Go Game, Weiqi, Baduk in Russia

European Go Congress 2007

(Report by Robert Jasiek)

The European Go Congress 2007 was held in Villach / Austria from July 14 to 28.

European Championship

Start

Round 1 was scheduled on Sunday at 14:00. It was already 4 hours later than the usual start of the rounds. So one might think that a start on time should have been possible. However, round 1 could not start until 15:30. The reasons were: The organizers did not strictly follow their announced deadline for registration, did not inform all strong players about the procedure for entering the supergroup, did not handle any corrections of ranks or missing players efficiently enough, had not tested their procedure for managing player data in their database and for import into the pairing program carefully enough, used a procedure with a bottleneck, and did not abide by all advice from the tournament supervisors in time (like setting the pairing program’s printout parameters already the day before).

The Supergroup

Since it was mainly the organizers’ mistake to miss Gert Schnider in the supergroup and it was noticed only shortly before the actual start of round 1, the tournament supervisors had to take a quick ad hoc decision. Previously the supergroup had already been “fixed”. To avoid a greater delay of round 1, the size of the supergroup was increased to 34. Because Matti Siivola, who was one of the tournament supervisors, was on the verge on possibly being dropped from the supergroup, he did not participate in the closely related decisions made by Oleg Gavrilov and Robert Jasiek. The supergroup should consist of an even number of players; therefore we increased its size to 34 instead 33. Luckily, this year the number of Korean 7d’s playing all 10 rounds and opting for the supergroup was not too great, so we did not have to draw lots there to keep the number of non-Europeans in the supergroup to at most 8. Thus Jong Wook Park, who was not in the supergroup in 2005 as a result of bad luck in the lottery, entered the supergroup this year. Unfortunately, he was not lucky this year either: He won all his played games but due to health problems could not play in rounds 8 and 9.

The Annual General Meeting

The AGM decided not to change the European Championship tournament system at that time. Therefore in the next years the number of Asians admitted to the supergroup is still at most 8 and the 2005 trouble might have to be repeated. The AGM did replace the old EGF Tournament Rules, the Fujitsu GP Guidelines, and the Fujitsu GP Regulations by the new EGF General Tournament Rules and the EGF Tournament System Rules though. This number of decisions caused a kind of rules gap: The tiebreakers for the European Championship are not specified in the written rules.

Tiebreakers

Due to that rules gap, the verbal rules for the European Championship required an ad hoc decision. The EGF Rules Commission decided and Tony Atkins, who is the EGF president, confirmed on behalf of the EGF Executive that for 2007 the tiebreakers declared at the start of the tournament according to the former rules would also still be used for the final results ordering. As it will be seen below, it was absolutely necessary to take such a decision right after the AGM, i.e., long before the end of the tournament. Another decision was made for the next years until the EGF would adopt a tournament system: Since the new EGF Tournament System Rules recommend not to use SODOS any longer, its usage stops also in the European Championship. From 2008 on and until a system change, the result criteria would be MMS – SOS. We have not set it to MMS – Direct Comparison because that might have been considered a too radical change not in line with the AGM’s temporary decision to continue discussion on the tournament system before actually changing it.

European Open Champion

When you look at the final result table athttp://goverband.at/egc2007/results/main_wall.htm

you have to be careful about an important typo: “SOSOS” in the table head is a mistake – it ought to be SODOS. The calculated SODOS values are correct though. As can be seen easily, Park’s health problem decided the European Open Champion title. Seok Ui Hong 7d KOR is the winner, although he lost to Jong Wook Park 7d KOR. The usage of Direct Comparison instead of SOS would have created a different tournament winner. Of course, the impact of the two missed rounds were equally important, however, it is reasonable to assume that Park would have won at least one of those games if he could have played them. With exactly one win of rounds 8 and 9, Park would have gotten the same MMS as he has now; for a missed round, a player receives half a MM point rounded down for all his missed rounds and his own starting MMS for his SOS. The latter aspect let Park’s SOS be smaller than Hong’s.

European Champion

Now every strong player from Kazan has become the European Champion at least once – what an achievement! Kazan versus the rest of Europe! The winner is Ilya Shikshin 6d RUS, who is the younger brother of Svetlana Shikshina. She got the title last year but could not participate this year because of recently having become a mother a few days before the congress. – The winner was decided by the second tiebreaker! Ilya had 7 wins, 303 SOS, and 207 SODOS while Alexandre Dinerchtein 7d RUS had 7 wins, 303 SOS, and 205 SODOS. Since Alexandre beat Ilya in round 8, Alexandre would have become the champion if Direct Comparison had been used instead of SOS. After the tournament, he told me that he prefers to see Direct Comparison being used for the final result ordering and hopes that that will be used in future. Since the AGM has postponed its system revision decision, it won’t be the case in 2008 though. As you know, I have long recommended to use Direct Comparison as the first (and possibly only) tiebreaker and the EGF Tournament System Rules now recommend the same. Nevertheless, for every tournament a new set of particular tournament rules needs to be adopted before the recommendation can take effect in practice.

Let us look on the opponents in some more detail:

Shikshin, Ilya:
Win Nat./Rank/MMS
34 + EU 5d 29
11 + EU 6d 30
21 + EU 5d 29
3 – KR 7d 32
33 + JP 5d 29
9 + EU 6d 30
2 – KR 7d 33
5 – EU 7d 31
14 + JP 6d 30
7 + CN 6d 30

Dinerchtein, Alexandre:
36 + EU 5d 29
1 – KR 7d 33
48 + EU 4d 28
8 + EU 7d 30
21 + EU 5d 29
3 – KR 7d 32
42 + EU 4d 28
4 + EU 6d 31
17 + EU 5d 30
2 – KR 7d 33

The top Japanese and Chinese dan players are of similar strength as Europeans with the same European rank. So one interesting aspect is to count the number Korean 7d opponents: Ilya met 2 while Alexandre met 3 of them. Alexandre’s losses are exactly against those Koreans while he beat all his 7 Europeans opponents. Since SOS-SODOS was used, this achievement has not been enough to become the European Champion. Alexandre has had a sort of bad luck: He was paired against a Korean 7d already in round 2; this gave him an early loss and in effect contributed to getting opponents with the final MMS 28. As Stefan Kaitschick 4d, the opponent number 42, has pointed out to me, his last round loss was against a 2d – something one would not normally expect. Had Stefan won that game, Alexandre would have become the winner with a SOS of 304.

