Interview with Michael Thai

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Michael Thai

Michael Thai, 2-kyu, faced six dan-ranked players during the World Amateur Go Championship and beat two of them to finish 48th, with three wins in all. A chemistry student who went on to get a PhD in drug development at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, he has an unusual family history: his father was one of the boat people who fled Vietnam around 1980. Ranka talked with him after the seventh round.

Ranka: Please start by telling us about your family background.
Michael: My father, Thai Nga Van, was one of the very first Vietnamese people to come to Ireland. He started a Vietnamese community in Ireland for the Vietnamese people there. He passed away just a few years ago, on the day I submitted my PhD thesis. There was an article about this in the Irish Times. He always wanted me to venture off, like the boat people I’m descended from, and he pushed all his children to get a university education, because he never had a chance to do that himself. My getting a PhD spoke volumes for the Vietnamese community. It was a very proud moment for them when I started my PhD studies. Unfortunately my father didn’t see me get the degree, but he knew I was working on it.

Ranka: Tell us more about your PhD work.
Michael: My PhD work involved an antibody receptor site. I was in a group that was developing an antagonist that blocks antibody-mediated diseases, which can range from arthritis to sepsis and other infections. We successfully patented this work, and are now awaiting future developments.

Ranka: What did you do after getting your PhD?
Michael: I stayed with the same group to do post-doc work of an analytical nature. I measured the variability of the drug in the blood. I spent just about a year doing that, and from there I got hired to work in a chemical company called Henkel. They’re the biggest adhesive company in the world — they make Loctite super glue — and that’s only one of their three main businesses. Another is laundry and home care, and the third is beauty care. You may have heard of Persil detergent and Schwarzkopf shampoo. I work on adhesive development and research at their Dublin site. Adhesive development is not my post-doc field, but the work is still chemistry. This is one of only two places in Ireland doing research like this on an industrial scale. So I was very happy when I started working there because I was working in industry but continuing my research

Ranka: Let’s get black to blood analysis. Can you tell us more about your post-doc work?
Michael: I was working on the development of a drug that can get bound to plasma proteins in blood.The problem with this plasma protein binding is that when you administer a drug, you lose the part that binds to the blood plasma. Actually, the drug is still there but it’s released slowly. So you have to measure the plasma protein binding and find how much is bound and how much is not bound in order to figure out the efficacy of the drug and know how much to give. If you give too much it will accumulate in the bloodstream, and the patient may get an overdose.

Ranka: And when did you learn to play go?
Michael: I started playing go when I was in university. I was born in Dublin, but I did my undergraduate work in Galway, on the other side of Ireland, because I wanted to get away from Dublin and be free. It was a great experience for me. Two of the new friends I made in Galway were go players, Colin Lafferty and Richard Brennan, and they introduced me to the game thirteen years ago. Richard has been playing go for the last twenty-odd years, and his enthusiasm for the game kept me going. I haven’t been very active in the Irish go scene for the past few years because when I started doing my PhD work I just didn’t have the time, but now that I’ve started working for a company and am not completely focused on my PhD, I find myself with time again, and I hope to make a comeback in the next few years.

Ranka: How are you doing in this World Amateur Go Championship?
Michael: So far I have two wins out of seven games. Two of the games I lost were close, but in the other three I was way out of my depth. But regardless of that, I’ve really enjoyed this tournament. It’s my first international tournament. I came here not knowing anybody, but the go scene here has been very social. The phrase ‘everybody’s in the same boat’ is very applicable to this tournament. Seeing and meeting all these people from different countries has been another great experience.

Ranka: Of the seven games you’ve played, which did you enjoy the most?
Michael: My game with the Portuguese player, even though I lost. We were close in rank, so I was not out of my depth. My opening was poor and I got behind, but I managed to reduce his territory and it came down to the komi. The game was very tight, so we played it out and counted to see who won. In all my other games, either I resigned or my opponent resigned.

Ranka: All those resignations suggest that you are a fighter on the go board.
Michael: I am very aggressive, which is kind of bad. I like to fight, I fight a lot, and that’s the reason for my poor openings. This is my style of play at the moment. Hopefully I will incorporate more sober moves into my game in the future so that I won’t get into these bad positions.

Ranka: The Irish Times quoted you as saying you had been a little rascal in your school days. Were you a fighter back then too?
Michael: You have to know certain things about about the history of Ireland. When I was a kid, Ireland didn’t have a lot of foreigners, so when I would walk around its main city of Dublin, I would probably be the only non-Irish person on the street, and other kids would call me names. I was a very independent and strong-willed boy, so I didn’t take those things lying down. But back then, when I was in school, it was just kids being kids, and I was one of just a few foreigners. Now it’s totally changed. Ireland is much more international. They’re accepting people of many different nationalities and it’s a different scene altogether. Ireland is a beautiful country to visit, and I do love living there.

