Go magazine "Goama" #157
Dear friends!
After the long break we are glad to present you the "Goama" magazine number 157, including:
1. An article by Alexandr Dinershteyn: "Go gambling"
2. An article by Ludmila Nemchinova: "The biggest simultaneous Go game in Europe"
3. Announcement: "DeepMind is coming to St. Petersburg"
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Go gambling
People who have watched "The Stone" and "The Divine Move" often ask me how the scenes where people play gambling Go are far from reality. As for me, I take this topic like a duck to water. During my studies in Korea I stayed for several months at home of a man who worked as a director of a Go club for adults (Kiwon in Korean). I helped him with his job. I did not play for huge bids but witnessed some people who gambled away the whole apartments.
The situation shown in "The Stone" is close to reality. That's how it really works and the scenes demonstrating frauds via built-in webcam in the ceiling and micro earpiece are absolutely real episodes from crime news. I saw this news. Things that happen in "The Divine Move" are an exaggeration. Gambling in Korea is officially illicit, so they usually put money under the goban, not next to it. In clubs there are no cash windows like in a bank. Koreans bring cash and usually play till there is a possibility to put up a sum equal to a 10-bang loss ("mahn bang" in Korean). All characters of "The Stone" are engaged in bangneki. I'll clear it out for those who don't know this term. One bang is 10 points. A 0-10 points win is one bang. 11 points already make 2 bangs. The maximum scoop is 10 bangs (100 points). Even if you have a huge dead group you can't resign and must play the game and make scoring. This is the reason why Koreans have their active playing style. Just a victory is not enough. They like to win with a crushing score so they can get more money. The process of playing for money is described in details in a Korean novel "First Kyu" by Sung-Hwa Hong. I can recommend this rather interesting book.
Koreans who don't like to play for money prefer internet Go, Tygem and Wbaduk in particular. It is not customary in the club so everybody is gambling. Some people invest a hefty sum of money, some bet a can of Cola, entrance fee or a lunch. But the real Korean who plays live therein must have something on a stake. Each club has a sort of attached bangneki master. As for our club – it was an elderly man, 60-70 years old, whose nickname was "30 years bangneki". I can still only guess his real Go strength. I played several games with him, gave him 2-3 handicap stones and won. With this for the visitors whom I gave 6 or 7 stones and barely won he could give 9 stones and even an additional reverse komi. Usually they battled all night long. Me and the director collected extra entrance fee from the visitors and left the club at midnight. Next morning I returned to air the room, pick up fallen stones from the floor and do some cleaning and saw them all sitting on the same places and in the same positions. Nobody even had a break for a meal. Only huge heaps of cigarette stubs in the ashtrays exposed all-night games. The director told me that "30 years bangneki" got his major earnings in the morning when his "client" lost concentration and he could get more points during the scoring process by "correct" moving of the stones. In the morning when they are out of money Koreans prefer to visit a sauna which is open 24/7 and usually has a room for a sleep. So, for 5-10 USD one can avoid meeting with his angry wife and after taking a 1 or 2 hour nap and regaining strength one can withdraw some cash in the bank and continue his combats in the club.
There are no professional players among the bangneki masters. They are banished from playing for money and it is quite hard to find an opponent when you have a famous name. Even among the amateurs it is normally accepted to choose only one way: either to play for money or to participate in tournaments. For example, one 6 amateur dan player from Daegu assigned for tournaments under a fictional name to conceal his real one because after a victory in a tournament his clients could ask for a bigger handicap. It is curious that bangneki got adjusted only in Korea.
In Japan and China they also play Go for money but usually as a rule only the victory matters even if it is a 0.5 point win. It is known that many Japanese professionals treat Go gambling negatively. It will suffice to recall the story about Cho Hunhyun's time in Japan. Cho (9p) studied under Segoe Kensaku. Once when he was 15 years old (and already 2p at that time) Abe Yoshiteru (6p at that time) offered him to play a blitz match for money. They played 6 games with 100 yens for each one. Cho won all of them. And what do you think was the reaction of his sensei Segoe Kensaku?
So, knowing about it Segoe kicked out his pupil from his house scolding "Get back to Korea, I don't need a pupil like that!"
