Seo Pong-su
Seo Pong-su (also written Suh Bongsoo and suchlike, born 1 February 1953) is a Korean 9-dan professional Go player. He started playing at age 14, achieved professional status in 1970, and was the fourth Korean 9 dan in 1986.
Throughout the 1980's he was Cho Hun-hyeon's main rival in the top Korean tournaments. In the early 1990's he was recognised as one of the "gang of four" who dominated the Korean go scene. Although he won the 2nd Ing Cup in 1993, he has generally been less successful than the rest of the gang of four (Cho Hun-hyeon, Yi Ch'ang-ho and Yu Ch'ang-hyeok) in international events. But in the 6th Jinro Cup Ring Contest (1996-1997), playing board four for Korea, he single-handedly defeated the entire Chinese team and all that was left of the Japanese team - a sequence of 9 consecutive wins comparable with Nie Weiping's successes in the Japan-China matches a decade earlier.
Though Seo is himself a great player, Cho Hun-hyeon formed a nearly impenetrable wall for him: according to GoGameWorld, he has been runner-up to Cho no fewer than fifty-one times, for which he was nicknamed "the bridesmaid of Korean baduk". As of 2010, he had played 363 games against Cho, winning 119 of them. He has also been runner-up to Cho's student, Yi Ch'ang-ho, five times. For comparison, he has defeated Cho for a title twelve times, and Yi Ch'ang-ho once. Fittingly, when the Daejoo Cup was first held for senior players in 2010, Seo was runner up to Cho.
Seo's has been described as a gambler who is not at all afraid of fighting, and does not worry about shape. He described his own style as "thick and realistic", but not biased in favor of territory or influence.
He has over 1400 professional wins and was the third to reach 1000 wins, after Sakata and Rin.
His style is discussed in Yuan Zhou's Master Play - The Fighting Styles of Kato Masao and Seo Bongsoo. He is also the co-author of Jungsuk in Our Time.
Titles (partial list)
- 1971 4th Myeongin
- 1972 5th Myeongin
- 1973 6th Myeongin
- 1974 7th Myeongin
- 1976 8th Myeongin
- 1976 10th Wangwi
- 1980 Chaegowi
- 1981 15th Wangwi
- 1983 14th Myeongin
- 1983 KBS Cup
- 1986 30th Kuksu
- 1987 31st Kuksu
- 1991 2nd Tong Yang Securities Cup
- 1993 2nd Ing Cup
- 1999 4th GS Caltex Cup
Interview: http://gogame.info/samples.html?id=32
Another interview: http://gogame.info/samples.html?id=60
An interview from 1994: http://www.britgo.org/files/bgj/bgj096-1.pdf (pdf, look for page 16)
A link, in Italian, at http://www.agi.go.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=175&Itemid=226