Ranka: Thank you very much.

Interview with Carlo Metta

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Carlo Metta

In addition to organizing the upcoming European Go Congress, Carlo Metta played for Italy at this year’s World Amateur Go Championship. Ranka interviewed him after the fifth round.

Ranka: How did you learn to play go?
Carlo: In 2007, eleven years ago, I was a university student and one of my fellow students was fond of Japanese culture. One day he showed me a strange board which he called a go-ban and started putting stones on. That’s how I started this journey. I was immediately fond of this game. Within maybe five months I was already three or four kyu, and in one year I reached one dan. I competed in the World Amateur Go Championship in 2012 and came back this year because I was at the top of the Italian rotation system. That gave me the privilege to chose whether to go or not go to the WAGC this year and of course I chose to go.

Ranka: And you are also the main organizer of the European Go Congress?
Carlo: I’m one of three or four main organizers. I’m handling e-mail, entry applications, and finances. During the tournament I’ll be one of the referees and I’ll be managing the pairings. Right now I’m very busy, working late at night as new applications and payments keep coming in. People also ask a lot of questions: whether their entry payments have arrived or not, if they’re on the list or not, if their vegetarian restrictions can be accommodated — everyone has a question to pose.

39wagc-egc-logoRanka: Is everything going smoothly?
Carlo: Up to now, yes, it is. Our plan was to get at least seven hundred players, and we already have more than a thousand. I’m not sure what the current figure is exactly, but we reached the one thousand mark more than three months ago.

Ranka: Can you tell us more about the plans for the congress?
Carlo: The congress will be held in Pisa, which is a beautiful city in Tuscany, near Florence. The site will be the Pisa Congress Palace, which is a facility in downtown Pisa, a ten-minute walk from the train station, that can be used by various associations and federations for congresses and other events. We’ve booked the entire Congress Palace building, but we have so many people coming it probably won’t be enough; we’ll have to book another place as well.

Ranka: Where will the participants stay?
Carlo: In hotels, hostels, houses, and apartments, mainly in Airbnb accommodations.

Ranka: What events have you planned for the congress?
Carlo: A lot of events. The championship, of course, an open tournament, the weekend tournament, and more than twenty side events: nine-by-nine and thirteen-by-thirteen tournaments, a women’s championship, youth championships, an endgame tournament, pair go — I can’t remember all of them. There will also be excursions, and there will be a scientific congress on the second Wednesday and the following Thursday, with about ten invited speakers: European scientists who will talk about AI and other game-related and computer-related topics. The Leela developers will be there to discuss their software, which started from zero and has already gotten strong enough to beat several professionals. I doubt that I could beat it with a five-stone handicap.

Ranka: Please tell us a little more about the excursions.
Carlo: We’ll take people sightseeing in Pisa and Florence, maybe in Lucca, which is a very beautiful town near Pisa, and other towns like Siena, which is very, very beautiful. We’ll also take people to the beach. There will be something like one or two excursions every day, with big excursions on the weekend and a free day on Wednesday. You can see the schedule on the web page.

Ranka: What weather can the participants expect?
Carlo: Well, summer in Pisa is usually very sunny. It rarely rains but it can get really, really hot. Last year, during another congress, the temperature went up to 45 degrees. But the venue will be air conditioned, and we plan to give the players plenty of ice cream and things to drink.

Ranka: Organizing all this sounds like a lot of work for just three or four main organizers.
Carlo: Yes, but this year, for the first time, we’ve asked other players to join the organization. A lot of people responded, maybe more than fifty. Twenty of them are Italians, but we also have players from Germany, Russia, the Ukraine, and other countries helping out. We really thank them for the assistance they’re giving now and will continue to give during the congress, where they’ll help us look after the equipment and organize the tournaments and participants.

Ranka: Have you enjoyed the WAGC here in Tokyo so far?
Carlo: Yes, of course. My opponent’s have been a little tough, but maybe I’ll be luckier in my next three games.

Ranka: Good luck in everything!

Postscript: After this interview Carlo, who is ranked 4 dan, drew three 5-dan opponents, but he beat one of them and finished 41st out of 61, highest in the three-win group.

Interview with Murakami Fukashi

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Murakami Fukashi

Murakami Fukashi, this year’s Japanese contestant, is a former Amateur Honinbo making his first appearance in the World Amateur Go Championship. He won six games and finished fifth, but his interests extend beyond just winning games. He is a go instructor with ambitions that may change the future of Japanese go.

