World Pair Go 2010 Report

It’s funny how I take the busiest time in the year to update my blog. But anyway, a report on World Pair Go is long overdue.

 

Pair Go World Cup 2010 was held in Hangzhou, China in commemoration of Pair Go Association 20th anniversary. Malaysia qualified for the final round after coming out second, behind Singapore for the Asia selection ( minus China, Japan, Korea).

This tournament was participated by 16 teams in total, where 8 were professional teams, and the rest were amateurs which won the preliminary round in their respective region i.e. Europe, Asia, Africa, America.

The eight professional teams are from China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Each country sent out two teams.

Below are the pics. Female players are named first, followed by their male partner.

China Pair: Song Rong Hui (5d) , Xie He (7d).

 

China Player: Yi Tang (2d) , Xing Liu (7d)

 

 

Korea Pair: Soh Yun Park (2d), Jin Huh (1d)

 

Korea Pair: Lee Min Jin (5d), Jin Seuk Mok (9d)

 

Taiwan Pair: Ai Lin Hsiao (1d), Cheng Hao Hsiao (6d)

 

Taiwan Pair: Joanne Missingham (1d), Chun Hsun Chou (9d)

 

Japan Pair: Akane Ishii (1d), Hideyuki Sakai (7d)

 

Japan Pair: Umezawa Yukari (5d), Shinji Takao (9d) 

 

 

Suzanne and I were matched up against Korean pair, Lee Min Jin and Mok Jin Seuk in the first round. Apparently my wish was answered 🙂

There is not much to say about the game except that Suzanne started with tengen. The follow up was horrible though because she and I had totally different idea of using the center stone. Anyway, we would have lost but it felt quite like a throw away game, so I did not feel too great.

Mok Jin Seuk was apparently a friendly person, who initiated chat in the elevator 🙂 . When we happened to meet again during the match, he asked about Go development in Malaysia. Evidently, he was quite sad knowing that there are only 100 players in Malaysia, with only 30 active. Honestly, those were just random numbers that I spew out. Hopefully MWA could come out with statistic so that I don’t misinform people anymore.

The final result was that China’s Song Rong Hui and Xie He won the first place after winning by resignation in the final against Korean’s Lee Min Jin and Mok Jin Seuk. The game itself was amazing. Two dragons were in conditional seki, as there was a ko. Towards the end, the Chinese team started filling the opponent’s liberties, ignoring ko threats that the Korean made. They eventually captured the group, forcing resignation.

Anyway, it appeared that Song Rong Hui is really at the top of the World Go now, despite her young age. Last year, she won the female section of World Mind Sport Games. Two World Championship at the age of 16? Wow…

Yea, they won 4,000,000 yen but if I understand correctly, the China Weiqi association will have a 70% share in the money prize. Suzanne and I also were given 100,000 yen to share. No tax will be imposed by MWA because there was no prior agreement. However, from now onwards, MWA will have 30% share from the earning that we win although more contribution will be encouraged.

The tournament report is done. There rest of this post will be mainly pictures that I took. Report about my trip around Hangzhou city, including the West lake will be in another post, hopefully 🙂

 

The amateur players except for professional Kang Zhang Bin and Singapore’s official, Mr Tan.

 

 

Jie Li ( amateur 9d ) vs. Joanne ( professional 1p ) in friendly match.

 

Me and Umezawa Yukari, the darling of Go 🙂

 

 

 

Old friend Yuki Shigeno

Technorati Tags: World Pair Go,Mok Jin Seuk,Song Rong Hui,Tang Yi,Umezawa Yukari,Joanne Missingham,Takao Shinji,Akane Ishii,Hangzhou

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Preparation for World Pair Go 2010

None.
No preparation whatsoever, except for occassional quick matches on KGS. And that’s for playing solo, instead of pairing with Suzanne. And of course, Visa preparation. I had just collected mine from China Embassy, Bank of China at Jalan Ampang. They had relocated to a new floor some time last year, and it was spacious with plenty of counters. Visa application was very smooth and easy without the long queue. 🙂 Great.

Regarding Go, luckily I’m quite familiar with Suzz’s style and she’s probably familiar with mine too. Everything may not mean much however, with there being plenty of professional pairs in the tournament. 8 professional pairs and 8 amateur pair from various regions, to be exact. If I could choose our opponent, I hope to play against Korean pair Lee Min Jin (5p) and Jin Seuk Mok (9p). Playing against Umezawa Yukari (5p) and Takao Shinji (9p) would be fun too. I could finally fulfill the old dream of meeting Umezawa Yukari since she first appeared in Hikaru No Go. 🙂

The website for the tournament is here.

