CongressNews No. 5
9x9 Universe
This small-size go is like the first love: We’ll never forget it. Every one of us, we think, had to manage with the 9x9 goban a long time ago, when the fascination of the game passed through the teaching of expert players (“you play 9x9, and when you grow up, we’ll let you use the adult
goban”). That’s not so negative, of course, even if it’s very difficult to halt the beginner’s hunger for go by making him play on a baby goban. Anyway, when you, eventually, become an “expert”, there is a resistance for playing on such a ridiculous (?) size. And so, a top Dan player maybe will discover that on a 9x9 goban he is not a top Dan player, or at least that he is not able to manage with an opponent who has some handicap stones. Where can poor white live, where can he show the majestic power of his tesuji or his profound capacity to calculate a fraction-point? Where, since Black with just two moves can enclose three corners notwithstanding connecting all his stones?
The 9x9 is a game of outsiders: even a 14 Kyu, as it actually happened, can reach the final, even with the respectable number of 152 contestants. The final standing of the 9x9 tournament was:
| 1. | Tiberiu Barbu, 6 Kyu, Romania
|
| 2. | Maura Chiriac, 14 Kyu, Romania
|
| 3. | Stephan Kolassa, 1 Kyu, Germany
|
| 4. | Fiete-Onno Poll, 2 Dan, Germany
|
The players were divided into 26 groups, and by a round-robin system 60 players qualified for the finals, a cruel knockout tournament. No top Dan, apart from Miyakawa Takeshi and Emil Nijhuis (both 4 Dan), reached the finals. Was the handicap system too heavy or was there a substantial truth in what we’ve said above? We’re no experts, we’re only organizers. Is someone amongst you the holder of some mathematical/biological/philosophical/xxxical dazzling theory that can show the way to mastering go in this small 9x9 universe?
(The side events organizers)
Lee Kyuk, 6 Dan from Korea, not only did well in the main tournament. He won the weekend tournament too! Here he takes his prize and congratulations from the president of the Italian go ferderation, Luciano Ghelli.