Ranka: First please tell us about your work in go education.
Murakami: I’m now a director of the All-Japan Go Organization headed by Kikuchi Yasuro, who is a living legend among Japanese amateur players. One of the major aims of this organization is to have go included in the school curriculum in Japan, along with such elementary and middle school subjects as reading, writing, arithmetic, and social studies. That aim may be idealistic and it won’t be easy to achieve, but it’s our goal. We have various things we know we need to do to reach this goal. Teaching more children to play go, the project I’m involved with, is one of the very basic things, but another thing, which I’ve become interested in recently, has to do with older people. Japan is an aging society, so is Korea, and in the future China will be too. You can teach children to play go, but as they grow up they go through various life events. Japanese children have to study for entrance examinations to get into middle school, high school, and university. Then they’ll get jobs, get married, and start raising families. That’s the stage I’m in now. The ones who really like go may keep it up, but somewhere along the line the others will drop out because they’re too busy, and it may be another thirty or forty years before they find time take go up again. Bringing these people back to the game will be very important in the future, but I think that future is too far off to be part of our present strategy.

So I’m proposing that what we should do in the nearer future, over the next three to five years, say, is to reach out to people in their sixties or seventies who might like to learn to play but fear that they are too old to do so — that it would be too hard. These people don’t have many events in their lives any more, so if we can get them started by making the game easy for them to learn, they will have time to pursue it as a hobby. I think people like this would also be a good business target for us. They have time and they have money. Teaching children may be the standard strategy, but if we can put together a good beginners’ program for old people, it might turn out to be a game-changer.
This is considered difficult, but health is now a major issue, and not just physical health. People are worried about loss of mental function: about Alzheimer’s disease, for example. We know we should be working to keep older people’s minds healthy. So it occurred to me that this would provide a good opening for the game of go. Another person who thought so is Iizuka Ai, a former insei. She started her own project about three or four years ago by using go as a type of mental medical treatment, and now she’s published her results in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias. With her paper as a basis, I’m hoping that the movement will start to spread.

I spent seven years at Fujitsu trying to add value to intangible things so that they could be offered to people on a business basis, as something worthwhile. As all go players know, go has a lot of good value to offer. So I think that talking about dementia and go, presenting go as a game with the added value of maintaining a healthy brain, might be a good way to introduce it to people who don’t know anything about it, get them to understand it, and spread the game further. I think our long-term strategies should be aimed at both children and old people; they’re our best targets. It’s hard to approach people with company jobs, because they’re too busy.
I’m now working as an assistant at a children’s go classroom once a week, so I’m acquiring some know-how about how to teach go to children. For people both young and old, communication is a key factor. I’m in the process of trying out various ways of communicating with children so as to get them to enjoy the game — how to talk to them, what facial expressions to use, body language, and so on.

Ranka: Now that the championship is over, how do you evaluate your performance?
Murakami: I studied go under Cho Chikun, a Korean-born 9-dan, another living legend, in order to become a pro, but my progress got stuck, so I enrolled at a university, graduated, found a job, and worked at it for seven years. Then two years ago I quit and returned to go, to make a living as a go instructor. I took part in some other international tournaments as a student, but there was a ten-year blank between those tournaments and this one, and that made this world championship a very stimulating experience. Currently, at both the amateur and professional levels, the strongest players are in their teens or twenties. I sensed during this tournament that a person in his thirties can’t keep up with them — can’t read things out as fast as they can. But for the past two years I’ve being trying to get my game back into shape, and this tournament has given me confidence because I was able to play well against the Chinese and Korean players. Now I can see more clearly what I still need to do, and I know I can still improve. So I want very much to compete in this tournament again, and win it in the future.

Ranka: Thank you, and we hope all your projects succeed.

Interview with Celeste Abat

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Celeste Abat

In the last round of competition, the Philippine’s Celeste Abat trounced India’s Shashank Dave, scoring her first win on the board, to escape from last place in the final standings. Ranka interviewed her the next day, after lunch at a noodle restaurant near Lake Yamanaka.

Ranka: How did you get started with go?
Celeste: By watching Hikaru no Go. Then I asked my friend Aki from Hokkaido to teach me how to play, and things started to move from there. He suggested that I should e-mail Yuki Shigeno, the secretary general of the International Go Federation at the time, so I did; she put me in touch with Mr. Izeki, a go player in the Philippines; he directed me to a go club; and I started going there every Saturday.

Ranka: And how did you get to be the president of the Philippine Go Association?
Celeste: No one else wanted to lead it. I had already been its secretary general, and I felt a need to look after its members, so I took the leadership role.

Ranka: How often does the association meet to play go?
Celeste: Usually once a month, because most of the players are too busy working to meet every week.

Ranka: Do you have tournaments?
Celeste: Yes, at least two or three tournaments every year. Right now we have a national tournament coming up in June.

Ranka: How strong are your strongest players?
Celeste: In the association, three dan. Actually we have stronger players in the Philippines, but many of them are shy about joining up, because of the time involved. What I need to do is help them solve this problem, so they can participate on a flex-time basis. I want to encourage them to come to the tournaments, because I know they’re strong and have a chance to win.

Ranka: How many members do you have?
Celeste: About fifty.

