The Go Adventures of Randie Ch. 3

Chapter 3: Professional Go Players




“Ah, I totally missed this cut here!” Cried Tommy.




“Yea,” replied Molly. “This cut was dangerous so you should have fixed it instead of attacking me over here.” She stated while pointing to the black move that was played prior to her cut. “Once I cut you though you were trapped along the edge with now way out.”




It was then that Mr. Tom showed up and started commenting on the game.




“Yes, I happened to see that part for myself when I glanced over here.” He said. “This shape here is like the ladder, once your trapped against the edge there is no way out. Rather than run with this like you did in the game you should have realized you were trapped and gave it up. Then you wouldn’t have lost the entire game immediately but only fell behind. From there you could work your way back up to try and take the advantage again.”




“Oh I see.” Replied Tommy. “I’ll have to remember that shape for next time.”




“Correct. “Said Mr. Tom. “Remember, it is better to give up something that can’t be saved rather than adding more stone to it to get captured.”




“Right.” Said Molly in agreement. Apparently she had already learned this concept. I made sure to remember it. I felt like this would be an important concept for me to learn if I wanted to improve to beat Tommy some day. Who knows, maybe I could even duke it out with Molly in a territory game as well.




Mr. Tom noticed I was watching intently and started speaking to me as well.

“How are you liking Go so far?” He asked.




“I think it’s pretty interesting.” I replied. “There’s a lot of cool tactics involved which I’m only starting to understand.”




“That’s correct.” He said. “While Go is a simple game to learn, it takes a life time to master every single tactic and even today, new ideas are being brought up in the professional world.”




“A lifetime?!” I said, shocked.”Exactly how long does it take to improve?”




“Well…” he started. “For me, I’m only 7dan amateur level and I have been playing for more than ten years.”




“Ten years?!” I shouted.




“Yes.” He began again. “In Asia, which is on the other side of the world and where this game originated, they have kids studying every day in a dojo or training school to study and master this game. Talented players take around 5-10 years to become a professional player, and some take even longer. Other spend decades trying but never reach that level.”




“Wow…” I said. “That’s amazing! You can study for so long and never become a professional Go player?”




“That’s correct.” He said. “Because many people work hard to attain it, you have to work extra hard to beat everyone else. Since there is only a certain number of players allowed to become pro every year, it is very difficult.”




“How do you become a pro Go player?” I asked.




“You have to win a qualifier tournament against that countries strongest players. Here in America we also have a qualifier tournament, but since we don’t have as many players it is not as difficult. But it is still a tough competition to say the least.”




“Are you trying to become pro?” I asked him.




He laughed an replied, “Well, I compete in the tournaments, but I haven’t won them yet. The furthest I’ve gotten is only around the top eight.”




“That’s pretty close then isn’t it?” Said Molly.




“Maybe, but it is still hard to win.” He said. “In the top eight you are facing the best eight amateur players in the country. Each round the best players move up so it gets harder and harder with every win. So it may seem close, but every round gets tougher and tougher so I’ve still got a ways to go.”




“That sounds so cool!” I thought out loud. Tommy and Molly seemed to be in complete agreement.




“Are professional Go players the top level?” Asked Tommy.




“Actually,” Mr. Tom replied. “For those wanting to compete with the worlds best, becoming a professional Go player is only the first step. After that they start competing with all the other pro players out there and compete to become the best of the best. They also compete in international tournaments to become recognized as the top players in the world. But that is extremely hard to do.”




All three of our eyes lit up in excitement. If I hadn’t been willing to learn Go yet, I definitely was then. I knew it would be a long time before I ever got close to being a top amateur dan player, much less a pro Go player. But the dream of competing with the top players world wide was so thrilling, it had driven me to learn to play this game and put some real effort into improving. It wasn’t for a while after that that I realized I had forgotten my passion for kickball. It seems this strange board game became its replacement.




We played several more capture Go games after that and I lost every single one. However, Tommy was able to beat Molly once after playing around five games. Though the Go club’s time limit was only 90 minutes, we were able to get a lot of games in. I guess that’s another reason why playing on a small board is good for beginners. You get lots of practice very quickly. If this was a big board, it make take the whole 90 minutes to finish one game.






Before leaving, Mr. Tom handed me some problem work sheets to take home. The sheets basically contained pre-setup positions where you either had to capture white or save black. They all seemed to be black’s turn for convenience. But apparently there positions bother colors have a chance of being in. He told me to mark the first three moves and bring them back to him to check if I was right or wrong. I planned to get them all right, but that was probably too optimistic. I realized after a little thinking that this was basically homework, (which I despise) but since it was for Go which is a game, it kind of had a different feeling to it. I was able to do all the problems in the same night without issue. Maybe I was getting a little too attached to this game. After all, if I start liking homework, then I don’t think I’ll be able to recognize myself…