Hence even more than for the European Open Champion title, Direct Comparison instead of the lottery SOS – SODOS would have made much more sense. – Analysis supports Direct Comparison. All former 2nd place getters feel particularly unlucky because SOS – SODOS was used and / or would have preferred Direct Comparison. Only the EGF politicians at the AGMs don’t care to continue the usage of randomizers yet longer and let the strong players suffer.

As a side effect, Jürgen Mattern’s record of having won 8 European Championships will still be held for some time.

Prizes

This year, Palmers Immobilien’s sponsorship allowed reasonable cash prizes for the top players. They are still somewhat low compared to the importance of the tournament but at least compared to other years (in some years, there is no prize money at all) the situation was much better.

Since it is tradition to honor the 10 top players, here they are:

Name Rank Nat MMS Wins

1 Hong, Seok Ui 7d KOR 33 9
2 Park, Jong Wook 7d KOR 33 8
3 Cho, Seok-bin 7d KOR 32 8
4 Shikshin, Ilya 6d RUS 31 7
5 Dinerchtein, Alexandre 7d RUS 31 7
6 Hong, Seul-Ki 7d KOR 31 7
7 Li, Ting 6d CN 30 6
8 Pop, Cristian Gabriel 7d ROM 30 6
9 Balogh, Pal 6d HU 30 6
10 Laatikainen, Vesa 5d FI 30 6

Of course, there were further prizes for weaker players with 7+ wins or 4+ wins for first / second week. This year, this was done fairly for both weeks but the prizes for 8+ wins were ridiculously low. E.g., 9 wins would get in particular a signed book instead of just a book.

European Masters

The results of the modified knockout system are:

* 1st Alexandre Dinerchtein 8d
* 2nd Ilya Shiksin 7d
* 3rd Cristian Pop 7d and Csaba Mero 6d
* 5th Pal Balogh 6d and Ondrej Silt 6d
* 7th Cornel Burzo 6d and Andrej Kulkov 6d

Also here, Alexandre beat Ilya. It has been said that Ilya changed from aggressive to a more territory orientated style. Since Alexandre is strong in the endgame, this might have been the wrong strategy for Ilya.

Weekend Tournament

366 players were in the list but quite some of them were ghosts because the registration process had been ambiguous: One could register for the weekend tournament already when registering for the congress on the first Saturday. Since many people change their mind, this procedure ought not to be used again. The result table athttp://goverband.at/egc2007/results/we_wall.htm

shows the correct table head with SOS – SOSOS but misses the actual SOSOS values, which are marked “?” below. You would need to enter them. Players with MMS 22 or above were:

# Name Rank Nat MMS Opponents Wins SOS SOSOS

1 HONG, SEOK UI 7d KR 24 23+ 5+ 13+ 3+ 2+ 5 111 ?
2 PARK, JONG WOOK 7d KR 23 7+ 6+ 4+ 17+ -1 4 112 ?
3 Cho, Seok-bin 7d KR 23 8+ 11+ 12+ -1 20+ 4 111 ?
4 Ugaeri, Masashi 6d JP 23 16+ 14+ -2 7+ 6+ 4 109 ?
Kazuo, Yoshihara 5d JP 23 19+ -1 9+ 44+ 10+ 4 109 ?
6 Jasiek, Robert 5d DE 22 27+ -2 25+ 13+ -4 3 109 ?
7 Yoshida, Takao 6d JP 22 -2 45+ 18+ -4 16+ 3 108 ?
8 Barisic, Dragan 5d BA 22 -3 59+ 15+ -10 18+ 3 106 ?
Radmacher, Bernd 4d DE 22 36+ 20+ -5 14+ 17+ 4 106 ?
Sannes, Pal 4d NO 22 41+ 38+ 14+ 8+ -5 4 106 ?
11Corlan, Lucian 5d RO 22 35+ -3 -17 42+ 15+ 3 105 ?
12Marigo, Francesco 4d IT 22 64+ 22+ -3 41+ 19+ 4 104 ?

Regardless of tradition, the prizes were not given to the top 5 players but only to the top 3. What a shame for such an important tournament! Further prizes went to young players but, as you might have guessed, being the strongest European in the tournament meant nothing in the view of the congress organizers… Is being young more important than being a successful European at the European Go Congresses?! Of course, the author had greater luck with the tiebreakers SOS – SOSOS, but this does not justify the degree of ignorance that too many congress organizations show towards a player’s achievements in tournaments. They complain that many strong players do not attend the congresses but why are the organizers surprised about this? Treat the top players appropriately and you will see stronger participation!

Rapid Tournament

Only 8 rounds were organized. Because a round was scheduled to start on 17:00, some players might still have been playing in their main tournament game and so dropping out of rounds was possible. To use opponent-scores-dependent tiebreakers then is thus highly doubtful. To my question to the organizers why the tiebreaker combination SOS – SOSOS was used, they replied: “Because it is the default in the pairing program.” What a stupid reason! Anything is good because it just exists?! What is more, in the congress bulletin #1, the tiebreakers announced for the Rapid are SOS – SODOS. Thus the tournament organizers contradicted themselves! At least they abided my advice as tournament supervisor to round down the MMS and tiebreakers for not played rounds, which is required by the EGF Tournament System Rules. (I could not prescribe tiebreakers because the Rapid is not a tournament held on request by the EGF; it is either organized by the congress organizers or not held at all.) However, you would have guessed, the information athttp://goverband.at/egc2007/results/rapid_wall.htm

is still wrong! There the rounding down is not applied yet. Thus the order of players in the final result list shown there is wrong! Here is the correct order for the top players:

# Name Rank Nat MMS Opponents Pt SOS SOSOS
1 Hong, Seok Ui 7d KR 40 16+ 3+ 2+ 4+ 15+ 7+ — 5+ 7 295 2359
2 Tormanen, Antti 4d FI 39 5+ 15+ -1 9+ 3+ -6 4+ 12+ 6 303 2350
3 Jasiek, Robert 5d DE 38 19+ -1 10+ 7+ -2 -4 29+ 17+ 5 299 2336
4 Miyazaki, Nobuy. 5d JP 38 — 8+ 6+ -1 16+ 3+ -2 11+ 5 299 2328
5 Yoshida, Takao 6d JP 38 -2 34+ -7 21+ 27+ 15+ 6+ -1 5 298 2325
6 Kazuo, Yoshihara 5d JP 38 — 30+ -4 43+ 10+ 2+ -5 9+ 5 293 2296

This time the author’s luck was even greater than in the weekend tournament: Place 3 was a SOSOS decision. Apparently, the organizers got frightened by all those SOS and SOSOS numbers as well and distributed prizes to all players with 5+ wins. When you read the congress bulletins, don’t trust the imprecise list of winners there; they ignore the tiebreakers and state the players with 5 wins in some arbitrary order.

