Chapter 8: WY Cup Amateur Championship
After a light lunch with Grandpa at a diner near the tournament venue, I face the final match.
I glance up briefly at my opponent. A girl, probably a high schooler, mature yet with a hint of youthful freshness.
Her beautiful, softly curved eyes, delicate jawline, and long, wavy hair tied up neatly make her a striking beauty. She plays a more solid and systematic game of Go than my semifinal opponent.
Lee Jia, a top-ranked research student, wasn’t it?
Research students, aspiring professional Go players, are like sharp, finely crafted swords forged by master smiths from the finest materials. Nurtured in the best environments with unmatched talent, they can’t help but excel at Go.
Though not fully polished, they’re destructive enough to cut through some dulled professional players with ease.
Each one is a flawless weapon, impossible to criticize.
Yet, through a rigorous selection process, clashing hundreds or thousands of times, only a handful of the finest research students earn the right to enter the narrow world of professionals and showcase their prowess.
That’s why an unbridgeable gap exists between amateurs and pros.
And, as if proving she’s among the top contenders in the professional entry race, my opponent’s fundamentals are impeccable. But…
“…Hmm.”
White 70. Black 71. White 72, Black 73—an exchange of moves.
I frown without realizing it. I didn’t lose ground. In fact, I gained a slight advantage.
She’s a tough opponent to break through with straightforward aggression, so I probed the upper side to provoke a mistake, aiming to disrupt the board and create chaos.
But, as if reading my intentions, the girl across from me chose a compromising move, accepting a slight loss to avoid a messy fight.
She knows Go too well. Almost excessively so.
Knowledge doesn’t always work in your favor. It makes you humble, but it can also make you fearful.
A beginner, ignorant of the game, has no fear—because they can’t see what might happen, no matter how they play.
But a skilled player with a broad perspective is always cautious, always afraid. They see dangerous futures invisible to novices.
That’s why some who study Go become more passive the more they learn.
Caution and vigilance are good, of course.
But too much or too little of anything is never ideal. And that holds true in Go.
Balance. You must always strive for the right balance.
In critical moments, boldness is sometimes necessary.
Not the reckless courage of a beginner charging into a hopeless fight, but the resolve to stand firm in an even match. It’d be great to only fight when victory is certain, but circumstances aren’t always so kind.
If you always play passively, you might avoid big losses, but winning becomes difficult.
“….”
Watching her cautious, restrained Go, despite her immense skill, feels like seeing my own late-career games.
After repeated losses, my confidence waned. I played only safe moves to avoid defeat, shunned risks, avoided new challenges, and my win rate plummeted. A vicious cycle.
At her age, a high schooler, she’s old for a research student.
Still being a research student likely means she’s failed to become a pro multiple times. It’s no surprise she’s lost confidence in her game.
Coldly speaking, her talent and skill are enough to become a female pro. But with this passive approach, she’ll never make it—and even if she does, she’ll only taste failure.
I have no obligation to do anything.
Leaving her be won’t harm me.
If I meddle and lose the prize money, that’d be utterly foolish. Didn’t I return to Go, not out of passion, but to prepare for future financial struggles?
Yet, as I try to decide, an uneasy knot forms in my chest.
Is it because I can’t bear to watch a brilliant talent wither without blooming, or because seeing her feels like seeing my past self, and it pains me?
The clock is ticking down steadily.
There’s no time to waste on such thoughts.
I make my decision.
*
Yoon Woojae, a retired professional Go player turned online commentator, smiles inwardly as he notices the surge in viewership.
There are more viewers than during world championship broadcasts.
The WY Women’s Amateur Tournament. It’s a big event for an amateur competition, but it wouldn’t normally draw this much attention.
This time, Hozumi Asana, Japan’s youngest pro, stirred some buzz by participating, but that alone wouldn’t have drawn crowds to watch in person.
At the heart of the tournament’s hype is Ryu Seoa, the player who defeated Hozumi Asana in the first round. Like Hozumi, she’s ten years old.