Ranka: Are they mostly Philippine-born, or immigrants from the Asian mainland?
Celeste: Philippine-born, almost all of them. We get asked about this, because we sent a Korean immigrant to the first Korea Prime Minister Cup and he took third place.

Ranka: How did you qualify to come here?
Celeste: By beating a one-kyu in our most recent tournament. I didn’t win the tournament, but the players who finished first and second had already been to the World Amateur Go Championship, so they asked me to go instead.

Ranka: Now, please tell us about your game with the Indian player.
Celeste: I had been playing very meekly in this tournament. I guess he thought I was not very strong, because he played by just responding to my moves. He didn’t notice that one of his groups had been killed. When he finally realized that it was dead, he tried to save it but wasn’t able to, and lost by more than twenty points. I think he was disappointed, because he’s stronger than me.

Ranka: Did you enjoy the tournament?
Celeste: Yes, I really enjoyed it. It was a good experience for me to be the only girl competing. Sometimes it was hard, but it turned out okay.

Ranka: Thank you and best of luck to the Philippine Go Association.

Interview with Kim Sangcheon

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Kim Sangcheon

The day after the World Amateur Go Championship ended, most of the players went on an excursion to see the lakes around Mt. Fuji, and this gave Ranka a chance to talk with the second-place finisher, Korea’s Kim Sangcheon.

Ranka: How did you start playing go?
Kim: One of my friends learned to play, he taught me the game, and I thought it was fun.

Ranka: And then?
Kim: I started playing seriously. I went from elementary school, where my favorite subject was the Korean language, into the Han Jongjin go dojo. I never attended middle school or high school. My aim was, and still is, to become a professional go player.

Ranka: How many Korean amateur tournaments have you won recently?
Kim: Just one so far this year. That was the Wangwi Cup, which was also the qualification tournament for the World Amateur Go Championship. Last year I won a few more, including both individual and team tournaments.

Ranka: Have you played in any other international tournaments?
Kim: Yes, not world tournaments like this one but tournaments with Chinese players.

Ranka: What was your best game in the World Amateur Go Championship?
Kim: My game with Wang Chen, the Chinese player. But even though I won, I’m not satisfied with it, because I made some mistakes in the endgame.

Ranka: To change the subject, what’s your favorite food?
Kim: Chicken!

Ranka: What do you think of Japanese food?
Kim: Well, everything I’ve had here has been great.

Ranka: Getting back to go, do you make any use of AI?
Kim: I don’t have any AI go software on my personal computer, but I use the AlphaGo Teaching Tool on their website, and I play online against the Fine Art AI on the Fox go platform. There are several versions of Fine Art. One version plays handicap go, and I’ve played against that one.

Ranka: At what handicap?
Kim: Two stones plus a 6.5-point reverse komi.

Ranka: Do you win or lose?
Kim: Win. Actually I’ve only played against it once, but I’ve also played against other AIs: for example, Leela.

Ranka: Aside from playing go, how do you spend your time? Do you have any hobbies?
Kim: Yes, bowling.

Ranka: Thank you very much.

Final Day of Play

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Chan Yi-Tien

For the final day of the World Amateur Go Championship the sunshine that had prevailed so far gave way to cloudy skies, but the temperature was still comfortable. Tokyo is in the process of sprucing up for the 2020 Olympics, and many players commented on the cleanliness and attractiveness of the area around their hotel and the Nihon Kiin, where the seventh round started promptly at 9:30 a.m.

Only a few spectators were on hand for the start, and most of them congregated around the game between the Chinese and Korean players. In the past, this game has often determined the champion. This year, it seemed more likely to become a playoff for second place, following Chinese Taipei’s double win yesterday, but both players played in earnest, taking time over their moves. Korea’s Kim Sangcheon had regained his aplomb, and won by resignation.

A few boards away, Chinese Taipei’s undefeated Chan Yi-Tien was sparring with the player from Singapore, Kwa Jie-Hui. Mr. Hwa (black) began with an AI-style two-space enclosure. Mr. Chan immediately sliced into it with a white attachment at the four-four point. After a pair of hanes, Hwa started giving atari and cutting white apart. In short order he had nabbed two white stones in the corner, and eventually he nabbed four more and built his position up into some fifty points of territory, but white countered by constructing a territory of nearly sixty points in and around the adjacent corner. Most of the endgame was played in overtime, and when the score was counted, white was 8.5 points ahead. Chan was still undefeated.

Another key sixth-round game was the one between Poland’s Stanislaw Frejlak and Hungary’s Csaba Mero to see which of them would be Chan’s next opponent. Both Stanislaw and Csaba have trained in the far east and have the habit of kneeling in their chairs. The game lasted almost until noon. Asked to describe what happened, Stanislaw said, ‘Perhaps I came out of the opening about even, but then some fights started. They were really tight and I didn’t know how to play. In the second half of the middle game, however, I sharpened up. My opponent tried to resist but it did not work out so well for him. When we started the endgame I was in a good position because my groups were settled, and in the end I won by fifteen points.’

