All Things Go Podcast

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Timestamps correspond to the final local audio. Names, tournament titles, and obvious automatic-transcription errors were corrected conservatively.

World Pair Go Championship 2026

[00:00] Travis: This episode is sponsored by Baduk Pop and SmartGo One.

[00:28] Travis: All right.

[00:29] Travis: I'm joined today by Gazza White from the Pro Go/Baduk/Weiqi podcast. So, Gazza, thanks for being here.

[00:37] Travis: Maybe we could just start with the World Pair Go Championship. Maybe let's start with Pair Go. Just for anyone who hasn't seen it before, correct me if I'm wrong, Gazza.

[00:49] Travis: It's teams of two players, right? Traditionally,

[00:52] Travis: one man and one woman alternating moves for the same side. So this year it was Japan's Fujisawa Rina and Ichiriki Ryo who won the championship.

[01:06] Gazza White: That's right.

[01:06] Travis: So, okay, so maybe you can just take us into a little bit. Like, for somebody who didn't follow the event,

[01:14] Travis: what stood out to you? What happened? Was there anything that you found particularly interesting about it?

[01:22] Gazza White: So there was a.

[01:24] Gazza White: It was called the Pair Go World Festival that was held in Japan in late September.

[01:32] Gazza White: And I believe they had several Pair Go events involving amateur and professional players.

[01:44] Gazza White: I was more aware of simply the professional tournament that they had, which they called the World Pair Go Championship, because that had some streaming on Baduk TV

[02:02] Gazza White: for the Korean players that participated.

[02:06] Gazza White: But I wasn't too familiar with the tournament structure. I believe they had eight pairs.

[02:17] Gazza White: one from Taiwan,

[02:22] Gazza White: two from Korea,

[02:26] Gazza White: and I believe it would have been two from China and three from Japan.

[02:31] Gazza White: So 16 players all up, eight men, eight women.

[02:37] Gazza White: And I think that it was.

[02:40] Gazza White: There were four. There were two groups of four teams, and they had a double elimination.

[02:47] Gazza White: So you played until you.

[02:49] Gazza White: You either won twice or you lost twice.

[02:52] Gazza White: And two teams from each of those groups went on to the semifinals. And then there was the final.

[03:02] Gazza White: The one thing that I noticed is again,

[03:05] Gazza White: the games that I was able to follow were on Baduk TV.

[03:07] Gazza White: So they were following the Korean teams. And the Korean teams were Byeon Sang-il and Choi Jeong.

[03:16] Gazza White: That was one team. And the other team was Shin Min-jun and Kim Eun-ji.

[03:22] Gazza White: So Byeon Sang-il and Shin Min-jun are in the top five in Korea, while Choi Jeong and Kim Eun-ji are the clear top two women players for Korea.

[03:37] Gazza White: No Shin Jin-seo, no Park Junghwan.

[03:41] Gazza White: But that could have been scheduling or it could have been that they.

[03:45] Gazza White: It could have been also that they just didn't want to do it. But I think it was mainly. I think it was mainly scheduling because China. China brought out their top players,

[03:55] Gazza White: Japan brought their top players, and so did Taiwan.

[04:00] Gazza White: So I think it was just Whoever was, was available for Korea.

[04:05] Gazza White: The Korean teams, they both won their first round match, but then they lost their second and third round matches. So neither of them actually made it to the semifinals. So it was a little bit of an underwhelming performance from the Koreans.

[04:21] Gazza White: But again, it's not really, it's.

[04:23] Gazza White: It's sort of an exhibition Pair Go.

[04:27] Gazza White: It's more of a novelty type of thing.

[04:31] Gazza White: It certainly doesn't go on their official record, and the time controls are actually quite fast, I believe.

[04:36] Gazza White: I'm not sure what they, I'm not sure what, what they were, to be honest. Yeah,

[04:41] Gazza White: but the games,

[04:43] Gazza White: the games were definitely quite quick. They were some. Overall, the entire game was somewhere between one to two hours.

[04:50] Travis: Hmm.

