Library and Weiqi Stuffs

I have tried many times to catalog my library and every time, I fail. The only library that I consistently update is my library of movies which has more than 1,000 entries now but that even I have not updated for the past 8 months. Well, in the heat of so many Go/Weiqi activities recently and upon the request of one weiqi friend, here is a photo-catalog of my weiqi stuffs. Some are still missing from the photos below, such as my collection of the Go World magazines and the magnetic and folding Goban set, but anyways, here is what is in my collection to-date.

This is the Go set that I am using, most often the set on the left side. The bowl is made of Keyaki wood and it is a size 33 moon grade slate and shell stones bought from Kuroki Goishi Ten. The board is a 6cm 4 piece composite wood that I bought from the Chinese Weiqi Association in Beijing. I don’t know the name of the wood though. On the right side is my second set which is used when more Go friends come for a visit. These are high quality glass stones from Japan in a black wooden bowl and the board is a 2.5cm one-piece wood that I bought during the World Mind Sports Game in Beijing. I don’t know the name of the wood either. Am contemplating on acquiring a Hyuga Kaya table Goban from Mr. Kuroki but that can wait with the high Yen exchange rate.

At the back of the set are fans autographed by professional players. The most left is by Cho-U and featured one of his tsumego, next to it is the autographs of professional players I met during the World Mind Sports Games, the third contains the autographs of professional players in China and the last one is “The Tao of Go”.

Here is the first of the three shelves of Go books in my library.

Here is the second shelf.

Here is the third shelf.

Here is the collection of videos, notably the Nie Weiping lecture series, Wang Yuan lectures etc. There are many other videos that I have but not displayed here.

In terms of software, I have the 2005 version of GoGOD and Smartgo2 which I use very often. I LOVE SmartGo.

Next post, perhaps a photo-catalog of the movies stuffs.

7 Deadly Sins

After the brilliant movie “Se7en”, everybody knows about the 7 deadly sins. It is a good movie, shocking to my young system back then but is brilliant, on par with the other David Finchers such as FIGHT CLUB, ALIEN and such.

I didn’t know in Go there is also a 7 deadly sins until I read Janice Kim’s book, THE DRAGON STYLE (well….. attempting to link Go with movies…. tsk tsk….).

The 7 deadly sins in the movie are:

1. Lust
2. Gluttony
3. Greed
4. Sloth
5. Wrath
6. Envy
7. Pride

Let’s have a look at Janice Kim’s 7 deadly dangers in Go:

1. Fear
2. Agitation
3. Greed
4. Thoughtlessness
5. Irrationality
6. Anger
7. Envy

Wow, quite a bit of similarity there, isn’t it.

The funny thing is how these are so true, and how these are great human weaknesses.

Hmmmm…… I wonder why LUST is not part of the Go weakness….. it will be pretty sexy if it is…… ^^

Workshop with Kang Laoshi

As I have mentioned earlier, there are more and more Go related events in Malaysia and everything is just so exciting. Last weekend we had Kang Laoshi (Laoshi means teacher) coming from the Singapore Weiqi Association to give us a Go Workshop. Kang Laoshi is a professional 6 dan player from China.

It was a great 2-day workshop. We studied fuseki (openings) (The Kobayashi, The Mini Chinese, favourite fuseki of Gu Li and Lee Changho, etc. etc.), joseki in the context of fuseki and we realised that nowadays we do not study joseki in isolation to the corner pattern but it is always in the context of the fuseki and thus the the variations almost always extend to a quarter of the board with a full board consideration, studied professional games and of course we played teaching games.

If we can have this workshop once every 2-3 months, it will definitely help us Malaysian players improve by a lot. Here are some photos:

Kang Laoshi talking about the game between Gu Li and Lee Sedol in the 1st game of the LG Cup recently where Gu Li won. Kang Laoshi explained the game in great detail and with such excitement, it was very contagious. He is not only a great teacher, he is also a great storyteller.

Participants at the workshop. In total about 22 people participated.

The teaching game. I played two games, one on each day. The first one was with a 3 handicap of which I lost by resignation and the second one is a four handicap game which I lost by 6 points. I thought I was winning the second game though, alas!

As usual, after a day’s worth of Go activities, we all go and have dinner. We normally go to the restaurant nearby the Japan Club and had steamboat.

The kids’ table. All these kids are below 30 years old. They sit at the Kid’s Table.

All in all, I really hope that we can have this more often. Not only is it fun, I have learned a lot from this workshop, especially on the latest developments of fuseki-joseki as well as gained a far deeper appreciation of recent professional games. I normally download and go through the latest professional games by myself but after hearing Kang Laoshi explaining the same game, I came to realise how much I have missed during my own review. A real eye (or rather, brain)-opener.

Edit: Xinwen has generously uploaded the notes to the workshop on his blog. Follow this linl to read: Xinwen’s Blog

Meeting Go Seigen Sensei

In any trade or line of interests, there must always be someone who is legendary to that trade or line of interest. Think of John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Akira Kurosawa, Herbert von Karajan, Jack Nicklaus, Rabindranath Tagore, Edith Piaf, the sort. In Go, the person is Go Seigen. He is legendary and he is so widely admired, even Tian Zhuangzhuang made a movie out of his life and the result is the movie THE GO MASTER. As such, being a Go player, I made sure to be there in the presence of greatness when I heard that Go Seigen will be going to Singapore as the chief judge for the Ing Cup Final between Lee Changho and Choi Cheolhan.

It is a dream come true to see the Master in real life, to be in such close proximity with him, to take a photo with him, to get his autograph on one of his most admired books, THE WAY OF PLAY FOR THE 21st CENTURY and most of all, to hear his commentaries and ideas about the game that the two players just played. It is just such an amazing opportunity which I suspect will be the first and last for me, to see Master Go Seigen.

Here are some photos from the event:

Master Go Seigen – Group Photo with the Malaysian Weiqi Association Team Members. Together with us is Yang Laoshi, 6dan professional (extreme right)

Master Go Seigen’s autograph on my book. Will keep this book safely for as long as I possibly can. It is priceless. Getting the autograph is so hard because the master is now 96 years old and can only autograph limited number of books.

Go Seigen observing the game between the two new masters, Lee Changho (who is the most superb modern era player) and Choi Cheolhan (another superb player form Korea). Go Seigen is still very sharp despite his age and his attacking moves are still very deadly, from the post-game analysis that he gave.

The two players:

The situation at the general observation room. There were lots of people and the place was fully packed, especially in the evening when a professional 9 dan player from Korea began the game commentary and analysis.

What a wonderful weekend!!