managed to do this - the first time was in 1995 at the 16th WAGC.
Special live report by Pieter Mioch
31 May 2006
Against all expectations, most probably including his own, Japan's HIRAOKA
SATOSHI, below, won the title. This is the second time he has
managed to do this - the first time was in 1995 at the 16th WAGC.
The 2006 WAGC was the first time for me as official "head game recorder" (the hours are longer but the pay's the same!), so I had the privilege of watching the Japan, Korea, China and other top players in action from up close.
That meant I was able to see how coolly Hiraoka set himself up for the crucial last round. Here’s the start of the game Hiraoka played in the 7th round against the representative from the USA, Joey Hung, who has the black stones.
This game was interesting because Hung’s style at times resembles handicap style a little. When asking around a bit, I got the impression that this is at the same time Joey’s strength as well as his Achilles heel. One thing is clear from looking at his past results, however - he is not a player to be trifled with. And although Hung's style might at times be questionable, in this game it was evident that if Hiraoka had made but one slight mistake, all Hung's stones would come out perfectly, making it all but impossible for the opponent to win this game.
Round 7
Hiraoka Satoshi, W+R v.
Joey Hung
In this 7th round game, though, Hiraoka kept his cool and Black’s attack ran out of steam, after which it was white’s turn to counterattack, killing enough stones to force Black to resign.
By neatly outplaying Hung, Hiraoka kept himself in the race for the top seat, although only few people actually seemed to believe him capable of beating the genius from China, 13-year-old Tang Weixing.
Up to Round 7 Tang was all but unstoppable. He had had no trouble to speak of with any of his opponents. When listening carefully to the game commentaries Ishida was doing about once a day, however, it became clear that, although extremely skilful, Tang too was only human and made mistakes, if only very few.
By the way, even if, for example, Hiraoka managed to win their direct confrontation with Tang in Round 8, most people believed that the SOS score would still put China, or perhaps North Korea, ahead. Maybe Hiraoka believed this too and didn't feel any pressure, or maybe he's just the strongest player in the field. Fact is that after a little bit of a shaky middle game (the stately opening minuet is shown below) where White used aji on the right to set up a ko, Hiraoka skilfully managed to put the game his way and make this into a masterpiece.
A dangerous-looking ko in the endgame wasn't even necessary to ensure his win. In his commentary afterwards, Ishida Yoshio 9-dan called out, "Hey, Hiraoka! What were you thinking setting up a dangerous ko like this? How many times do you want to win this game?"
Hiraoka answered with a grin, "well, if White loses this ko his whole group (on the right) dies, so actually I was pretty confident that it was alright for me to play like I did."
Round 8
Hiraoka Satoshi, B+11.5 v. Tang Weixing
Straight after his win, Hiraoka was jumped on by the press. Since it seemed that his opponents of previous rounds had played a good last round it became clear that Hiraoka actually had a chance to win the whole thing! "What about this - they say you are probably going to win!" Hiraoka, without a hint of anxiety: "Well, let’s just wait and see. That is the only sensible thing to do, isn’t it?"
All through the tournament, Hiraoka had his emotions perfectly under control. No doubt, though, that the man they thought was too old will be winning this game in his sleep for the next how many days, remembering what his little daughter said at the start of the tournament: "All the way to the top, dad, I'm sure you can win!"
| Extra! Pieter interviews Romania's Cristian Pop |