Interview with Matti Siivola, Finland
I last competed in the WAGC in 2005. At the time I was working in computer security at a university. Since then I’ve been working in the same department at the university, but there have been some organizational changes, and now I’m looking for a new job. As for go, we held the European Go Congress in Finland in 2010, which had some importance for me. Mainly, I was involved in bringing it to Finland. I’ve also been playing at my club, and helping to organize some other go tournaments, like the European pair go championship in Helsinki, and I’ve started doing organizing work for my sailing club, in particular for the offshore world championship.
I started sailing as a kid when my father built an Optimist dinghy. Later, when I started to play go, that took up most of my time, but a couple of years ago I thought that go had become rather stable in Finland, and our sailing club had become involved in some European championships and then the offshore world championship, so I decided to get back into sailing. After starting out in the Optimist, which is just a child’s boat — an adult would be too heavy for it — I had sailed a Windmill, which they have in Finland and the United States, and my father had some bigger boats, such as an H boat and a Senorita Helmsman, so in the summer, when I wasn’t playing go, I went sailing again. I partnered with my father in a Windmill in the Finnish championship, and we took third place.