Dmitri Surin

Yet another key game featured Canada’s Yongfei Ge and Russia’s Dmitri Surin, two players with five wins apiece. Yongfei outranked Dmitri, 7 dan to 6 dan, but Dmitri’s greater experience paid off. He won his second straight game, handing Yongfei his second straight loss. It was close. Yongfei actually thought that he had won, but the chief referee Michael Redmond replayed the game and confirmed that Dmitri was ahead. The Russian’s reward was a match with China’s Wang Chen in the final round.

This blow to North American honor was countered by the players from the other two North American countries. Mexico’s Jose Abraham Florencia Islas, who lost two games on the first day of play but then went on a winning streak, now tackled Switzerland’s John Walch and ticked off his fifth straight win. The USA’s Aaron Ye did his part by downing Israel’s Amir Fragman. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Lo Cheuk-Tung was defending far-eastern honor by beating Romania’s Christian Pop, to earn a last-round pairing with Japan’s Murakami Fukashi.

In the last round Singapore’s Hwa, who had failed to score a stunning upset in the seventh round, got a second chance: he was paired against Korea’s Kim. But there were to be no stunning upsets. The big four won all of their last games, Chinese Taipei over Poland, Korea over Singapore, China over Russia, and Japan over Hong Kong. Jose Islas extended his winning streak to six games by beating Australia’s Xin Lei, and Yongfei Ge halted his losing streak at two by beating Aaron Ye.

Stanislaw Frejlak described his loss to Chan Yi-Tien and his feelings about the WAGC as follows: ‘Chan was very strong. We played a modern opening with two three-three-point invasions. Soon after that we started a fight and it didn’t look so good for me, but then I found a move I was really proud of and somehow I managed to settle the shape, and I thought I was not doing badly. After a few more moves, however, I realized that it would be difficult to win, and I didn’t even know what I had done wrong. So then I started to play even more aggressively and I collapsed. I played the game out because I was in overtime and didn’t have time to count the score, but in the end I lost by over thirty points. Now I feel a bit upset about continuing a game in which I was so far behind, but I’ve really liked the tournament as a whole. When I reviewed my games with professionals, I realized I had made many mistakes, but I still had the feeling that I was doing my best.’

Xin Lei

Xin Lei described his loss to the Mexican player and his feelings as follows: ‘I think I played pretty badly, actually. I made some bad choices early in the game and it just went downhill from there. But I also think Jose is pretty strong. Despite losing, I’ve enjoyed the tournament very much. The games were very competitive. There were a lot of very close games. I enjoyed all the games, and even when we weren’t playing we had a lot of fun. I got to experience a lot of the cultural aspects of Japan, and of course I enjoyed just being in the Nihon Kiin. There’s a lot of history here. It’s been an honor to be here.’

After losing to Stanislaw Frejlak in the morning, Csaba Mero still had a shot at one of the top eight places, but his last opponent was Finland’s Juri Kuronen. Juri described what happened, and his feelings, as follows: ‘We played a fighting game from start to finish. To be honest I didn’t know who was going to win, but I made a very slow move and Csaba got to take a critical point. After that I felt very bad, but I was able to cut him into two groups. I didn’t know if the cut would work, but I was able to make a ko, and a few moves later I think I got the lead. But it was an anything-can-happen kind of game. It’s been a nice tournament. I’m not in the best shape at the moment. I think I’ve only played two tournaments in the last two years, because I’m focusing on my work and university studies, so I’m pretty happy that I managed to get six wins. But I think I got lucky with the pairings. I didn’t have to play against any of the top contenders: China, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, or Hong Kong.’

In the final standings, undefeated Chinese Taipei was undisputed champion. Korea was the only country with one loss and took second place. Six players finished with six wins and they took the next six places, China third, Poland fourth, Japan fifth, Finland sixth, Serbia seventh, Mexico eighth, and earned awards. No awards were given out for lower places, but Spain’s Oscar Vasquez received the Asada Shizuo Fighting Spirit Prize, and even the players who went home empty-handed did not necessarily go home unhappy. Here’s what two of them said:

Hordur Thordarson (New Zealand): ‘My last game was against an opponent from Azerbaijan. I was getting tired after the long tournament, but fortunately it was not too hard and I managed to win easily. I finished with three wins, but the tournament has been absolutely incredible, amazing. This is the first major tournament that I’ve attended, and I would really like to attend some more after this great experience.’

Jeremie Hertz (Luxembourg): ‘In my last game I lost to Malaysia. I think he’s stronger than me, but it was quite even until the middle of the game. Despite this loss, I’m very satisfied with the tournament. I’m two kyu, but I beat the shodan player from Turkey, I got four wins in all, and I finished 35th, my best result ever.’

