the best move for White. Black ignores White 38 to take the perfect point of 39 and he has a promising game.
At last there would be a few interesting match-ups for Round 3. The game between former insei Pal Balogh (Hungary) against USA’s Joey Hung (8 dan Go teacher) is sure to be fireworks. Another former insei and friend of Catalin Taranu (pro 5 dan), Cristian Pop will play Wei Qian of Australia, another country often finishing in the top places.