So what happened at the prize giving? Nothing. The top 3 players (nor all top players with 5+ wins) were not honoured at all! How can any organization hold a tournament and then fail to respect the winners? Incredible! The same terrible behavior by the congress organizers was shown for all other side tournaments. What for to arrange prize giving ceremonies if the winners are not mentioned?! Why hold a closing ceremony without honoring more than one of the professionals teaching during the congress? This is disrespect, even if some of the professionals would have already departed. The players should be given their opportunity to express gratitude by giving an applause at least. What can be done for absence of presenting the winners of tournaments, sponsors, or local politicians can also be done for the professionals!

Side tournaments

For the side tournaments, it became even clearer that running tournaments was considered a burden rather than an honor and joy for the congress organizers. Criticism was met by pointing to 2 years of congress preparation (which is nothing compared to 4 years for other congresses) and how much thinking “has gotten into it”. They wanted to make something different and have radical changes, but they would not explain why. Congresses may be different and in some parts even radically so – but they should be held for the participants and not against them! A Pair Go tournament was not organized at all. Other tournaments that had been held during two evenings in past congresses were held on Wednesdays. The Lightning Tournament was held at the same times as the Rapid. Thus not surprisingly the numbers of participants dropped extremely! The 9×9 had 40 instead of typical 130, the 13×13 – 52 instead of 140, and the lightning 33 instead of 175-200 and of the 33 only 10 players played all rounds! An organizer justified the schedule saying that the author had been the only one to complain – having talked to various players, one must say though that many players did not like the organization of side tournaments at all because of the very bad schedule. This was not just the worst, but by far the worst organization of side tournaments I have seen in the congresses since 1993. Another excuse was rooms, but why then were a couple of rooms empty during the evenings? – If all that organization of side tournaments is considered that nasty and difficult, then why not simply use the ready systems and forms available on the web?

Lightning

This was announced as a McMahon tournament in the congress bulletin but it was held as a Swiss tournament. 10 minutes thinking time, top bar at 4d (?) and reduced (?) handicap for 3d and weaker. If we trust the result table, then SOS-SOSOS were being used. Maros Kral 1k SK got 8 wins, Krysztof Giedrojc 4d PL 7 wins. The lightning was one of the tournaments the congress organization decided to hold at all only shortly before the congress. At that time the author had offered to organize the tournament if necessary so that this essential tournament would be held for sure. Considering the low numbers of serious participants, one wonders why they did not accept the offer.

13×13

In the congress bulletin it had been announced as 5 rounds McMahon. This tournament system is extremely improper for a title tournament. Normally it had been a combined groups and knockout system, which is reasonable. The author complained very harshly before the tournament. The organizers first didn’t want to change anything because they considered it to be just one of the “fun events, not serious at all”. After further discussion, they offered me to organize it. Had that been clear before the congress, the author could have taken his time. However, during the congress he was also pretty busy, e.g., with holding part of the referee workshop. He might still have organized the 13×13, but doing it at the last minute with a major tournament system change could easily have been interpreted as taking an unfair advantage because he is one of the likely candidates for winning the tournament. So the author had to decline from organization and the actual organizer made a tiny improvement at the start of the tournament, turning it into a 6 rounds tournament. For sure, McMahon was a fake once more and it was a Swiss system as well. – So it was meant to be a fun tournament, but where is the fun in reducing the number of rounds from ca. 10 to 6, letting the players play their 2×13 minutes games with up to half an hour of sleeping breaks in between, and making it impossible to watch the “final” games when one was playing his own games? For some strange reason, the handicap depended on the “MMS” difference instead the rank difference. IIRC, it was Japanese handicap on the hoshi points, one stone per 5 MMS difference. Komi was 8.5 minus 2 for every point of excess MMS difference. The tiebreakers were SOS – SODOS (while in some tables the typo SOSOS appears where SODOS is meant). While the author made strategic mistakes too many times and thus got only 4 points, after round 6 there turned out to be 5 players with 5 wins! The tiebreaker lottery gave this table at the top:

Place / Name / Rank / Country / Wins / SOS / SODOS

1 Snidal, Bronislav 1d CZ 5 22 17
2 Kruml, Ondra 2d CZ 5 21 17
3 Butala, Gregor 4d SI 5 21 16
4 Toermaenen, Antti 4d FI 5 20 20
5 Cheburakhov, Andrey 5d RU 5 19 14

The author, who had got 2nd place last year, had to register thrice (!) to be allowed to participate. Last year’s winner Antti Toermaenen failed to do likewise, registered only twice and thus was prohibited from playing round 1!!! It is hard to imagine any worse organization of a tournament! Needless to say, Antti won all his games and defeated the place #1 player in the last round! The tiebreakers may have had their impact, however, the greatest tiebreaker of all was the bad tournament organization! The system was totally inappropriate for selecting a single strongest player. It is a model of lazy, uncaring tournament organization. The top 5 players played only 3 games against each other altogether. BTW, during the tournament the author had to point out some apparently random SOS and SODOS values; those appeared because a parameter “handicaps are taken into account for SOS, etc. calculation” had been selected accidentally. So the early rounds were paired essentially randomly.

9×9

Things were going almost as badly as in the 13×13. Swiss that was announced as McMahon, etc. The author does not recall the second tiebreaker (either SODOS or SOSOS); the first was SOS. Thinking time 9 minutes, free (!) handicap placement under Japanese Rules, komi 6.5 minus 1 per excess rank (or MMS?) difference point and another handicap stone every 10 points difference. After 8 rounds, which – incl. the lunch break – consumed most of the Wednesday, the two players with 7 wins were:

# Name Rank / Country / Wins / SOS
1 Surma, Mateusz 1d PL 7 36
2 Bro-Joergensen, Ulrich 4d DK 7 35

In round 6, the #2 player beat the #1 player. So Direct Comparison would have resulted in a different winner. Ulrich expressed his great disappointment about the bad choice of tiebreakers to me.