The closing ceremony was held in the playing hall shortly after the final round. The referees, Michael Redmond, Yuki Satoshi, and Aoba Kaori, awarded cups to the top three finishers and plaques to the next five; Michael Redmond congratulated all the players; and the sponsors presented additional awards, including sets of tea and sweets, go equipment, and framed pictures that moved under smartphone control. The last award to be given out was the best: two reservations for dinner at Sushi Isshin, a top-class Tokyo restaurant, arranged by Gurunavi. This award went to the champion, Chan Yi-Tien, who said he would invite Cheng Khai-Yong, the Malaysian player, to join him, since the latter had been very helpful in showing him around Tokyo.

And on this cheerful note, the 39th World Amateur Go Championship ended. However, some of the players were planning to stay in Japan for a while, and most of them were taking part in a sightseeing excursion scheduled for the next day.

– James Davies

Interview with Hakki Guner

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Hakki Guner

Hakki Burak Guner, this year’s Turkish player, lends an exotic flavor to the World Amateur Go Championship with his Turkish garb and long hair. Ranka interviewed him after the fourth round.

Ranka: How did you do in the first three rounds?
Hakki: I started terribly by missing my first game, but then I won against the South African in the second round. In the third round Benjamin, the French player, was just too strong. I don’t think I could ever beat him, but it was good experience.

Ranka: How was your second-round game?
Hakki: Easier than I expected. Before the game started I thought he would win because I’m not in good shape. I haven’t been able to play online for the last few months because I’ve started working for my master’s degree and don’t have much extra time. But I got the black stones and just played my fuseki and did what I could and it was enough. Maybe he wasn’t in good shape either.

Ranka: And how was your last game against the Malaysian player, Cheng Khai-Yong?
Hakki: I screwed up. I started to play well, but later I made more mistakes than him so I lost.

Ranka: Well, he’s ranked at 4 dan and you at 1 dan.
Hakki: Yes, but I think there’s a difference between European ranks and Asian ranks.

Ranka: Do you play in many European tournaments?
Hakki: No, just Turkish tournaments.

Ranka: How many do you have?
Hakki: About one per month. There are several tournaments in Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara, and smaller tournaments there and in other cities. Many of the tournaments are held at universities, including my university, Hacettepe University in Ankara.

Ranka: Who is your best opponent in Turkey?
Hakki: Ozgur Degirmenci. He’s our best player, five dan. I like to play with him because he plays so smoothly — so regularly. Every time we play, I enjoy it. We also have some players at about the two dan level, and I like to play against them too. Most of our players are still at the kyu level, but the number of dan players is increasing.

Ranka: How else do you play or study go?
Hakki: I used to play a lot online. In my first year I played perhaps one thousand two hundred games. I would also watch a lot of games, and solve a lot of tsume-go problems. But now I do not have so much time to study go.

Ranka: Now please tell us about the master’s degree you’re studying for.
Hakki: It’s in science and mathematics for secondary education departments — how to teach biology to high-school students and some other educational stuff.

Ranka: And what do you plan to do after you get your degree?
Hakki: I’m planning to go abroad to study for a doctoral degree, maybe in Germany or Austria, because I studied biology teaching in the German language.

Ranka: Finally, please tell us something about Turkey.
Hakki: Turkey has a lot of tourist attractions and a lot of good swimming beaches on the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the Aegean Sea. Also, we’re in Mesopotamia, so you can find a lot of relics, and a lot of natural beauty if you like to hike or climb mountains.

Ranka: Thank you, and good luck in your remaining games.

Third Day of Play

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After coasting through the first two days of the World Amateur Go Championship, on the third day the big four, the contestants from China, Chinese Taipei, Japan, and Korea, were paired against each other. In the morning round, in the northwest corner of the playing hall, Japan’s Murakami Fukashi faced Korea’s Kim Sangcheon. In the northeast corner, China’s Wang Chen faced Chinese Taipei’s Chan Yi-Tien. Between them, Poland’s Stanislaw Frejlak was playing Serbia’s Dusan Mitic, and Romania’s Christian Pop was playing the USA’s Aaron Ye.

Christian Pop

Of these four games, the ones among the Europeans and Americian finished first, victory going to Poland and Romania. Describing his game against Christian Pop, Aaron Ye said, ‘I lost by three and a half points. I felt that in the middle game I was a little ahead, but I lost in the endgame. His endgame is quite strong, and because his positions were very strong too, it was easy for him to pick up points there.’

The Japan-Korea and China-Chinese-Taipei games started with two versions of the 3-3-point invasion joseki popularized by AlphaGo. The Korea-Japan game ended shortly before noon, victory going to Korea. Mr. Murakami had this to say: ‘I good off to a good start in the opening, but then the fighting started and my opponent is very strong, so the game got difficult for me. There was one brief moment in the endgame when I thought I could see my way to victory, but then I played a nearly worthless move and fell behind. One problem was that I went into overtime before Mr. Kim.’

