World Amateur Go Championship / Discussion

26th WAGC - 2005

unkx80: Pieter Mioch has a set of articles at [ext] Gobase describing the 26th WAGC. It is very interesting to note how close the Korean participant Seo Jung-Hwi brushed against the rules and spirit of the WAGC. He was not a professional when he registered for the WAGC but has been already conferred professional status when he participated in it, which is quite an unfortunate timing. Such an event is also unprecedented in the more than two dozen years in the history of the WAGC. The Nihon ki-in allowed Seo Jung-Hwi to participate in the tournament, but the decision is not without some ruckus on he ground, especially when there is an odd number of participants this year. Anyway, the (South) Korean professional did not win, he was placed in the fourth place behind China, North Korea and Taiwan.

MK Do WAGC rules forbid participation of representatives who are not citizens of countries they represent?

pwaldron: Yes. They require a copy of each representative's passport be submitted with their registration papers.


25th WAGC - 2004

HolIgor: The Indian representative is 9 years old 1kyu.

unkx80: Fu Li is playing again? He was professional 4 dan before retiring! I guess he is going to sweep this WAGC again with 8 wins.

Bob McGuigan: Not necessarily. There are probably other players at mid-level pro strength, such as the Japanese representative Nakazono. I'm not sure that having been a pro is a bar against playing as an amateur. In fact, in China, pro status is not just related to strength. They have to play in certain tournaments and perform other required duties to maintain pro status. As for strength, the first WAGC winner, Nie Wei Ping was 9p strength when he won the tournament. And the Japanese player Sakai who won in 2000 turned pro and started at 5p.

  • DrStraw: Is it permitted that former professionals play in this tournament? I thought that once a professional, always a professional. Is Fu Li really a former pro or is this a rumor?
  • unkx80: For the first question, Bob has answered above. My answer to the last question is that it is not a rumour, unless that man was bluffing me.

HolIgor: If the record of the 5th round game between Ted Ning and Diana Koszegi is correct, then Ted Ning is an extraordinary gentleman.

Stefan: Indeed. No further discussion as to who wins the fair-play prize.

DrStraw What is this about?

RafaelCaetano: See the [ext] game record. I was puzzled when I saw it. Only now I understood that Ning must have done it on purpose (his last move, I mean).

(you need a [ext] UGI viewer to see the games; gGo will do as well)

unkx80: I am suprised as well. Could the obvious blunder by Diana be attributed to time pressure? Yet Ning allowed Diana to win by 0.5. Wow, I can't do that.

Velirun: Maybe he was under time pressure as well, and was off-count by one point... that would be rather tragic.

Rafael: Not likely, Velirun. Diana's mistake is understandable, but it wouldn't make sense for Ning to connect instead of capturing. Also, my professor pointed out that in the final position White (Ning) wins by 0.5. Either the game record is wrong or (more likely) Ning gave up one more point, so that the result was as if Diana hadn't blundered. Which makes sense: it would be no good to be half a gentleman, refraining to win by 30 points only to win by half a point.

Tderz: (1) True sportsmanship ("fair play" in the British sense?) by Ning if Ning had won anyway by a clear margin X and did not want to win by X+50. (I cannot count so well).

(2) However, I wonder whether Diana was not ahead at that point and Ning did not want to win that way either. Fair Play again by Ning not to win like this (like .. as Diana blundered).

(3) The ethical question would continue, that if - in another situation -, when Ning would have won (clearly) and only his fair-play-attitude, accepting that Diana corrects her mistake would have cost him those points which swing the game (hence a true mistake of evaluation), THEN
Diana could have chosen not to accept the outcome and return the rightful win to him.

Quote: No-Mind: The Structure of Conflict ''The Way of the game is not about victory but about self-realization through discipline. (...) "The proper method, said the man, was to lose all awareness of self while awaiting an adversary's play" (...) One immediately recognizes here the Zen concept of "no-mind" as it appears in Japanese martial arts. It describes the peculiar form of self-forgetfulness involved in effective sport or combat. (...) "non-attachment" can be extended down to the level of attentive processes, freeing the actor from inhibiting concentration on either self or other. This loosening of focus banishes hesitation and fear and improves fighting performance. (...) The doctrine of no-mind agrees that apparent dualities reveal a more fundamental unity. (...) the goal is not to rise above conflict in reconciliation but to achieve total identification with the context of struggle in the very course of playing one's own conflictual role. If conflict can be transcended, it must be from within, without setting up a third consciousness above the fight. The same point can be made in relation to Go. Insofar as the players identify completely with the situation of the board, i.e., with the "whole," they can assume their role unreservedly and carry it out apart from any concern with survival or victory. This no-mind is not a mystical unconsciousness, but a consciousness that has become one with the formal requirements of the activity frame and that sees its role within that frame as in some sense "logically" entailed rather than personally motivated. Good play thus has nothing to do with one-sided personal aggression; at the height of the most intense competition, the players are joined in harmony in the construction of the board, much as singers respond to each other in a piece of complex choral music. Their unity, expressed in their mutually responsive moves, takes precedence over their struggle. Ultimately, they "form one single person." ''

Or in short: the winner cannot achieve the win without the help of the other.


On a totally separate front... I just wanted to check if it was okay to take the ugi files (is ugi synonymous with ugf?) from the wagc site, make them into sgf and place them available for download. Can I take it there are no copyright objections?

DougRidgway See kifu copyright discussion and KfLenz and links. Dr. Lenz's views are particularly interesting because he is a professor of IP law in Japan.


Machi? The game record was wrong. In actual play, Diana (b) won by 0.5, and Ted (w) asked for a recount to confirm the result. Thank god this game just happens to be IGS-lived and they have the kifu.


choreck I can not see game records from the [ext] http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/amakisen/worldama/26/live-e.htm , is there anything that should be set? I added nihonkiin.or.jp to my allowed list in ZoneAlarm and !IExplorer.

IanDavis View source and download the badgers if you haven't installed the software needed

DrStraw Here is a quote from the official page of the 26th WAGC ([ext] http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/amakisen/worldama/26/index-e.htm): The winner, will receive a cup and the title "25th World Amateur Go Champion" and will also receive an amateur 8-dan diploma from the Nihon Ki-in.


World Amateur Go Championship / Discussion last edited by 50.23.115.116 on January 23, 2015 - 08:44
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