Lorenz Trippel is a Swiss 1-dan who works at an office in Zurich, likes cycling, is an active go organiser  and is also a prolific provider of go information on the Internet. Ranka talked with him shortly after he arrived in Seoul for the 2014 Korea Prime Minister Cup.

Ranka: Please tell us about go in Switzerland.
Lorenz: We have a long history of go in Switzerland. We started in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and from there we have been growing slowly, like everywhere else in Europe, I think. Now we have about 150, maybe 200 active go players. We have the tradition that every club holds a tournament each year, so we have eight or nine tournaments a year. As we are small, our organization has waves. Sometimes the people get very active and do a lot, and some other times things go a bit slow. But still, we are maintaining quite a good tournament schedule. We also try to promote the game on some special occasions where we can put up a stand, talk to the public, and explain the rules. That’s probaby, from my point of view, the most important thing the organization can do: to promote the game.

Ranka: How did you get started in go?
Lorenz: I got started through my family. My father played, my aunt played, and I have an older brother who played — a half-brother, who is much older than me. When I was like ten he was already in his thirties. So they would play against each other, my father and my brother, and I would watch them playing. That’s how I started, just by observing the older family members. And then one day I started to play myself, but I don’t really remember the moment when I started to play.

Ranka: Please tell us more about your go-playing aunt.
Lorenz: She’s now over one hundred years old, and she has a very emotional connection to the game. She’s not a strong player. She just has this feeling about it, about playing the stones. She likes the game, but she is not competitive at all. To her, it’s more of a social doing.

Ranka: And what are you looking forward to in the KPMC?
Lorenz: In this tournament I really couldn’t say what I’m looking forward to. I just want to play good games. I cannot win a prize. I’m sure that if I play too well in the beginning I will meet some very strong opponents and get crushed, so how well I do cannot be counted by numbers. I just want to to play good games.

Ranka: Thank you and we hope you do.

Postscript: Lorenz played quite well on the first day of the KPMC, beating 2-dan and 3-dan opponents from Norway and Spain and losing only to a 4-dan from the Netherlands. His prediction then came true: on the second day he was matched against a pair of 5-dans from Thailand and Germany and a 4-dan from Israel, lost all three games, and finished 35th. But that was still second highest among the eight 1-dans competing.

– Photo: Ito Toshiko