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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Pair Go World Cup 2010 Hangzhou (Asia Selection)

Glad to mention that Malaysia will be participating in Pair Go World Cup 2010 in Hangzhou, China after finishing second in Asia selection held yesterday. Suzanne and I, as the Malaysian pair completed four matches yesterday with 3 wins against Indonesia, Phillippines and Vietnam and a loss against Singapore Team 1. The tournament was actually held online on IGS as there was not enough time to organize it in the meat-world.

It was my first time playing Pair Go, and it was a great experience. I normally am very reserved in my game, prefer strategic to tactical fight. But Suzz was the complete opposite, and it seemed our combined style yesterday followed her more. We kept asking for fight when we were already leading against the Indonesian, and we put ourselves in great danger against the Vietnamese pair. I almost wanted to resign, until we managed to counter-attack with a squeezing sequence. Luck maybe, because I didn’t see it at all when reading 5 moves before.

Overall, it was an enlightening experience for me. I cant remember the last time I had intense fighting in my games. I normally wait for overwhelming advantage before I initiate a fight. With Suzz aggressiveness however, there was no wait and warming up before fighting. Haha … 🙂

After the selection round, the next stage will be held in Hangzhou in March 21-23 where 8 professional pairs and 8 additional pairs from various geographical regions will compete. I’ve never been to Hangzhou, so quite looking forward to this. Hopefully we could do well there.

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Wonderful Saturday : Go + Food + Friends + Orchestra

Go, Food and Friends constitute a common formula for my Saturdays. Honestly I am content with living on such formula for foreseeable future to come. Yesterday however was especially wonderful because I kind of had an overdose of each of them, plus attending an orchestra performance.

For Go, I had three games against Boon Ping and managed to win one as black. The third and final of our matches saw me losing as white with 1.5 moku. I am however very satisfied with the game as I managed to carry out tesuji and the sequence I had in mind, instead of the waiting-for-mistake stategy I normally use.

Regarding food, I had two rounds of lunch, with Tempura Udon and Zaru Soba. I would suggest to everyone to go to Japan Club restaurant to taste them, but the place is not that easily accessible, sadly 😦

The evening half was spent with watching an orchestra with Philip, Alex, Shino, Dennis and Dennis’s sister Lavinia. Actually I was not really interested in music but I thought I should spend my weekend doing something. Afterall, I was told that the ticket was free. Heck, turned out it was an RM38.00 friend’s ‘joke’. Luckily my wallet that time was at least RM100 fat.

The orchestra was held in KLPac in Sentul. The crowd was large and lively, it seemed that the environment was less restrictive than Petronas’s philharmonic as Dennis observed. I however, did not know that so I wore my suit.

We ate at Old Town White Coffee, where I had half-boiled egg, toasted bread with kaya and the trademark hot White Coffee. We exchange jokes, and I told them the one I got from Dina (Lada’s wife) at Standstead airport. “What is the longest word in the world?” – “Smiles – because there is a ‘mile’ between the first and the last letters.” I was also quite suprised that they never heard of the famous Go joke, “How many 30k’s are needed to exchange the light bulb?” – “None. 30k’s can’t change light bulb because they cannot see the ladder.”

Lavinia, Shino and me. Should have realised my sleeve was half-rolled up. 😦 And my eyes half were half-rolled down. 😦

The orchestra. The conductor was especially energetic with funny gestures. I really think that the excessive gestures were just for display, but then, I dont know much about music.

We sat at the front, in the third row. Good view from there, could see the small pianist jumping in her seat as she ‘press’ed hard the piano key. What’s a better word for press there?

Crowd was nearly full !

Almost me. Real me has no fat !

Our group. Alex, third from left is a violinist who got us all the tickets.

After the show, we had supper in Wangsa Maju in a very famous mamak restaurant there which ironically I dont know the name. But Dennis who studied in TAR college before told us the history of this mamak restaurant, and how impressed he was with the staff exceptional ability to memorize orders.

I have to say that I enjoy yesterday very much. It does not seem too hard to have a good life in KL. Go, Food, Friends and some random activity seem enough to live by. 🙂

The Lead Performers

The girl in red played the Spring theme, while the tall girl on her left played the Winter theme. The two gentlemen who played Summer and Autumn are not in this picture. Have to say, I love each of their performance, especially the ones under Winter theme. It’s hard to believe that the girl who led the theme was only 15 year old. She carried herself too well to be that young. At age 15, I was just running errands for my seniors 😦

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2nd day of Daicon. No promoting Go, just enjoying the cosplay!

During the times when I watched anime really a lot, I had two things in mind. Dreams, and fantasies. With dreams, I aligned myself to the story line, got myself to learn Go, kendo, and boxing. I dreamt of being as good in those as Hikaru, Kenshin Himura and Makunouchi Ippo.

With fantasies, I dont think I need to say much.

