Ranka spoke with Lucretiu Calota just after his 5th-round game with the Korean player.

Ranka: Could you describe the game for us?
Lucretiu: I lost by resignation. I had some ideas, but he kept denying me. I found the game so boring–he just kept taking territory. I tried playing more open, but in the end his position was more solid. I couldn’t attack, and then I didn’t see that he could cut off some stones of mine. They died, and it was over.

Ranka: How about your other games?
Lucretiu: I’m more satisfied with them. I lost to Japan, but only by ten points. I won against Australia, Chile, and Denmark. The game with Australia in the first round was a big fight that became random after we both got into overtime.

Ranka: Please tell us something about go in Romania.
Lucretiu: There was a special situation in Romania back when it still had a communist government. There were no computer games, no dancing, and young people didn’t have other things to do, so they went to culture clubs. They had chess clubs, contract bridge clubs, science fiction clubs, and when go came along, they started playing go. Most of the go players were in Bucharest. A lot of them were students at the same university. They would get together at the same campus, drink beer and vodka, and play go. That’s how you get stronger. And we also had Radu Baciu. He was the first strong Romanian player–he got to 3 dan back in the 1970s. He was always ready to play go with anyone who wanted to. In the mid 1980s, when I was living in Braşov, I would come to his house in Bucharest and play go with him every day. I don’t know what else he did. Now we are all forty years old. Well, Lucian Corlan and Cornel Burzo, the former children in the group, are thirty, but we all have other things to do. And Romanian young people are like young people in other countries, they play computer games. We had one promising young player until recently, but now he’s a serious university student and doesn’t have much time for go.

Ranka: Thank you and good luck in the next round.

Note: Lucretiu drew Jerome Salignon, the French player, in the next round and won to finish 8th.