Pair go

The pair signed as Maria Zakharchenko made 5 out of 5 wins. There were 27 pairs.

Team Go

Only 14 teams attended this tournament. The Team M made 4.5 wins out of 5 but bonus points for nationality, rank differences, age, and gender were more important. Crazy Horse had the proper mixture for winning the tournament with 4 bonus points and just 2.5 real points.

AGM

Apparently, the age of ending the AGM at midnight has gone; this years it ended already at ca. 22:30 – must have been a new record. This, despite EGF Committee elections (without choice of alternative candidates this year), and several rules topics on the agenda. Apart from the usual bureaucracy (Gionata to question things that should or sometimes need not be questioned while every other delegates does not dare to raise his voice) – actually some points made by Gionata were very useful -, the 2011 congress will be in France (won due to almost no presentation compared to virtually no presentation of Poland), a Strong (meaning 6d+) Players Commission shall be formed, and the EGF General Tournament Rules and the EGF Tournament System Rules were adopted, so that the total length of valid general tournament rulesets is reduced to about half of what was used before! Good job, although only 13 or 7, respectively, delegates voted in favor of the change while the vast majority absented. Tiny changes were voted for, so the rulesets will be published a bit later. In particular “Simplified Ing Rules” is to become “Ing Rules”. Since there are the Ing 1991 Rules, the Ing 1996/7 Rules, and the Simplified Ing Rules and since the official Ing rulesets are very unclear and ambiguous (see the author’s commentaries), it is now more unclear than ever how to apply Ing rules in EGF tournaments in practice. Frank Janssen pointed out that he had used Ing rules, had been approved for that by the Ing people, and that usage had shown no problems. If so, then why does he teach something similar to Simplified Ing Rules to children and has never explained the Ing ko and game end rules to everybody? His stated view is more a pretence than reality. All delegates (note: members of the EGF Rules Commission are not delegates) voted in favor of canceling the “Simplified” because they prefer to take the sponsor money more than playing with rules that they and everybody could understand. It is sad that the EGF does not want to be as honest as the AGA, which affirms usage of the Kim-Simon-Straus commentary on the Ing Rules and gets sponsor money nevertheless. At least Ing Rules with Japanese playing material and pass stones have become another valid ruleset according to the new EGF General Tournament Rules. This could have been useful already during this tournament because there were not enough Ing boxes and clocks for all the boards. (Due to sponsorship by the Nihon Kiin in the form of supporting some of the professionals boards 1 to 16 of the main tournament used Japanese rules with 6.5 komi this year.) The AGM did not find it worth discussing that the Japanese 1989 Rules (which have become unbearable at least since the author’s latest commentary) are now replaced by Verbal European-Japanese Rules, which have been used already since the Saturday after the AGM.

The proposals for a change of European Championship tournament systems were discussed or (Swedish proposal and old Dutch proposal) drawn back. Every proposal got its major criticism of its drawbacks. So it has been essentially decided to continue discussion for another year. At least everybody is now aware of the features and drawbacks, so discussion might raise to a higher factual level.

Organizers’ Meetings

They were held but the author could not attend them.

Referee Workshop

There was a remarkable number of ca. 14-16 participants. Matti Siivola did the first two lectures on tournament rules, systems, and refereeing. The author held the lecture on the rules of playing. So how to apply “Ing Rules”? Every possible, major interpretation was explained. E.g., the superko of the Simplified Ing Rules versus the author’s interpretative ko rules (which are needed because the official ko rules consist mostly of gaps) for the official Ing ko rules. In practice, the Simplified Ing Rules are even more useful for the game end procedure because the official rules are mostly ambiguous there and the official interpretation by Mr. Yang from the Ing Chang-ki Wei-ch’i Educational Foundation is seriously flawed. – How to apply verbal Japanese rules? Use the basic ko rule also for determination of life and death in the scoring. Use hypothetical (verbally demonstrated or laid on a copy board) move-sequences starting with the attacker of a string currently analyzed for its status and try to construct two eyes for the defender at or around the analyzed string, even if it or some new stone near to it might be captured temporarily like in nakade, snapback, or bent-4. Don’t mind ko threats elsewhere on the board; their impact is immaterial in practice because life is something “local”.

Conclusion on the tournaments

Don’t use tiebreakers if you don’t even understand them! Don’t neglect to think about the tournaments, their systems, and registration procedures carefully in advance if you organize a congress! Respect the players and their interests and don’t just organize somehow because you have to!

From International Goe Newsletter «Goama»

Igor Grishin for the Bulgarian Go Association “Go in Bulgaria – Russian Opinion”

When I think of my Bulgaria I become strong and calm. A quiet and mighty Slavonic country. Handsome people with nice characters. A brilliant location combines such extraordinary natural objects as the sea, the mountains and one of the greatest world rivers. Bulgaria has an ideal, almost round form. Its nature is preserved in its first-born beauty. The Gardens, forests and vineyards.

If I were a Bulgarian and lived in my country, what would I do in my life? Of course, I would build a house. It doesn’t matter whether on the sea shore or on the Danube bank, in mountains or forests. I would build the most beautiful house in Bulgarian style and I would live there with one of the most beautiful women from one of the most beautiful countries of Europe. Bulgarian women are swarthy, with black hair; their eyes are dark like a night sky. Their legs are thin, their calves are strong and their breasts are the breasts of real Bulgarian women. My wife would give birth to a lot of my kids. And what would I do? I would sit in my garden, contemplate and have fun. There would be a lot of guests, my friends. We would have dinner, drink wine, eat flat cakes and fried meat. All my guests would look at my wife and compliment her for being nice, zealous, thoughtful for guests, respectful to her husband and strict to her children. And at night we would go for a walk. I would know each path in our mountains. I would read each book written by Bulgarian authors. I would build the second house and lease it for summer, autumn, winter and spring. There would live very nice people from every corner of Europe, because I would explain them why it is worth coming to our country and what is so special about it.

Besides, I would play Go! Why Go? Maybe we, the Bulgarian, have nothing to do? Of course, we have. But the Bulgarian are very special people. We have time for many things, including the most complicated practices of the world arts. We don’t waste time. We don’t drink vodka and take drugs. We don’t need it. We don’t have to cross long distances, we have everything at hand, like people in Japan. We have wonderful air and fertile soil. We honor old people and our women know real men. Our country is a country of traditions, including religious ones. We are sure of our country that is why we have time for getting the knowledge other nations have elaborated. Go is one of the most complicated games. It helped me to see my Bulgaria and find my place in it. It was Go, that helped me to feel the strategy of my nation and my motherland.