Just a note to future tournament organizers. Hey, I have plenty of better looking cheerful pictures !!!

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Daicon – Celebration of Japanese Modern Visual Culture

I attended the first day of Daicon at Multimedia University in Cyberjaya today. Daicon, for those who dont know, is a celebration of modern Japanese visual culture. Well, I actually dont know much about the purpose or message of Daicon, but I sure did enjoy the presence of cute university students in anime-like appearance or cosplay.

Reminds me of the old time when I was so infatuated with everything Japanese. I do envy the current generation a bit, for being very brave at expressing themselves. I realise now that I did not really spend my youth in the most fun and satisfying way. Regrets creeping in.

Anyway, I was actually there to promote Go, under the name of Malaysia Weiqi Association. We did get quite a lot of people interested in the game, and at one point, I nearly lost my voice. It was hard explaining the game to the beginners while fighting to be audible against the background singing. Ah, the singing … some were really bad although their courage probably should be commended.

Some of the pictures below. Hopefully I could get more from Yi Zheng later.

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Weekend activities and the un-entertaining thought of having to go through Monday’s work routine

Okay, I failed to meet the weekend targets although I had been careful not to overaim. I didn’t send my car for service, and I have only reviewed one game of Shusaku, the Go master of the Edo period ( 1600 – 1868 ). Nevertheless, I would not be too hard to myself to consider the weekend had been wasted. I did achieve a few things afterall.

Firstly, I managed to install Windows 7 Ultimate on my nearly 4 year old laptop. I kept the old Windows XP operating system though by installing Windows 7 on different hard disk partition. So, now I could boot with either one, XP or Windows 7 although I dont really know what to do with the latter. I mean, XP serves me well already. But I have not played with Windows 7 long enough to even have a glimpse of its real power.

At first, the sound card would not work, so I downloaded the Realtek driver and it worked well, despite the warning saying that the driver was not compatible with the system. I like the new feel of the taskbar but not so much the Start Menu and how cluttered it is with so many things. But of course, I know they are customizable to meet whatever my preference is.

Ooops, a cockroach just drop dead suddenly in my room. Weird, but won’t waste brain cells over it.

Regarding Go, the league had started again. This time, I will try to play as many league games as earliest possible, because last time I had to forfeit deposit RM50 for not finishing my games. Alex, the tournament director, sure knows how to do business 🙂 But this time, the league will be much harder for stronger player because the handicap system is applied. At the moment, I have two wins against Song Sang and Wynes, and 1 loss against Ho.

I played a lot, which left me less time to meet my other Go target which was to review 3 games of Shusaku. As I said, I only managed one review. Sure, Shusaku was a genius, but like Shakespeare, one might fall asleep while going over his masterpiece.

Also, just now I was in the cinema watching Angels and Demons. It was superb! I love it a lot, especially the suspense, the plot and how the whole story concluded. My sister didn’t rate it too highly though, saying that the movie did not follow the book and missed one key character, the CERN director. Well, I completed the book too but I dont mind the minor changes.

I hope other books from Dan Brown, Deception Point and Digital Fortress will also be made into movies.

It’s already half-past midnight and I should retire to bed anytime soon. I’m delaying that, because weekend would end as soon as I close my eyes 😦 And Monday with all dullness that it brings will instantly begin!

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30th WAGC Watchlist (for me)

I have been waiting for this day. The day that 30th World Amateur Go Championship commences. Technically, it began yesterday with the opening ceremony, but the actual tournament starts today with the first round.

I know some of the participants in this tournament, some personally, some just simply have heard of them. I definitely want to know how well they perform in this tournament.

Below is my 30th WAGC watchlist.

1. Teng Boon Ping (Malaysia) – Malaysia representative, of course must give support 🙂
2. Tan Jia Cheng (Singapore) – recently promoted to 6d by Singapore Weiqi Association. Has always been on my watchlist on KGS as anyway, with his name “supertjc”.
3. Fatih Sulak (Turkey) – Last time I saw, he was 3d on KGS. Was one of my opponents in last year’s WAGC.
4. Yu Qinghu (China) – China representative, who had won this same tournament before. Definitely one of the strongest amateurs in the world.
5. Shin-Hwan Yoo (Korea) – Korea, of course!
6. Ondrej Silt (Czech) – Was my opponent during one of the rounds in WMSG, China last year. Of course he trashed me. So I’m keeping an eye on him until I trash him back, hehe 🙂
7. Robert Jasiek (Germany) – More popularly known as “sum” on KGS, with a rather distinctive (weird?) style of play. Would love to see how far his style will go in actual world-level tournament.
8. Nai San Chai (Hong Kong) – This kid from Hong Kong was placed 4th last year. Will he do even better this year? Can the youthful force be stopped? Hehe…

Anyway, to get the update of the tournament, please visit Ranka Online.