[04:51] Travis: It's interesting cause you actually read my mind on like my follow up question was gonna be, you know, where does Pair Go fit in the pro world? And like you said, it's, it's sort of a novelty.

[05:01] Travis: It sounds like a little bit of a,

[05:03] Travis: it sounds a little bit like almost like these All Star games that you have in other major professional sports where it's like, okay,

[05:10] Travis: we're getting the best hockey players or the best,

[05:14] Travis: whatever it is, baseball players, all in one game. It's a bit of an all-star setup.

[05:20] Travis: Yeah.

[05:21] Travis: Just because each of them is very good doesn't mean they'll make a super team together, right?

[05:27] Gazza White: I think it's kind of like that. You could also consider it – I know in NBA All-Star Weekend they have different exhibition events, like the skills challenge and three-point contest.

[05:41] Travis: Right, right.

[05:43] Gazza White: So it's kind of like that,

[05:44] Gazza White: because these players alternate moves. They're not playing the whole game; they're playing half the game, really.

[05:53] Gazza White: And so there are different strategies that happen.

[05:58] Gazza White: It's interesting. They clearly make the effort to get the best players to participate in these events, but I imagine that they don't really

[06:10] Gazza White: train for it. They don't train specifically for Pair Go,

[06:14] Gazza White: you know.

[06:15] Travis: Right, right.

[06:16] Gazza White: It does require a different strategy, but I think they go in, do their best, and try to put on

[06:23] Gazza White: put on a good show.

[06:25] Gazza White: They're certainly trying to play the best moves. They're not trying to be silly or

[06:32] Gazza White: do something outrageous.

[06:36] Travis: But I guess it's a little bit of mind reading.

[06:38] Gazza White: Right.

[06:39] Travis: You're saying, okay, what is my teammate thinking? And I need to try to go along with that strategy, which definitely introduces another element.

[06:51] Gazza White: It does. It's very interesting because one thing that one of the rules in Pair Go is you can't communicate with your teammate.

[07:01] Gazza White: The only time you can communicate is to discuss whether or not to resign.

[07:09] Gazza White: Again, you can't communicate strategy or anything like that during the game.

[07:15] Gazza White: So it is exactly kind of mind reading.

[07:21] Gazza White: And in amateur Pair Go,

[07:25] Gazza White: often you'll find,

[07:27] Gazza White: well, certainly where I come from, there aren't that many strong women players,

[07:34] Gazza White: and there are certainly some strong women players, but they won't always be available to represent

[07:39] Gazza White: you know, Australia in competition. So sometimes you will have a considerably stronger male player,

[07:47] Gazza White: and often a strategy will be, if the other team knows that one player is not as strong,

[07:57] Gazza White: um,

[07:58] Gazza White: They'll make sure that the stronger player has to respond to forcing moves – moves they're required to answer –

[08:07] Gazza White: So they don't get the opportunity to play the strongest moves.

[08:14] Gazza White: That sort of tactic.

[08:18] Gazza White: And that probably doesn't really happen in professional Go because, certainly in this competition, the strengths of the male and female players were reasonably close.

[08:29] Gazza White: But that kind of tactic does come up on occasion.

[08:35] Travis: Got it. So you're dealing with this major,

[08:37] Travis: potentially a major skill imbalance in other contexts, right, doing a Pair Go setup.

[08:50] Travis: There's a history to the game,

[08:53] Travis: and it had been typically male-dominated, so you just might not have that similarity in skill. I have to be honest, Gazza, this is going to feel like it's grasping at straws, but

[09:07] Travis: I just watched a documentary recently about.

[09:13] Travis: Do you know who Rachael Gunn is?

[09:19] Travis: Raygun.

[09:20] Gazza White: Oh, yeah. Raygun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[09:22] Travis: They just released a documentary in America on her and the Olympics.

[09:29] Travis: And I mean, it's probably to asking an Aussie, you're like, Travis, of course I know what that is. But I, I was not. I was a little bit aware of it, but for kind of like, right.