Come to me. We will sit in the garden and talk, until the stars start sparkling. My wife will bring tea, flat cakes, cheese and fried meat. We’ll talk not only about Go, but about everything we want. We’ll just talk to each other.

From International Goe Newsletter «Goama»

How to solve the problems of Japanese Go?

Football was not a popular game in Korea till 2002, the year of the World Football Championship and the outstanding success of the Korean team. All newspapers and TV channels mentioned this event. Later in Korea lot of football schools were opened, they found sponsors for inviting foreign trainers and players. Lots of children decided to study football in Korea and reach the level of Korean football stars: Ahn Junghwan, Lee Chunsoo, Park Chisung and others.

I believe that this scenario is possible, if we look at Japanese Go. If they win few World Championships and find a person, who can challenge Lee Chango, Lee Sedol, Gu Li and other stars, lots of Japanese kids will try to follow them and study this game.

Right now Japanese masters are still far from this goal. Yes, there are few players, who can win important tournaments from time to time, like Cho U and Yoda Norimoto, but we cannot call them stable. There are more than 10 players of their level in both Korea and China, so they cannot always beat them.

How to improve the results of Japanese players on the international arena?
Here I would like to write my thoughts on this problem.

1. Right now they use the qualification system for the majority of international tournaments, so unknown players like Hasegawa Sunao, Yo Kagen, Nakamura Shinya, Yokota Shigeaki, Hikosaka Naoto, Seto Taiki and others can enter the main stages of important tournaments. They did not show any outstanding results in Japanese tournaments, but were just lucky in qualifications. Of course, they cannot compete with top World players.
It’s possible to invite only title-holders, but this decision is also bad. For example, you can check the score of Japanese Meijin and Honinbo titleholder Takao Shinji in international events:

2007-04-14, 20th Fujitsu Cup, Takao – Wang Xi, 0-1 2006-11-26, 8th Nongshim Cup, Takao – Park Yeonghun 0-1 2006-08-26, 3rd Toyota Cup, Takao – Park Cheongsang 0-1 2006-05-17,11th LG Cup, Takao – Zhou Junxun, 0-1 2006-05-15, 11th LG Cup, Takao – Wang Lei (s), 1-0 2006-05-03, 5th CSK Asian Cup, Takao – Cho U, 0-1 2006-05-02, 5th CSK Asian Cup, Takao – Chang Hao, 0-1 2006-05-01, 5th CSK Asian Cup, Takao – Lee Sedol, 0-1 2006-04-08, 19th Fujitsu Cup, Takao – Zhou Junxun, 0-1 2005-11-28, 7th Nongshim Cup, Takao – Cho Hanseung, 0-1 He lost 9 from 10 games he played!

Is it better to determine the coach of the Japanese team and allow him to choose the members, according to his own feeling, like in football? It’s possible to give this right to Otake Hideo or Rin Kaiho, but in my opinion, Cho Hunhyun, 9-dan who had studied Go in Japan, might know the current situation better. He may also know what players are the most dangerous for Koreans.
It’s also possible to accept the local rating system and send the best players in the rating list, that will reduce the chances of unknown lucky players, but I like the idea with the team-trainer more.

2. If we check the recent international qualification tournaments for LG and Samsung cup, that are open for all Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese professionals, we may see, that top Japanese players ignore them. As a result, only few (!) Japanese players were qualified during the last few years. They mainly send young and ambitious players, who agree to pay travel and other expenses in Seoul. Of course, they cannot compete with top Korean and Chinese players, such as Yoo Changhyuk, Kong Jie, Yu Bin and others.
I suggest finding the way of making these tournaments more attractive for top Japanese. The Nihon Kiin may find the way of covering all expenses and set special prizes, for those, who is able to enter the main tournament.

3. There are lots of professionals in Japan, but they are mainly playing with each other. What do you think about the idea of making one big tournament such as Odza or Gosei open for foreign masters? Japanese tournaments prizes are really high, so this tournament may attract lot of strong but hungry Chinese and Korean pros.

4. Chinese players practiced to play with top foreign masters a lot during the Chinese City league. It’s a regular yearly team tournament. This year Lee Sedol, 9-dan is invited by the richest team and in previous years different teams invited such players as Cho Hunhyun, Yoo Changhyuk, Kim Seungchun and others stars.
Nihon Kiin can use their experience and organize such a league, giving Japanese players a chance to meet with top foreign players. This event may also be attractive for TV channels and newspapers and team sponsors can become famous not only in Japan, but also in China and Korea, if they invite their leading players.

5. There are lots of local Japanese tournaments with long time controls like 6 or 8 hours per person. I think it’s better to reduce the thinking time to 3 hours, making conditions similar with World Championships.

6. Few years ago Nihon Kiin rejected to accept some foreign players, like Rui Naiwei and Jijo Jiang. This decision was clear – they wanted to save more prize money for local players, but it seems, that the harm of their non-acceptance was bigger. They both moved to Korea and trained well Korean players, especially females. Yes, we can say, that Korean females lost some money on the local arena because of Rui Naiwei, but nowadays they (Park Chiun, Cho Hyeyeon and others) are able to get even bigger prizes by showing good results in international female tournaments.

7. It seems that there are too many professionals in Japan. Is it necessary to reduce their number by accepting only really strong 1-dans, like Han Sanghoon from Korea? He is able to beat top 9-dans, while in Japan shodans are still taking 2 stones handicap from them. If Nihon Kiin reduces the number of professionals, they can earn more money from Go tournaments, and pay more attention on their improving, instead of finding the ways of making their living from teaching or other activities.
It’s also possible to think of the system of separating all professionals into 2 groups: Tournament pros and Teaching pros. The first group will survive by playing tournaments, while the second one will earn money by teaching beginners, publishing Go books, commenting games on TV and in newspapers. I feel, it’s strange to see 60-70 years old professionals playing seriously in Go tournaments and showing the winning percentage close to zero, while young players, who are still able to win titles are teaching rich students, instead of working on improving of their Go skill.