Asked for further elaboration, Mr. Murakami said, ‘I had gone over all of Kim’s games in the previous rounds. I could see that he had a strong, sharp attacking style, so I tried to construct strong positions that he could not destroy. If I can win my remaining games I think I might still win the championship, but I’ve heard that the player from Chinese Taipei has very good SOS points, which might make that difficult.’

Murakami (left) playing Kim

To make it even more difficult, just at noon the game between China and Chinese Taipei ended in a half-point win for Chinese Taipei. Chan Yi-Tien described his victory this way: ‘In the beginning I felt the game was even, but my position became unfavorable in the middle game. But then my opponent overlooked a key move, and I grabbed the chance to play it myself. That gave me a small advantage. In the endgame I was short of time and I may not have played the most efficient moves, and near the end my opponent set up a very difficult situation, but I managed to solve it and win. This was a very lucky win for me.’

All the other fifth-round games finished before noon. The players from Canada, Hungary, and Singapore matched Poland and Romania by scoring their fourth wins, and Sweden’s Kim Johansson scored his first win by downing South Africa’s Andre Connell.

Kim (left) playing Chan

In the sixth round in the afternoon, attention centered on the southeast corner of the hall, where the showdown between Korea and Chinese Taipei took place. Playing the white stones, Chan Yi-Tien conceded territory in the opening to launch an all-out attack on one of Kim Sangcheon’s groups. With the investment of considerable thought, Kim found a playable way to save part of it. Only five black stones were left definitely dead, but White had kept the initiative and the number of dead black stones kept growing — to eight, then sixteen, then eighteen — and White also seized territory in two corners. Kim, who had been the picture of dapper deportment so far in the tournament, had taken off his black sport coat and was now playing in his shirtsleeves, but to no avail. Unable to give the 6.5-point compensation, he resigned a little after three o’clock. Both players had about ten minutes of time left.

Asked about this victory the next morning, Chan said, ‘The Korean was probably very anxious and nervous during the game. He made two major mistakes. In the beginning of the game he thought one of his moves was sente but it really wasn’t. The second mistake was in the middle game, when he didn’t see that one of his groups was going to die.’

Stanislaw Frejlak

While Chan was winning his game, China’s Wang was playing with the white stones against Japan’s Murakami. After an unusual diagonal opening in which Black took opposite star points and White took opposite three-three points, Mr. Wang opted for a ko exchange and worked his way into a double-digit lead, forcing Murakami to resign. Later, Mr. Murakami had this to say about his loss: ‘When Wang and I went over the game, we agreed that there was a point, around the 90th move, where Black was ahead. That is, I was ahead. But when I went home and checked this out with the AI on my computer, the AI disagreed. It thought White was ahead. Apparently we humans were judging the position incorrectly. If the AI’s judgement is right, then I was behind from beginning to end, a complete wipe-out.’

Elsewhere in the sixth round, Singapore’s Kwa Jie-Hui, who aside from losing to Mr. Wang had been beating a succession increasingly strong opponents (4 dan, 5 dan, 6 dan, 6 dan), now added a 7 dan — Canada’s Yongfei Ge — to his list of conquests. This put him even with China and Korea in the one-loss group. Also joining this group were Stanislaw Frejlak, who defeated Australia’s Xin Lei, and Hungary’s Csaba Mero,who had beaten Vietnam’s Manh Linh Nguyen in the morning and now beat Hong Kong’s Lo Cheuk-Tung. Further down, Andre Connell and Armenia’s Ashot Margaryan, whose only wins so far had been byes, got their first taste of victory on the board by beating Azerbaijan’s Eichin Aliyev and the Philippines’ Celeste Abat.

– James Davies

Second Day of Play

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Wang Chen

The good weather continued on the second day of the World Amateur Go Championship, and many of the players took advantage of it to start the day with a fifteen-minute walk from the Green Palace Hotel, where they were staying, to the Nihon Kiin. All of them made it in time for the third round, which started at 9:30.

The 7-dan opponents faced by the undefeated B-group players in this round were the big four from China, Chinese Taipei, Japan, and Korea, plus Yongfei Ge from Canada. Yongfei is a veteran of many international tournaments, including the 2012 Korea Prime Minister Cup, where he took third place. Today he and the big four all came away from their morning encounters victorious.

The game between Polish champion Stanislaw Frejlak and Czech champion Jan Prokop was a closer contest. Both players are ranked 6 dan and both scored five wins in the WAGC in 2016 in Wuxi, China. Stanislaw had beaten Jan there, and now he did so again, by resignation, in a game broadcast live on the Internet.

At the shodan level, Hordur Thordarson, a cheerful weather forecaster from New Zealand, picked up his second straight WAGC win, at the expense of Mongolia’s Temuujin Bataa. By the end of the round, only seven players remained undefeated: the big four, and the players from Canada, Germany, and Hungary.

