All views expressed are those of the author and may not be those of the IGF
The 27th WAGC has come to an end. After an extra day or two of sightseeing the participant are on their way home again, back to jobs and everyday lives. Yet the beautiful thing about Go is that it never ends. It continually fascinates people and brings them together not only to play games and compete but also to, well, just mingle. The World Amateur Go Championships is a fantastic event in this respect. Literally all faiths and colours are brought together, and in spite of healthy doses of fighting spirit, once the stones are put away the whole field is one happy Go-crazy family.
Before the start of the first round, it was wonderful to see to top contestants take each other on in friendly lightning games. From a distance they might as well have been novices who learned the game only a couple of months ago. Of course, when you have a close look at the board it becomes clear that these are far above average players. The level of enjoyment, however, does not differ at all. Besides fast games, the two Koreas also enjoyed playing 5-in-a-row. North Korea seemed to have done it before because he did not drop a game.
On the last day, the Japanese pros also played some games in the free playing room. This is absolutely fantastic. For us amateurs, professional players are mainly people who play you to teach you something, as in a simultaneous exhibition, for example. Of course, they like the game and do not mind playing you, but it does not feel that they are competing against you, or playing at full strength. The games played in this environment, however, are a little different. The pros seem to let down their guard and show their human side. They play seriously and do not think about teaching at all, just about manhandling the opponent in a way that ensures victory, just like we all do.
When they come down from the mountain like this, they show the world that they, after all, are just like all the rest, people who like the game and prefer winning to losing, a lot.
There are many things I wanted to report on but couldn’t find the time for. Brazil’s representative, Alexandre Amaro de Souza (17), for example. He is still a teenager but plays a good game. Alexandre is taught by a Japanese professional, Narusawa Yasuichi (pro 8 dan), which explains why he got where he is now. Could he become insei or perhaps even pro?
I had prepared a list of questions to ask USA’s representative, Joey Hung, too. I met Joey at the Pair Go Championship in Tokyo about half a year ago. According to his busines card Hung makes a living teaching Go; has he discovered a USA Hikaru already?
Let’s go back to the point of interest I mentioned on Day 1, namely the comparison between the ex-insei group and the trio from the USA, Canada and Australia. Coming in at 6th place is Joey Hung from the USA, beating the best ex-insei, Cristian Pop, who came in 7th. It seems that Joey’s spontaneous nickname of "insei killer" was well chosen. In 8th place is Ondrej Silt from Czechia. Silt, by the way, walked over during his own game to where I was making the game record to point out that I had forgotten one exchange!
Christoph Gerlach (38) from Germany, in 9th place, was the highest player who has not studied in Japan and does not have Asian ancestry. Players like that who manage to penetrate the top 10 are, without a doubt, pretty talented (if not, as in this case, a little old). To complete the top 10, there is Yongfei Ge from Canada. So, two ex-insei and two from the US–Canada–Australia triumvirate have worked their way into the best ten. None of them, however, has managed to break the Asian supremacy as the top five players were all born and raised in Asia.
It is not clear where next year’s WAGC is going to take place. Wherever the next WAGC is going to take place, however, let’s all pray that a way is found to broadcast at least 10 games of each round on a readily accessible server. In the past this has been proven possible, enabling thousands of players from all over the world to follow in real time the happenings at the WAGC. This year, from each round only one game was broadcast, mainly (but not only) for a Japanese audience on the Nihon Ki-in's Yugen no Ma Go server.
The very first quote of this report went: "This event makes possible a cultural exchange through the game of Go. We are the wings that carry not only freight and passengers all over the world but culture as well." (Mashiko Takashi, Director of Japanese Airlines Brand Communication Co. Ltd.)
It sounded so nice to me in Japanese - Bunka wo hakobu Tsubasa - that I fell for it and put it in (No, JAL did not give me free tickets to visit my family). Later, however, numerous people pointed out to me that JAL has been saying the same thing for at least 8 years in a row! A point of interest for the 28th press conference, what will JAL say?
Special thanks go to Vesa Laatikainen and Emil Nijhuis for lending me their computers, Yuki Shigeno for the use of her camera and Tony Atkins for producing the web pages.
@@@ = Pieter Mioch is a Dutch go player who went to Japan in 1988 and studied for three years as an insei at the Nagoya branch of the Nihon Ki-in. Besides helping out at the Nihon Ki-in, Pieter writes Go articles in Dutch, English and Japanese.
Parts of the text as well as some pictures used (with permission) for this article can also be found at the GoGoD site NewInGo article 36, World Amateur in Japan.