This girl was extremely popular among photographers. She’s awesome and I regret that my presence spoils the picture 😦 . Why couldn’t I look more of a hero? Why couldn’t I be more creative with the pose?

A tease 10 cm too short?

These two were cool.

Amazing group which was also highly popular with the photographers. The blue one was especially gorgeous (personal opinion).

Some photographer asked her to do this weird pose, and I was too lazy to wait for her to stand up.

Another take of the blue girl.

Neat!

Anyway, Fallingstones had also posted about the event on his blog. Found a picture of myself playing against the MWA President, Mr Tiong there.

Another picture of me, this time playing a teaching game with a beginner. Picture from MWA forum, posted by Shino. Thanks.

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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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Break-in

Ah, break-in. I wonder how come this PC I am using was not swept along by the robbers. I guess the complicated wiring behind the PC demotivated them somewhat.

Honestly, I don’t feel a thing. I lost PS3, my Vaio laptop and my 32″ LG LCD TV. The Sony Bravia 32″ TV I had just recently bought for my mom is also gone. Perhaps the outrage has simply not come yet.

DAMN ! I LOST PS3 BEFORE FINAL FANTASY IS RELEASED ! Okay, maybe has come a bit 🙂

Yawn ..

I’m glad they didn’t touch my books, the only real gems that I care about.

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Oxbridge Malaysia mayBall

I have just returned from Oxbridge Mayball, held in Bankers Club, Amoda Building along Jalan Imbi. I was not Oxford or Cambridge graduate, but since TM was the sponsor of the event together with Deloitte, we got a table there. The dinner was preceded by a snake-charming perfomance which was quite scary. I don’t like snakes and I think nobody should.

Unexpectedly, I had an encounter with my old teachers, Mr Beadsworth who taught me Mechanics and Mrs Beadsworth who taught me Computing during A-Level. There isn’t much to talk about the Mr, as I dislike the subject Mechanics very much and skipped the classes very often. But Computing, I loved it so much. I was so crazy about Pascal programming that time, to the point of doing advanced programming involving objects, video displays, ASM functions etc although they were not required. And I overdid every assignment. And I did not sleep! In my report card, Mrs Beadsworth commented that “I was too eager to impress”. LOL 🙂 That’s not entirely true. I was just too passionate about programming and wanted others too feel similarly.

Anyway, I told the couple that I was now working as Solution Consultant for networking, and I told Mrs Beadsworth how I was very much still into programming. I hope she’s proud to have produced a programming maniac like me.

Overall the dinner was nice, full with laughter as people listened to hilarious speeches made by Cambridge and Oxford alumni taunting each other, although I didn’t get some of them. The dinner finished around 11:00 p.m. , and since I couldn’t find any girl to take to the dance floor, I went home right away. 😦

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AABC and KPMC Selection Tournament

I can sleep well tonight. Relief in the knowledge that my Go is NOT dead yet. 🙂

Today, MWA held a selection tournament to choose representatives to go to Asia Amateur Baduk Championship and Korean Prime Minister Cup (KPMC), in Changwon City and Jeongju respectively. Both are in Korea.

I’m happy to mention here that I have won the selection tournament after winning all four rounds, first against Alex, then Mr Lee Choon Huat, then Philip and finally Jimmy. The game against Alex was especially hard as it was full of fighting. In fact, a rather big corner group of mine was killed in the middle game. But then, I started attacking hard one of his group, and managed to make a ko to kill. My dead corner group was an excellent source of ko threats, and finally Alex had to allow this group to be brought back to life to save his own.

Against Mr Lee, I had early advantage after killing a rather large group of his just after fuseki. What follows is just a real solid play from my part to wrap up the game quickly.

Whereas against Philip, I got an advantage after killing his group in the middle game. Which was rather lucky as I was behind in territory following his 4-corner strategy with black.

In the final match against Jimmy, I started behind in fuseki, due to having a weak group and no potential growth. However, as the game proceeded, I started making few gains here and there and finally managed to gain lead just before macroendgame. Anyway, unfortunately the game could not be finished as Jimmy’s time had run out.

Final result:

Champion: Mohd Zaid Waqiyuddin
2nd: Philips Cher Wei Ching
3rd: Alex Chan Hong Guan
4th: Jimmy Chen Khai Yong
5th: Waynes Leong

The prize for winning was being able to choose which tournament to go to, AABC or KPMC. I have not made my mind yet, and not going to soon, as my brain is already too tired. I just want sleep well tonight. Yesterday, I did not sleep at all to play Go on KGS for some instant training. Felt really horrible in the morning, but I guess it all paid off now 🙂

Interestingly, we had a small boy joining our activity today, although he was not part of the tournament. The boy seems to be promising, currently at single digit kyu as estimated by Dennis. More interestingly, the boy is also said to be a very strong chess player with rating in the 2000+ range ! That’s much stronger than I ever was in chess.

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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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