Alexandre Dinerchtein, from International Goe Newsletter “Goama”

GO – the game for emperors, that could read the stars

By Konstantin Bayraktarov

The Chinese game Weiqi, also known in the world as “Go” was invented, according to some sources, by the legendary emperor Yao. The same emperor is cited also as the creator of the calendar. And the system of chronology in China traditionally starts in the year 2357 BC – the year of Yao’s enthroning. Chinese sources give credit for the game invention also to other mythological persons of Chinese origin. For example, Yao’s successor – emperor Shun, also known as the Encircling Shun – directly corresponds to the essence of the game itself – the process of surrounding and encircling of territories. One can only be certain that Weiqi (Go) or “the game of encircling” bears the honorary age of three to four thousand years, making it the oldest known intellectual game.

Considered to be of “heavenly” origin, according to an old Japanese proverb, Go is said to be a game of Gods, while chess is the game of heroes. The elements of the sky like the ghosts of Great Bear (Ursa Major, Beydou) and Little Bear (Ursa Minor, Niendou) are known Go players in Chinese folklore. This comes as no surprise, as long as the game is a metaphor of Life itself and these two ghosts are responsible for life and death. This ancient game has connections to Chinese astronomy. The science of the skies played an important role in the life of the old civilizations.

The first lunar and solar calendars stem from observations of the skies. Knowledge of astronomy is essential to astrology, as well as to intellectual games. This connection of Go to astronomy is hinted by the naming of the nine marked points on the board, known as “star points”. They correspond to the nine stellar palaces from where the Heavens are ruled, according to Chinese mythology. The central point or “tengen” is the Northern star – the star of the Yellow Emperor Huang Di. This heavenly model is the one to be abided by the Earthly government. The Chinese Emperor is the reincarnation of Huang Di himself. Confucius (551-479 BC) in his famous Analects explains:

“He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the North Polar star, which keeps its place and all stars turn towards it.”(Lun Yu, 2:1)

The ancient authors confirm the embedded astro-calendar symbolism in Go. Zhang Ni in Quijing Shisanpian (The classic of Weiqi in thirteen chapters) writes:

“There are 360 plus one intersections and One is the beginning of all numbers. It occupies the Tengen (center point) and drives the whole board. There are 360 days in a year. The four corners represent the four seasons and the 90 intersections in each quadrant correspond to the days in every season.”

The Go board has 19 horizontal and 19 vertical lines and signifies the Universe, that the Chinese call “yuzhou” and stands for “transverse and longitudinal beams (lines)”. The intersections of these lines are 361, a number that is running closely to the real count of the days in a year. Actually it is almost the true number of the lunar (354 days) and the solar (365 days) years.

The Chinese historian Ban Gu (32-92 AD) wrote: “The board must be square, for it represents the Earth laws. The lines must be straight for they embody the spirit of pure virtue. The pieces are white and black, and so are divided into the Yin and the Yang. Paired and set out in order, they represent the patterns of the Heavens.” The idea of Heavenly order provided some support for the elemental nature of chaos. The existence of Heavenly order where everything is moving according to its own laws was obvious to the ancient. Therefore it was up to Man to provide such order down on Earth, mirroring the Heavenly one. Such cosmological vision is manifested in a poem by the Vietnamese King Le Than Tong (1442-1497):

High summits are drawn up as a crowd

in the sea like many jewels.

bluish tops are dispersed like falling stars

and the pieces in the Go board of waves.

Fish and salt, abundant like sand,

offer a rapid gain to people.

Inspired by the natural beauty of Halong Bay in Northern Vietnam, the Poet-King conveys the image of a settled and orderly country. The game of Go is a metaphor for the Cosmic or Heavenly harmony that is the example to be creatively and willingly represented on Earth. The desired harmony in the country and the society correlates with the ideal of virtue and the rule of justice that should be conducted by the enlightened King. The Neo-Confucian Yu Jie (1272-1348) of Hanlin Academy recommends to emperor Wen Di the game of Go as mandatory for the Son of Heaven (Tienzi). If Huandi is the ruler of the Heavenly Cosmos, then his reincarnation on Earth – the Son of Heaven – rules the social cosmos.

The way the Chinese see the Sky has a lot in common with the imagination of the wise men, that created the game of Go. The process of identifying and naming certain star groups is both intuitive and governed by semantic associations. The imagination kicks in to compare the group to some real or abstract object. The configuration of stones in Go is the main structural object in the game. The same principles can be applied to constellations on the sky. So the names of some basic constructions in Go and some of the constellations owe their origins to the associative and mytho-poetical thinking.

Since ancient times, the stars are grouped in constellations for their easier recognition on the sky. Different cultures grouped them differently. For example, the configuration known in the Western world as the Great Bear (Big Dipper) is perceived as belonging to other constellations in the east. Still the ancient Chinese saw eye to eye with the modern westerners, but generally they were prone to dissect the sky into numerous smaller groups. The Chinese astronomers were able to “draw” in the sky the figures of exotic creatures by using as little as 2 or 3 stars. The analogy in Go are groups known as a “horse”, a “big horse”, a “tiger” (or “tiger mouth”, “tiger eye”), “an empty triangle”, “bamboos” (or “bamboo joint”), “a wall and a shadow” (the higher the wall, the higher the shadow it casts), “a diamond” (ponnuki) or “a ladder”.

The same principles guided the Chinese in naming the constellations. Two or three elements and some imagination is enough to “draw” whatever you want. The mentioned groups and their names are known to every beginner in the game. These constructions have some very tactical sense in the game and their combinations form the strategical view on the board. The Go board itself is a coordinated grid work, upon which different stars can be positioned precisely by means of stones. Probably using the same method, the Chinese created the first star catalog with over 800 static stars 2500 years ago.

The Man is gazing at the Sky for millennia. This impulse has provided the necessary elements for the foundation of the science of the stars. And the understanding of the world finds its interpretation in logical games. Man gradually discovers the Universe within, stepping over from ontos to gnosis. In the words of Immanuel Kant: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. ” The universe of the Mind is also stunningly colossal. An ancient Japanese verse (senryu) turns the Universe into a game of Go in the mind of a player:

In the depth of night

even the ceiling

becomes a Go board.

Lying in bed, writes William Pinckard (1927-1989), he replays the game far into the night. A strange and interesting metaphor is here: the Go stones move from the board to the ceiling and beyond the ceiling to the sky where they become again the stars from which they were born thousands of years ago.