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Learn Go at MWA

If you are in Kuala Lumpur (or nearby) and interested to learn Go, you can attend weekly classes provided one of Malaysia Weiqi Association regular player, Hock Doong. The classes are held in Japan Club, Taman Seputeh which is within walking distance from Midvalley Megamall. Visit MWA website for more information.

Hock Doong is a respected instructor, and dan-ranked player himself and had represented Malaysia in many tournaments, including recent World Mind Sport Games in Beijing, China.

The schedule are as follows:

18 April: Life and Death (Multiple eyes and basic corner shapes)

25 April: Basic tactics (Ladders, Nets and some basic tesuji)

2 May: More Life and Death (a few more shapes and capturing races)

9 May: Opening Made Easy

16 May: After the opening (relationship and combination of stones)

23 May: Joseki and how to use them

30 May: A bit more on joseki and how to use them

6 June: Basic Invasion and Reduction

13 June: Basic Attack and Defense

The flow of the class will be as follows:

3.30pm Start Class. Handout answers to last week’s home work. Go through some problems from last week’s homework.

3.45pm Start main lesson for the week (as per the plan above)

4.30pm End of main lesson. Start Q&A session. Handout this week’s lesson. Class Ends.

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A Go Night

Yesterday was the first time I went to Hock Doong’s place. It was quite far from Japan Club, and I had real trouble tailing Mr Tiong’s car. Especially since we had to go through a number of tolls, and he had Touch ‘N’ Go while I had to queue in the cash lane. Anyway, all’s well that ends well (or something like that *shrug* )..

I was extremely jealous of his book collection. While I certainly win in computing and IT department, he trample me in every other element. History, philosophy, language, management, religion and also Go. I feel lucky to have a very well-read friend. No wonder he writes very well on his blog too.

Anyway, I had a number of games there. I played with Hock Doong first, then with Philip. Then all of us played triple-Go where me, Alex and Dennis played against Mr Tiong, Philip and Hock Doong. Numerous mistakes were there, even as early as 15th move, resulting from my decision to choose an Avalanche line.

Curiously enough, mistakes from both sides balanced out and we had a fairly balance game. In the end, our team lost to Mr Tiong’s by 2.5 moku. 😦

Prior to that, we had dinner in Japan Club where I had my usual Chirashi Sushi. Felt bad a little because I was not in someplace dark to express support for Earth Hour.

Oh, I won another 2 league games against Shu Wen and Xin Wen (they aren’t siblings). Remaining league games will be tough. I still haven’t played Suzanne, Mr Tiong, Lao Zhuang and Billy. I have to congratulate my friend Alex for directing this league. It will be good for me to learn to deal with pressure of serious games.

p/s: I wore cap nearly the whole day to push my hair down. The hairstylist made it spiky! How can I go to office tomorrow like this 😦

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Singapore Day Trip

I used to be wow’d when meeting famous Go characters for the first time. In 2008, it was Lee Chang Ho, world’s top player who I met during Korea AABC. In 2007, it was KGS Top Player, Fondle/Tartaric. Before that, there were Yuki Shigeno 2p, Cornel Burzo and Ondrej Silt. Heck, back during my double-digit kyu time, I was even wow’d to have met a 3d Japanese amateur, Tomahaku Urascoe.

Those were the times 🙂 . But from here onwards, I shall be wow’d no more, because I have met the greatest character in Go for all time ever forever – Go Seigen ! Go Seigen, currently 94 year-old is a legendary figure in Go world, mainly remembered for his revolutionary plays and being the main architect of Shin Fuseki theory along with his good friend, Kitani Minoru few decades ago.

Go Seigen was present in Ing’s Cup Final between Lee Chang Ho and Choi Cheol Han held recently in Singapore. Current result is 2-1 to Choi Cheol Han, and the 4th and 5th matches will be held in Taiwan in a month to determine the ultimate winner.

I was among 10 Malaysians who flew to Singapore to watch the third match of the final, on Saturday 7th March. I took budget flight Tiger Airways, which I deeply enjoyed, mainly because I managed to sleep before taking off and wake up only after touching down. Both go and return trips 🙂

Malaysian Go players in the observer seats, along with a white guy who I believe was among those who persisted to watch the game from start to end. Amazing patience, considering the very slow nature of professional games.

Lee Chang Ho (left) vs Choi Cheol Han (right) with Go Seigen (middle) watching. Lee Chang Ho is also known as Stone Buddha, for his expressionless face, and I just learned from Karen’s blog that Choi Cheol Han is known as Poisonous Snake for his deadly attacking style. Well, for this third game, he really deserved the name because his attack came so suddenly and swiftly.