If we go back to the question of bangneki masters' go strength… in my opinion none of them could possibly fight for any Go title or even get into the top-100. But I'm sure that many of Korean pros are obviously weaker. I can recall one Korean amateur tournament that took place about 10 years ago. Kim Songgun, the famous bangneki master, participated there for the first time. As a result, he advanced to the finals where he lost to Seo Joonghui (an ex-insei of the first group, now a 4p). I can remember another story. In 1821 Japan held a match between Honinbo Jowa and Shinomiya Yonezo. Shinomiya never was a pro, he did only Go gambling and stated that no one in the world could win him with a 2 stone handicap. Honinbo Jowa accepted the challenge and won the match, the score was 6-4 and one jigo. Still this result can be counted as decent.
Below I give one if the most interesting games of this match that ended up with a jigo: http://gokifu.com/l/2bs3
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The biggest simultaneous Go game in Europe
On May, 21 a record was registered in St. Petersburg – more than 200 people played Go in the centre of the city. This day simultaneous Go game took place: 27 strongest Go players from all over country fought with 191 competitors. The match became the largest Go game in Russian Go history and was registered by the expert from the Russian book of records.
Simultaneous Go game last for 2 hours, 252 participants played Go during this time. 41 games were finished not in favor of Russian Go masters, so almost each sixth player has beat the master. The lucky players were rewarded with additional prizes.
There were very different players by tables that day: well-known professionals and new players, who have played their first Go match offline not online, the citizens and guests from different cities of Russia – Chelyabinsk, Petrozavodsk, Vladivostok, adult and young Go fans. There were also new guests – people who heard about the game for the first time – they had a chance to learn theory and practice of Go game with the Russian Go federation specialists.
Opening the event, the president of the Russian Go federation Maxim Volkov reminded that the game was organized on the threshold of the jubilee European Go Championship – 60th Polymetal European Go congress, which will be held in St. Petersburg this year, and probably will be the biggest EGC by the number of participants (please check http://egc2016.ru/ for details). The City Administration and Consulate general of Japan in St. Petersburg has support the event, and their representatives took part in the opening ceremony as well.
The new vision of the game was introduced on the event – a large board with the big stones for playing on it – the game was very popular with the youngest Go fans, who as well were participating in the Team Championship of St. Petersburg between players under 18.
For information: The biggest simultaneous Go game in Europe was held in 1991. Shirae Haruhiko, 8 dan pro, played simultaneous Go on 102 boards in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris. The match last more than three hours, but the majority of the games still remained unfinished.
Video from St. Petersburg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jQ-gv4WH84
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DeepMind is coming to St. Petersburg
DeepMind representatives will become guests of the 60th Polymetal European Go congress in St. Petersburg. Aja Huang, who was actually putting the stones on the board for AlphaGo during the games against Lee Sedol, and Fan Hui, who become the first Go professional to be defeated by a computer program, will give an opening speech for the Congress participants on July, 25. They will talk about the development of AlphaGo – the first computer program to beat a professional Go player. The speakers will also answer the guests' questions.
DeepMind representatives will also become honored guests on the Opening ceremony on July, 23 at 7 p.m.
In October 2015 DeepMind's AlphaGo AI computer program played Fan Hui, professional Go player – and won all five games. This marked the first time a computer program had beaten a professional Go player and the results of which were published on the cover of the scientific journal Nature in February this year. After that it was decided to arrange a match with the best Go player in the world during the last decade, South Korean professional, Lee Sedol, 9 dan pro. A five-game match was played in Seoul between 9 and 15 March, watched by more than 280m people around the world. The match ended with the result 4:1 in favor of AlphaGo.
Aja Huang is the lead programmer of AlphaGo at DeepMind and a Go player of 6 dan. In 2011 Aja predicted that it will take from 10 to 20 years to develop the program that will be able to beat a man in Go game (as did many other experts).
Fan Hui is a Go professional player, 2 dan pro, three-time European champion, born in China. He is now working with DeepMind to help with AlphaGo testing.
Everyone can send their questions to the AlphaGo developers by email: l.nemchinova@ob-com.ru
You will hear the answers in Saint Petersburg during the EGC-2016 (we plan to broadcast the meeting on Russian Go Federation YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/c/GofederationRu
Date: July, 25. The exact time will be defined later.
Place: AZIMUT hotel Saint Petersburg.
Follow the news: http://egc2016.ru/ (eng/rus), https://www.facebook.com/egc2016/ (eng) , http://vk.com/egc2016 (rus)
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Enjoy the newsletter!
The IGN "Goama" editor's team
You are welcome to republish any text material from the IGN "Goama" without commercial purposes: please note the source and put the link to http://gogame.info/.
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A.Dinerchtein ("breakfast" on KGS), editor-in-chief
E-mail: backpast@gmail.com
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