Unlike Hozumi, who’s been in the spotlight for years, Ryu Seoa is an unknown. A mysterious figure who appeared out of nowhere, never before seen in the Go world.
When news broke of Hozumi’s loss, people assumed it was luck or a fluke.
But Ryu Seoa stormed to the semifinals, and with matches broadcast from that stage, her Go was revealed for the first time.
It was astonishingly precise and refined, almost mechanical in its coldness.
For a blonde girl with a soft, warm appearance, her Go felt jarringly different. Her icy, calculated moves carried a deep melancholy and an unfathomable void.
But the audience doesn’t seem to share Yoon Woojae’s impressions.
Half their attention is on the girl’s appearance.
With her striking, Western features and pretty face, it’s no surprise she’s drawing eyes.
The chat, buzzing with talk of her looks, soon shifts to her strength.
How strong is she? How does she compare to so-and-so? They demand concrete measures of her skill.
Yoon Woojae turns his focus to the game. Move 70.
If the players’ names were hidden, you’d believe this was a match between male pros.
“Hmm. I’d say Ryu Seoa is at least at the level of a male research student in Group 2. As we saw in the semifinals, her fundamentals are rock-solid. This might not resonate fully, but if I, in my current state, joined Group 2 and played, I’m not confident I’d even hit a 50% win rate, let alone sweep.”
Yoon Woojae evaluates Ryu Seoa based on the information at hand. It feels like an overly generous assessment, yet somehow, it still seems to underestimate her.
“I asked around the Go community, and no one knows Ryu Seoa. I thought she was an unpolished gem, but watching her play, she seems systematically trained.”
It’s more than systematic—she feels honed to the extreme, like a top-tier pro optimized to perfection, but he can’t say that without certainty.
Past move 80, an upset unfolds.
Ryu Seoa, playing White, shifts her approach dramatically.
White 82 is a self-sacrificing move. But it’s a double-edged sword, tormenting her opponent as well.
“Wow.”
As the game races past move 90, Yoon Woojae lets out an involuntary gasp.
When Black tries to escape, White clings relentlessly, enduring losses to keep the pressure on.
White boldly abandons its own house.
Go is a relative battle. Sacrificing your house is a gain if it disrupts your opponent’s even more.
The one who loses less wins. The one who endures the least pain and stands until the end wins.
“This is painful to watch. White seems… angry, somehow. She was playing like a calm gentleman, but now she’s charging in like a fearless madwoman.”
In the semifinals and early final, Ryu Seoa’s style was flexible and pragmatic. But that softness is gone, replaced by the ferocity of a beast baring its fangs.
In chaotic positions, deep calculation is demanded.
Both White and Black start burning more time.
Black is pushed into countdown first. The final’s countdown is one minute, one chance.
Fail to find the next move in that minute, and it’s a fall into the abyss.
White soon exhausts its time, joining the tightrope.
Move 150.
Even on this precarious line, White shows no care for itself, mercilessly tormenting Black as if they were sworn enemies.
Yet neither falls, balancing with near-artistic finesse, earning gasps from even Go novices.
“Oh! That’s a brilliant move.”
Move 187.
Black plays a masterful move. Such moves don’t come from effort alone.
They’re born in adversity and struggle.
Like great inventions born in war, or heroes emerging in dire moments, masterful moves are unnecessary risks in stable, advantageous positions.
Had White not pushed Black to the brink of exhaustion, this exquisite move would never have surfaced.
The game, slightly tilted toward White, shifts toward Black with that single move.
But Ryu Seoa, holding White, doesn’t stop.
Without a trace of hesitation, the girl carves away her dead stones, steadies herself, and swings her sword again.
Black, once passive, finds balance with that masterful move. Unlike the early game, Black now confidently meets White’s attacks.
A great match isn’t made by one side playing well.
Both must play brilliantly for art to emerge.
“Truly, regardless of the outcome, two remarkable talents have emerged. I’m grateful to witness this match live.”
It’s a gripping battle, impossible to look away from.
The game surges toward the endgame, and Yoon Woojae begins calculating the complex house count.