All views expressed are those of the author and may not be those of the IGF
Today I had the honour of being the game recorder for two games of the Chinese representative and favourite for the title, the 13-year-old Tang Weixing. Game recording is a great job since you get to watch the games from really close up. This creates a nice opportunity to observe players habits and mannerisms. Hiraoka, for example, is usually winning when he starts complaining about the quality of his own moves!
The morning game, Round 5, was against the boy from Hong Kong, Chan Naisan, also 13. I was really looking forward to writing something like this. "Off the board these two geniuses are just two plain boys such as you can find anywhere, playing soccer or Game Boy. Once they sit down to play a game of Go, however, they mature beyond recognition and resemble two wise old men bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders and being well equipped to do so."
Well, errrr...
Did that turn out to miss reality by a landslide and more! Right from the start neither player limited the battle to the Go board, trying to stare each other down, making belittling sounds or other suspicious comments. It even went as far as bumping their shoes under the table, trying to gain the most territory under as well as on the board. There also was a lot of suddenly standing up and walking around going on. China and Hong Kong were certainly not the only countries to do this pretty often, though.
Round 5 Chan Naisan v Tang Weixing, + 13
34 at 16, 37 at 19, 40 at 16, 43 at 19, 48 at 16, 56 at 51
The game, off and on the board, was quite a sight, but according to Ishida Yoshio (pro 9dan), the game was over by move 92. One small oversight by Chan cost him the game. Black 77 is too early. Hong Kong’s champion probably had overlooked the white cut at 78 which is most severe. Black 77 at 79 would’ve been correct. Ishida showed many variations to make clear that although white can invade the upper right corner black can handle the situation. Chan was visibly frustrated and took a long time to play 83 which is the only thing left to do but very painful.
In the after game commentary Ishida sensei further showed that the Chinese representative should have played it safe and not take any chances once ahead. But Tang kept playing the severest moves, resulting in ko fights all over. If Tang's strategy was too much or not is hard to say for the (weak) likes of me but the end result of 13.5 points says it all - Tang won by 13 points too much.
The second game in Round 6 was a wonderful battle between China and North Korea, both up to that moment having a perfect score. This time Tang had brought a wet towel in order to refresh himself during the game. North Korea's Cho Tae-weon was making fun of it a bit, but Tang didn't pay attention. Tang was very serious for this game. He seemingly did not really think that the fifth round against Hong Kong had been a challenge, but for this 6th round game against North Korea he was much more serious. He did still play rather fast, though. Both participants were like martial arts specialists circling each other mentally but not budging an inch, and then suddenly - ratatat - a sequence of 10 or more moves on the board in the blink of an eye. It was extremely difficult to make the game record correctly. Most of the time the players' hands were covering where they played, and it was necessary to deduce the move order by the shape. Fortunately it did turn out to be correct.
In the end, North Korea had to resign because his centre group had died. Not that he hadn't seen that coming but, in order to keep in the game and not give in too much, which would have resulted in a certain loss because of lack of territory, Cho had played the sharpest moves possible, or, as turned out, not quite possible after all.
To get back the story of the French representative, Farid "Ironman" Ben Malek, he repeated his performance from the first day by again playing very long and close games. As a matter of fact, because of Ben Malek and Lazarev's match, the start of round four was set back by about an hour and a half.
Those of you who think that being behind schedule 30 minutes and having to wait for the next round to start is inevitable at tournaments, I have to tell you that for the WAGC tournament even a five-minute delay is something the organisers are in agony about! And, although there are exceptions to the rule, most WAGC run smoothly without much delay. Imagine what the staff must have felt like when the very close Ben Malek-Lazarev game kept going on and on without an end in sight! In the end Alexey Lazarev walked away with a 3.5 point win, probably the exact same 3.5 points he had let the Finnish representative walk away with a day earlier.
I bet that their record of 5 hours and 12 minutes for the game will not be broken in the remaining rounds of the tournament (this turned out to be correct)! When Ben Malek in the much delayed Round 4 again played a long game - albeit not even close to the record, it only took three and a half hours - I got curious and decided to find out whether he actually liked the agony he is inflicting on himself, or whether he is purposely trying to wear his opponents down to the point that they lose any aspirations to winning the game.
"You want to know about my go activities of late? Well, they are virtually non-existent! In the last few years I think I have played only three tournaments. Among those was the French Championship which I somehow managed to win. Thanks to the points system we use in France, I was chosen to go and be the official representative. So, the games I am playing here are the first I have played for a long time. The reason why I don't play much any more is simple. I'm much too busy! I have good hopes that by this time next year I can represent the city of Paris in Parliament as one of its Deputies! Ever since French politics went haywire in 2002, I've been wanting to do something about it myself. Now that is what I have made my goal. So instead of playing Go I have been attending meetings and giving speeches and basically just talk a lot.
"I'm glad, though, for the chance this tournament has given me to take a breather for a week. Unfortunately I need very much time to think everything through. That is probably why my games take so long!"
Well, Ben Malek is speeding up. His Round 5 game was but three and half hours and in the 6th round he only needed a little over three hours.