Everyone is aware of the colossal number of possible combinations in chess, yet the game of Go trumps it. The approximate calculations point that the number, corresponding to the possible variations in Go is about three times as long as the one about chess and twice as long as the number that currently stands in science as the quantity of the atoms in the known Universe and the latter itself boasts a hudred-digits magnitude! Bearing in mind that the endless possibilities in Go mirror the countless events in nature, the saying goes that Go encloses the Universe itself.

Translated from Bulgarian: Cvetomir Varbanov

Impressions from the EYGC 2007 with the eyes of a Russian Go teacher

On my first venture to Europe for a Go tournament, I expected to see many new and interesting things. My expectations were completely fulfilled.

Having learned that the European children’s competition 2007 would take place in Holland, the “Voskhozhdenie” school decided to end there the children team. However we did not manage take along all children. Why? Children who are trained at our school are trained not only in a board game. In short, classes at our school develop child’s attention, perception and thinking. For example, the school pays close attention to recording games and reviewing them afterwards. Our school teaches how to win and lose the games, taking useful things from each case.

“Voskhozhdenie” is not a common Go club, so pupils of our school study not only to play and win their games. Children study to think and take their decisions, to record the games, to analyze and comprehend them. Certainly, we are concerned with more than the techniques of the game.

As a result we have not dared to take the youngest pupils of the school to the tournament, and Artem Vasenin (11 years old) was the only member of our team. Artem has attended our school since Summer 2006. He visited China four times, studying there at the professional Chinese Weiqi school in Harbin with Mr Wu Guonshi, who is a good friend of our school. For Artem it was the first tournament in his life. He worried a lot, taking the responsibility for our school and Russia, that he would represent in the tournament.

Artem played in the bottom group (up to 12 years of age) with an 18-kyu rating and won six games of total six. Having begun tournament anxiously, in the last round he overcame a player from Ukraine with 14-kyu rate, that was very pleasant and unexpected for us.

At our school children do not have ratings at all. We use another system of estimating learning efficiency. What is it possible to tell about the boy with an 18-kyu rating? In my opinion, it is possible to tell only, that he plays with a rating of 18-kyu. Is he strong or weak? If we compare him with a 10-kyu he is weak, and if we compare him with a 35-kyu he is strong. You may agree with us, that such estimation is narrow and is not so clear. Where can such thinking be applied except Go?

For me kyu is more likely a level of consciousness than a rating. Rising step by step during the tournament Artem grew up from 18-kyu up to 14-kyu. What does it mean for the school and for Artem? We saw the development of the consciousness and abilities of the child!

It is possible to say this confidently because Artem recorded all games, while many of his partners did not record their games at all. However, Artem recorded his games not so well and it is one of subjects of school analysis. Why cannot the child, playing with an equal opponent, examine the board and fix the game in a record form? It demands judgment. In my opinion, to teach a child to record his game accurately right up to the end is a great achievement! Without the game record you cannot replay the game and examine the child’s way of thinking during the game.

What have I seen in Europe? I have seen many people with open minds, children for whom Go is new and fascinating. They like to be engaged in Go. Their eyes burn! However, it seems, in Europe they still regard Go as something exotic. Such attitude makes it harder to develop Go around the continent and use it in real life.

The organization of the tournament was perfect! A remarkable place: the resort Zandvoort on the coast of the North Sea, with small houses with a fireplace, and the cleanest air. It was a real change comparing to Moscow. The Dutch Go Association worked hard, and this should be acknowledged.

What surprised me in the Europe? I was surprised by the approach to Go mainly from a position of sports and board games. At our school and in our Federation we divide Go into game and not game, that is “Strategic Go”. Sports, in our opinion, is only a small part of Go. The assumption of “Voskhozhdenie” school is that there is another part of Go, which lies outside of the board. For example, it is found in the development of consciousness and thinking in a person.

Why do we think so? Is it possible to study Go successfully, seeing only a board and stones? Where are the growth and development? What can we achieve by playing Go? Perhaps, it is necessary to look on Go not only as on an exotic board game from Asia, but also as a method of thinking development. What is the meaning of this method, does it have strong and weak points? I thought a lot about it, seeing the open minds and a susceptibility of the European children. I am grateful to the European Go community that this environment forced me to ponder over these questions in my article.

Another question that excited me was why we may see the growth and development of the ideas of “Voskhozhdenie” school in Russia, while for the rest of Europe, it seems, we cannot find any similar movement. I could not explain why fewer and fewer children go to such a remarkable event as EYGC 2007. In fact there were times when the European children tournaments attracted between 500 or 700 people.

Thinking about these questions, I remembered the idea of the tournament conceived by Konstantin Voznikov, the honorable President of the Crimean Go Federation, one of founders of Go in USSR.

Konstantin Voznikov said that a tournament is a not only a demonstrative performance in sports, but also a competition. What is the idea of the competition? I think it lies in aspiring to be the first, but not by defeating others. Here we might recall the knightly tournaments of medieval Europe. They gave birth to many remarkable traditions. Perhaps we could learn something useful from these traditions?

The format of the tournament as a demonstrative performance can become a breakthrough! “Voskhozhdenie” school already has modest, but interesting experience of organizing such tournaments in Russia.

Imagine it! It is possible to run a tournament as an interschool meeting at which our children could play with each other not only for rating, but also for the sake of joint dialogue and development. Heads of schools would share the experience, not only sporting, but also educational. In fact the principal idea of the demonstrative performance is that there are those who participate in a tournament and show their skills, and there are those who appreciate them.

Maybe sometimes it’s better to look at – more usefully and more deeply – than to participate in the process? Supervision gives ideas for judgment and reflection.

Such impressions came to my mind when we walked in deserted, silent streets of Zandvoort.

Is it possible to take up the motto: “Develop a person by means of Go “, in addition to the already available one: “Develop Go among people”?

Acknowledgements:
I wish to thank the German fans and teachers who bought the books by “Voskhozhdenie” school, issued in 2005 and 2006.
I thank Peter Zandveld for his kind help.
I thank Frank Janssen and other referees for their excellent refereeing.
I wish to thank Martin Finke for the invitations, sent out in time.
I thank all organizers who helped with the tournament (unfortunately, I cannot find their names).
I thank the European Go teachers for that they bring up such remarkable children!

Michail Emelyanov, the leading instructor of the “Voskhozhdenie” school, the team leader at EYGC 2007.

