Taipei

British Go Journal No. 63. November 1984. Page 6.

Black: Kim Young Hwan, trainee pro
White: Yang Chia Jung, trainee pro
The game-file in SGF format, without comments.

The first ever World Youth Championships were held in July this year in Taiwan. The event was the centre of a slight diplomatic rumpus in the Go World. Given the political status of Taiwan, mainland China not surprisingly refused to participate, while the Japanese only decided to take part at the last minute. This they probably regretted since they had difficulty finding a strong team (the schools had not yet broken up in Japan) and the best they could manage was eighth place.

The event was initiated and sponsored by the father figure of Taiwanese Go, C. K. Ing - a wealthy businessman who has lavished a fortune on promoting go in general and his own set of rules in particular. (He also sponsored the European Championships in Porrentruy by donating 250 sets with special bowls for checking that each side starts with 180 stones).

The final line up included 5 Taiwanese, 3 Koreans, 3 Japanese, 3 Europeans, a Brazilian, an American and a Canadian. Entry grades were wide ranging and inconsistent, the players with the highest nominal grades finished 14^th and 15^th. Our man in the tournament, 14 year old Leigh Rutland from Furze Platt school, recorded a result in line with his 3 kyu grade by winning one game and coming 17th.

Winner of the event was Kim Young Hwan aged 13 from Korea, who defeated Taiwanese Yang Chia Jung aged 12 in the final round. Both these two are trainee professionals, but next year's event will exclude all professional players.

None of Leigh's games were recorded, so we present here the deciding game, with brief attempts by Matthew Macfadyen to understand what is going on.

Dia 1 (1-50)

White 26 connects at 21.

Black 13, 15: Black starts a tricky and explosive joseki to make use of stones 1 and 9.
Black 19: Usually Black plays 21 to 25 first. In the game White has the option of living quickly with 20 at 22, so as to leave his cutting stones in the centre more room. The game result is good for Black.

Dia 2 (51-100)

Black 57 ko at

White 56: Very sharp. White has spotted a way to rescue his weak group at the top. Black has no ko threats so he has to play 59.
76 - 94: Both sides defend by attacking - it doesn't matter how weak your stones are so long as the opponent's are slightly weaker.

Dia 3 (101-200)

White 116 connects at 103.

Black 115: Black cannot start the ko above 101 - White's first ko threat would be to connect to the right of 104, and his second would be 147. Black would then be very embarassed, since he could not continue the ko without risking his whole centre group.
White 122 - 128: This looks like just the sort of ignominious grovelling for life that loses games - Black's wall gets stronger and stronger. However ...
White 130: White finds a sharp counterattack, gains time to protect his upper group at 140, and makes the forcing moves 122 to 128 look like preparations for a large scale attack on the black group.
Black 151: White must be separated and the black stones need eye space, but it is awfully painful to let White strengthen his corner with 152, 156 and 158. If White had not broken through the black wall with 130 - 150, but had simply made eyes, then Black could have attacked the lone white stone in the corner vigorously, and built himself a large territory on the side while doing so.
White 176: Tesuji, assuring him of an eye on the side as well as getting 178 in to improve the security of the eye in the centre.
White 182, 184: He seems to be afraid of some large scale attack on the group in this area, but 185 is a very big move to allow.

Dia 4 (201-254)

Black 253 connects at

White 204: Both sides seem to misread this corner - White must play 205 to avoid being killed.
Black 211: Seki - but if he had played one point lower White would be unconditionally dead. (After that Black could fill all the outside liberties and then make an "eye in the belly" by playing one point above 211. If at any stage White tried to prevent this, White could reduce the stones inside to a one eyed lump.)
White 242 is locally silly, but he is trying to tempt Black to capture 232, which looks like a threat to kill all White's centre stones but isn't (exercise for the reader) so that he can play 246, killing 9 stones.
White 246 is very sharp - he lives inside Black's territory with 254. Black resigned.

The full blooded recklessness with which White refused to protect his weaknesses so long as he had anything left to attack makes this a most impressive game for him. Black failed to pounce when he had the chance.

This article is from the British Go Journal Issue 63
which is one of a series of back issues now available on the web.

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