Gotta thank Mun Yi for helping me a lot, including sneaking up on Go Seigen and the players 🙂

Priceless picture with Go Seigen. Singapore Weiqi Association officials were kind enough to let us Malaysian players to trouble him.

By afternoon, there were just too many people in the observer room, and to make things worse – the air conditioner failed to work. Everyone got sweaty and started gasping for oxygen. Ugh.. tournament was great, but I guess I could do without this part.

About the game itself, it was rather suprising to see so many mistakes from Lee Chang Ho, as pointed by Go Seigen in his analysis. I wonder why, I just hope he was just experimenting with new moves in order to be an even stronger player. Many I know are actually quite upset that he lost, although his opponent, Choi Cheol Han is an easily likable character as well. My respect for Choi Cheol Han is currently building fast, especially after reviewing his games against Liu Xing during the semi-final. Splendid attack !

Hehe, Philip and Hock Doong conspiring with Mr Tiong to get Go Seigen’s signature. Mr Tiong, as Malaysia Weiqi president, had access to the restricted area. Ho already could not contain his smile. Go here to read his account of the event.

Hmm… so much fascination with Go Seigen. I guess you have to be a Go player to understand why.

p/s: Yawn … I still haven’t recovered from the day trip fatigue.

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Ing’s Final in Singapore

Quite a number of MWA members are going down to Singapore next Saturday, to witness the third game out of 5 of Ing’s final between Lee Chang Ho and Choi Cheol Han. These two Korean players are extremely strong, and I am wondering what kind of Go will emerge from the clash. What kind of Go will emerge when the winner is promised $500,000?

According to Mun Yi, the two players arrived yesterday and she managed to get Lee Chang Ho’s signature. I actually have also got Lee Chang Ho signature on a fan, during Asia Amateur Baduk Championship in May 2008 where he was the guest of honor. Hate to admit, but it was kind of ugly, perhaps due to the uneven surface of the paper fan.

Lee Chang Ho was reported to have his usual reservation when it comes to dealing with other people. Sour gloomy face. Perhaps tired from the flight, although Choi Cheol Han was the exact opposite and more cheerful towards the crowd.

I was also told that Go Seigen is going to be there! At 94 years old, he’s definitely the closest to Go perfection and harmony although he has retired from competitive play. Some of the Malaysian friends I know are going to Singapore just to be within his aura!

(image hosted on Xinwengolife, who got it from Jingna)

Perhaps this is also a perfect time to start visiting Singaporean go enthusiasts’ blogs i.e. Jingna and Daniel Han Siong.

Anyway here’s the tournament schedule that Mun Yi has sent me.

2 March 2009

1000 hours Team Leader Meeting – Café @ Hotel
1800 hours Assembly at Lobby – The Fullerton Hotel
1830 hours Welcome Dinner – Lao Beijing @ Tiong Bahru

3 March 2009

0900 Assembly at Lobby – The Fullerton Hotel
0930 Final Round 1
1230 Afternoon Rest
1330 Final Round 1 – Singapore Weiqi Association
1800 Back to The Fullerton Hotel

4 March 2009
Rest (Free and Easy)

5 March 2009
0900 Assembly at Lobby – The Fullerton Hotel
0930 Final Round 2
1230 Afternoon Rest
1330 Final Round 2 – Singapore Weiqi Association
1800 Back to The Fullerton Hotel

6 March 2009
Rest (Free and Easy)

7 March 2009
0900 Assembly at Lobby – The Fullerton Hotel
0930 Final Round 3
1230 Afternoon Rest
1330 Final Round 3 – Singapore Weiqi Association
1800 Farewell Party
1900 Back to The Fullerton Hotel

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Overheating

Going by my latest writings, it appears that I am less and less of a Go player each day. No more tournament reports, no more public presentations, no more demonstrations to university students and no more all-night Go. Honestly, there was nothing much to write about.

Actually, I still play Go, but only leisurely. Play for fun, without the stress and pressure to win. As I said to a friend, Go is hobby again.

For today, I played one game of trio-go, two games against Alex, and two games of Shogi against Voon. After that, six of us went to the downstair Japanese restaurant where I had my favorite Chirashi Sushi. Now, I’m back home, and just had a relatively cold shower because my brain was overheating. No kidding ! That happens to me every time I play Shogi, the game is super demanding mentally. I need to think hard for every move unlike Go where I only have to choose between about five most obvious moves everytime.

Gotta rest. Tomorrow have Project Management exams. Yucks !!

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