[09:40] Travis: She was the person who was doing breakdancing, went to the Olympics and,

[09:44] Travis: you know,

[09:45] Travis: kind of was called out as not really doing,

[09:49] Travis: you know, very good break dancing or whatever it might be. And she had a certain move with like a kangaroo in it and whatnot. But watching it,

[09:59] Travis: part of my takeaway was that, you know, there was no real.

[10:04] Travis: Yeah, there was no tilting of the scales or anything like that. She went to a qualifier for breakdancing in Australia.

[10:13] Travis: And on that day, the people that happened to sign up to qualify,

[10:18] Travis: she was kind of the best one. But, but my understanding is that there were just like the,

[10:24] Travis: you know, where breakdancing was in Australia compared to other countries in the world was just there was a decent gap. So it almost makes me think in a very small way like Pair Go, there could be that just happening across genders.

[10:39] Gazza White: But I think also one of the reasons for Pair Go, like the initiative is to encourage more women to participate.

[10:48] Gazza White: There are always a lot of initiatives to encourage more women to participate in Go, whether it's amateur Go or professional Go, to try to reduce that gender imbalance.

[11:01] Gazza White: And I think that Pair Go,

[11:03] Gazza White: Maybe it's not the primary reason why Pair Go is still promoted,

[11:09] Gazza White: but it's certainly one of the contributing factors.

[11:13] Travis: Interesting. I mean it's funny because like even you know,

[11:18] Travis: Eunkyo Do,

[11:19] Travis: the who has her English Go channel, she's a Korean professional.

[11:25] Travis: I remember her saying that she felt like there was all this in a way benefit to being if you could be good enough to qualify to be a professional, which is a very high bar,

[11:40] Travis: that if you were a woman there was kind of opportunity. Like she felt like she could stand out in a good way a lot more than a male counterpart could because there just were so many fewer female professionals.

[11:57] Gazza White: So yeah,

[11:58] Gazza White: that's certainly the case. And I think that sort of incentive,

[12:03] Gazza White: hopefully, you know, that sort of incentive encourages there to be more women players.

[12:10] Gazza White: Certainly in the amateur scene, I would prefer to see more women because the fewer women players you have, the fewer women are encouraged to participate. And it's just a cycle that repeats.

[12:23] Travis: Yeah, it's like if you don't see yourself,

[12:25] Travis: if you don't see somebody like you doing a thing,

[12:28] Travis: you're like, well why would I want to do that? I don't see somebody doing, you know, somebody looking like me.

[12:35] Travis: And it's interesting that you said that these are really the top players in the world doing at least this Pair Go festival.

[12:45] Travis: And it could certainly not be right. It could be,

[12:48] Travis: you know, the 50th-best player or some lesser-known people. So it's interesting that even though the number-one player couldn't do it – Shin Jin-seo, for example – they're still

[13:02] Travis: it's taken,

[13:04] Travis: it's taken seriously or at least it's taken to the level of like, hey, optics are important. We Want to show to some degree that this is important for. For the game.

[13:16] Travis: So yeah, interesting.

[13:17] Gazza White: I actually was a little bit surprised. I know they still take Pair Go seriously, but I was surprised that Taiwan and China – well, I wasn't surprised that Japan – had their best players.

[13:29] Gazza White: It was hosted by Japan. But I was kind of surprised that Taiwan and China absolutely brought their best players. China brought Wang Xinghao and Ding Hao. They're essentially the top two players in China.

[13:44] Gazza White: Taiwan brought Hsu Hao-hung, the number-one player in Taiwan.

[13:48] Gazza White: So that was good to see.

[13:52] Travis: Interesting.

[13:52] Gazza White: And Wang Xinghao was paired with Yu Zhiying, who for a while was the top women's player in China. I don't think she is anymore, but she's close, and she's one of the few women to have won a world major. I believe they came third.

[14:10] Gazza White: I think they, they won third place.

[14:13] Travis: Okay.

[14:14] Gazza White: Wang Xinghao and Yu Zhiying. Yeah, they beat Ueno Asami and Iyama Yuta for third place.