More gratitudes from the leader of the “Voskhozhdenie” school Igor Grishin:

To Rustam Sahabutdinov, that his pupil Sasha Kozelskih is polite and affable.
To Valery Shikshin – for kindliness and openness.
To Jury Solovyev – for his analysis.
To Oleg Gavrilov – for his help and useful advice.
To Victor Shevchyuk – not only because he is a pleasant person, but also because his children do not refuse to play with others, even weaker opponents.
To Michail Emelyanov – for good neighborhood.

© 2007 by Gogame.info. All rights reserved.

Is the right posture in practicing of table-games so important? Let’s have a look at a boy’s back in
the picture.

What can happen if a trainer will ignore such a ‘back’? We can state at least scoliosis. How
should we correct such a pose (or a stand if we regard Go as a practice of martial arts)? The first
thing, that catches our eyes, is the child’s position relative to the Go board. The board should be
located rigorously on the center with respect to the medial vertical line of the body. Maybe, that
is why the school “Voskhojdenie” suggests that school trainers and teachers should train the approach to the board.
Do you remember a sport anecdote? The approach to the apparatus is 5 points, the dismount is 5
points. The average score is 3 points!
Let’s return to the picture. The chair location is wrong. A trainer should allow a child to sit only after explanations and trainings. Without trainings a trainer should set the chair himself/herself or check its location with respect to the board. In practice of table-games a chair is an apparatus. One must not treat it as any other thing. Of course “must not” sounds too harsh bur this firmness is scholastic. The questioning field is appropriate in amateur talks. But here we are at a school blog. It is strict enough. We should speak strictly somewhere, shouldn’t we?
We can see only one of the boy’s legs under the table. So, where is the other? The child’s left hip is showing up and we remember an aphorism: with the help of what is he thinking now? May be with the help of this cluneal part?

We need examples that will show what we should strive for. In the second picture we can see a boy from Chinese Professional Go School. Do you like his posture? He is not posing he is playing a game.

Look at his head. The crown “looks up” and the chin “looks down”. The neck lordosis is almost
excluded. The same poses of pupils we can find in Chinese professional Wushu schools. They
are not born with such postures; these poses are studied and trained. There some are trainers who don’t have an integral point of view on a pupil’s intellectual-somatic system. They don’t consider such nuances. What can we say to the trainers who have lack of special education but have general education? We can remind them of hand mincing machines. Of course, nowadays we can hardly find them as they have been replaced with electrical gadgets. But those mincing machines had screws with the help of which they used to be installed on tables. If you fasten the screw not tight enough the mincing machine will “fidget” and it will be impossible to use it. So the head position works on the same principle. In martial arts it is impossible to work in such a way for reasons of safety. As for the table-games practice it is likely that some day somebody will write a thesis on this topic. Speaking about Chinese schools, they just use this knowledge to hold the first position on sports Go in the world.

Igor Grishin.

© 2007 by Gogame.info. All rights reserved.

Our Federation sent Artem Vasenin (18 kyu) on EYGC 2007 held in Zandvoort (Holland). Our player took part in the tournament under 12 and won all games. It was his 1-st tournament.

We want to express our gratitude for organizers of EYGC 2007 especially for Dutch Go Association for perfect organization of European Youth Goe Championship 2007. It was really great!

And here are some photos from EYGC 2007 with small comments.

This is the hall for weakest players under 12. The 2-nd round.

The boy from Holland – Titus van der Valk, 20 kyu

To right 1-st Artem Vasenin (Russia), 18 kyu, next Dmitro Nevirkovets (Ukraine), 16 kyu, next Darius Condrea (Romania), 15 kyu. Artem won the games against Dmitro and Darius. Now he plays with Dmitro Chernyak (Ukraine), 16 kyu.

The main tournament, the strongest players under Russian and Israel flags.

Photos of participants. This year there were 150 children, not as many as before…

A lot of players came from Ukraine (about 20 persons). On the photo – Denis Haljabar, 14 kyu. He played the last game against Artem Vasenin.

The houses where all participants lived. They were really nice.

More photos are in the Go Game Gallery

The art of commenting games.

- Could you tell, please, if it is possible, what is game commentary? What is it for?

- Without game records you don’t need the commentary, right? I suggest that we regard commentary as an attempt of getting results in Go practice. So then we’ll have to assume that the result of a Go game is an object of search. Those who do not search anything but rely upon the statement that “everything is known” might answer that the result of a Go game is the victory of one side and the defeat of another one. I’ve heard of such a viewpoint and I even try to understand it. When you don’t intend to search every stamp is ok. But what if a person needs to search? And what can you get searching? It seems to me that a game notation can be similar to retelling (summary) and commentary is like an essay on a certain topic (a certain game). To my mind, High Go is an art of composing. My Go school researches in this direction.

- If you don’t show and explain mistakes that have led to defeat, what should be shown and explained instead?

- What is better? What is higher? An answer or a question? The question is a search and the answer is the end of this search. My answer will be worse than the question.

If you show only those mistakes that have led to defeat how are you going to show those trains of thoughts that are important as stages of growth but caused defeat in this certain game anyway? If a reviewer analyses my mistakes it is very good. But where can I find an integral reviewer? Where can I find a reviewer that analyses not only my mistakes but my discoveries and my attempts of discovery; my strong sides and my strong moves? How can I learn about my strengths if I don’t see then from inside? As well as don’t see my mistakes?

If a commentator encourages me only in avoiding of defeats how can I find a reviewer who will explain me that the war is not a single battle? Or it isn’t so and there is not any strategy? What is the name for a person who can show me that the victory in a war is a course of triumphs and defeats where defeats have a very important place? Who will show me the place and the meaning of my concrete defeat? What is the place without which the victory in the whole war is impossible?

Let’s ask one more question. On what or against whom this war is? It is on nothing and against nobody. Is it a war for your own trainability? Is this war ordinary and evident? Certain powers inside me are not on my side in this war. The war is waged while I’m studying and they say it is possible to win. The victory in this war is a person’s ability to study. Inability to study is a defeat in the war. If I teach myself only to avoid defeats a question will rise: might it be a different war? And with what purposes is it waged?

That is why, maybe, there is a grain when they say that a game commentary is an essay on a difficult topic. A topic about my education. Isn’t it meaningless to analyze without any connection with my education as well as to explain corner joseki without its whole-board situation?
But can everyone write such an essay? Isn’t it the reason for its high price if you go to a specialist? And if you go to a nonexpert isn’t it better not to go at all?

//Igor Grishin, the president of the Go Federation, Russia.//