by Pieter Mioch
at home in Nagoya, 1 June 2006
It is over! The fat lady has sung, the bills are paid and keys have been returned. Bags are packed and promises made, good-byes have been said.
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 championship 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
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| If you enjoyed Pieter's reports, you will surely also enjoy his many interviews on the GoGoD CD, not least his interview with Go Seigen, above. |
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 is tons of stuff I couldn’t find time for to report on during the 27th WAGC.
One disappointment was that an interview with the boy from Brazil (pardon the pun),
Alexandre Amaro de Souza (17), right, was scheduled but had to be cancelled. He is still a
teenager but plays a good game. It seems likely that if he keeps this up, Alexandre
will soon be a top player on the South American continent. By the way, Brazil’s
representative learned Japanese solely by attending the local chapter of the Nihon
Ki-in. "Well, they are mainly Japanese players, so it is not so difficult," he said.
Alexandre is taught by a Japanese professional, Narusawa Yasuichi 8-dan, which explains why he got where he is now.
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. The Nara district has shown interest, but, although JAL has agreed to sponsor air tickets for next time too, it seems that a much needed sponsor for additional funding has not been found yet. Some of the Nihon Ki-in staff members have floated the idea of holding the 28th WAGC at the Ki-in in Tokyo to keep the cost down a little, as this year’s Huis ten Bosch was a bit of an extravagance.
Wherever the next WAGC is going to take place, 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.
PS 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!
PPS Shigeno Yuki, left, famous for spreading go in Europe when she was living in Italy is indestructable! She was at the WAGC every day and volunteered to take a group of participants who want to visit the Nihon Ki-in office in Tokyo under her wing right after the tournament! When she has finished that, she is scheduled to teach in Niigata Prefecture and, after that, again in Nagoya. Yuki rockets through the country in the name of go.
PPPS Special thanks go to Vesa Laatikainen and Emil Nijhuis for lending me their computers, Yuki Shigeno for the use of her camera, and John Fairbairn for taking on my coarse text. Also: sorry! Gregor Butala from beautiful Slovenia! For a short while we had him down as from Bulgaria.