Aaron Ye

In the afternoon round, the big four continued to roll over the opposition. Korea’s Kim Sangcheon was drawn down against the USA’s Aaron Ye, who had already met and lost to China’s Wang Chen in the second round. Kim played as if he knew he was going to win, answering most of Aaron’s moves after only a few seconds of thought. Describing the game later, Aaron said, ‘Kim started out pushing and created a lot of influence in the center, so I tried to counter it by creating groups here and there. He attacked them, but I managed to live. Nevertheless, I think he was still a few points ahead going into the endgame, even after he made a blunder that let me gain a couple of points on him. But then in the last twenty moves or so I misread a position, resulting in a ko, and one of my large groups died. Then I tried to kill one of his groups the same way in return, but I couldn’t win that ko, so I resigned.’

Mr. Wang’s opponent in the fourth round was Hungary’s Csaba Mero. In a state of visible excitement, Csaba dramatically won a capturing race in the middle game, only to watch aghast as his opponent calmly built up his remaining territories and finished 16.5 points ahead. ‘According to the chief referee,’ Csaba said later, ‘when I captured those stones I already had a lost game. I was tricked.’

Germany’s Benjamin Teuber came a little closer in his game with Chinese Taipei’s Chan Yi-Tien: he lost by only 14.5 points. At least he forced his opponent to think hard until well into the middle game. Canada’s Yongfei Ge came closest to upsetting one of the big four. Japan’s Murakami Fukashi beat him by only 4.5 points, though it should perhaps be borne in mind that Mr. Murakami was the one who advised the stronger players in the tournament to take it easy on weaker opponents.

Celeste Abat (right) reviewing her game with the help of Michael Redmond 9P

At the other end of the field Malaysia’s Cheng Khai-Yong, who had received a bye in the third round after losing to opponents from Czechia and Slovakia, notched his first real victory by beating Turkey’s Hakki Guner. Three other winless players also scored their first successes: Brazil’s Thiago Shimada defeated Swedish 2-dan Kim Johansson, who had lost to one 3-dan and two 5-dans in the preceding rounds; Macau’s Tang Chan-Fai defeated Luxembourg’s Jeremy Hertz, a 4-dan beating a 1-kyu; and Bulgaria’s Teodor Nedev (2 kyu) had the honor of playing Celeste Abat (5 kyu), the Philippine player and the only woman competing this year. Celeste politely lost and received a bye in the next round.

– James Davies

Interview with Thiago Shinji Shimada Ramos

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Thiago Shinji Shimada Ramos is an enthusiastic Brazilian 6 dan who found an original way to pay his airfare to Japan: crowd funding. Ranka asked him about this and about recent go developments in Brazil.

Thiago Shinji Shimada Ramos

Ranka: Please start by telling us what’s going on with go in Brazil.
Thiago: One new thing is that some states have programs in which they teach elementary school teachers how to teach go to children. Most of the go activity is centered in Sao Paulo, where the Iwamoto go center and the Brazialian branch of the Nihon Kiin are located, but go is also spreading in Brazil on the Internet, and we have go clubs and strong players in Brasilia, Curitiba, and Rio de Janeiro as well. Because of the Internet, go players are turning up all over Brazil, and we’re all connected. Another thing is that most of our players are young, many of them thirteen to fifteen years old, and they were born in Brazil; they’re not immigrants from the Far East. So go is developing in Brazil. We already have one 5-dan on KGS.

Ranka: Now please tell us about your crowd funding project.
Thiago: At this championship we had to purchase our own airplane tickets, so I came up with the idea of a crowd funding project to finance mine. In this project I held go workshops, gave go lessons, played games, and commented on games. The project was a complete success, meeting its target 100 per cent. You can see the project website by googling ‘thiago rumo ao mundial‘.

Ranka: And what are your personal ambitions in this world championship?
Thiago: My ambition is to place among the top fifteen. I want to win five or six games.

Ranka: What other international tournaments have you taken part in?
Thiago: The first one was the KPMC, the Korea Prime Minister Cup, in 2010. After that I played in the World Amateur in 2013 and twice in the world student Oza tournament, in 2013 and 2014. I’ve also played in the World Mind Sports Games and the Ibero-American Go Championship, and in Ibero-American competition on the Internet.

Ranka: How do you like Japan?
Thiago: I really enjoy Japan. When I was a child I lived in Japan, in Ibaraki Prefecture and Aichi Prefecture, from age three to age six.

Ranka: Is that where you learned to play go?
Thiago: Actually, I got started later through Japanese comics and cartoons, manga and anime. A friend invited me over to look at some of these, and there I happened to see Hikaru no Go. It caught my interest and I watched the first three episodes; then I started playing the game.

Ranka: Thank you and we hope you have a good tournament.