[14:21] Travis: Oh wow. Okay, interesting.

[14:24] Gazza White: Whereas the Taiwanese pair, Hsu Hao-hung, he was paired with Yang Tzu-Hsuan.

[14:31] Gazza White: She's a strong Taiwanese female player. And they were runners-up. They actually made the final and were runners-up to Fujisawa Rina and Ichiriki Ryo.

[14:43] Travis: Interesting.

Sponsor Break

[14:45] Travis: This episode is sponsored by Baduk Pop, the app that makes learning Go fun and accessible with interactive puzzles, bite sized lessons and an AI tutor to guide you step by step.

[14:56] Travis: It's perfect for players on the move.

[14:58] Travis: You can download it or learn more at badukpop.com. That's B-A-D-U-K-P-O-P dot com. This episode is also sponsored by SmartGo One, the all-in-one Go toolkit for Apple devices.

[15:12] Travis: Replay professional games, solve problems and keep your SGF collection organized all in one elegant app.

[15:18] Travis: Check it out at smartgo.com or wherever you go to get your apps.

Japan: Meijin Title Match

[15:24] Travis: Okay, great. So that was the Pair Go Festival, and I even heard that the American Go Association president was there, so it sounded like a whole big event.

[15:34] Travis: But maybe we can shift over to the Meijin tournament in Japan. For context, this is one of the major Japanese titles, right? And my understanding is that the championship is a best-of-seven match, if that's right.

[15:51] Gazza White: That's right. It's a title match.

[15:53] Travis: Title match. Thank you.

[15:55] Travis: And so Ichiriki Ryo is the defending champion, and he's being challenged by Shibano Toramaru.

[16:03] Travis: And Shibano has just taken a three-games-to-two lead.

[16:10] Gazza White: That's right. The last game finished yesterday – was it? No, it finished on Thursday. Sorry, it finished two days ago as of this recording.

[16:22] Travis: Yeah.

[16:23] Travis: Friday night, so the Friday before the release.

[16:27] Gazza White: Yeah,

[16:29] Gazza White: yeah. So.

[16:30] Gazza White: So Shibano actually recently beat Ichiriki in the Kisei title, which is another very big domestic title in Japan.

[16:44] Gazza White: And this is,

[16:46] Gazza White: There are actually only two domestic majors in Japan that have a best-of-seven match where the games are played across two days: the Kisei and the Meijin. Shibano earlier this year dethroned Ichiriki to claim the Kisei title, and now he's challenging Ichiriki for the Meijin title.

[17:12] Gazza White: So these are essentially

[17:15] Gazza White: Japan's so-called Big Seven domestic titles, but these are the two biggest of the Big Seven.

[17:21] Travis: Oh, okay. Meijin and Kisei. Okay.

[17:24] Gazza White: Yeah.

[17:25] Gazza White: And Ichiriki actually won the first two games of this title match, but then Shibano won the next two to even it up at two apiece. And as you said,

[17:37] Gazza White: the fifth game recently completed and Shibano won that one as well.

[17:42] Gazza White: These games are actually streamed on the Nihon Ki-in YouTube channel,

[17:50] Gazza White: despite the fact that they are very long games. Both players get eight hours of main time, and they're played across two days.

[18:05] Gazza White: It's something you can have on like a podcast as background noise if you're working from home and you understand Japanese.

[18:14] Gazza White: Occasionally they're interspersed with some commentary, some analysis from some very strong professionals of either very strong current professionals or former title holders.

[18:29] Gazza White: One thing that I noticed – I did have the opportunity to follow these games live – is that Ichiriki seemed to have an illness.

[18:40] Gazza White: I think he had the flu or something.

[18:44] Travis: How could you tell? Like he just really sniffling or.

[18:47] Gazza White: He was sniffling a lot. Yeah.

[18:48] Travis: Oh geez.

[18:49] Gazza White: He didn't seem to be in the best of shape, unfortunately.

[18:54] Gazza White: I don't know if that contributed to his performance – he lost the game –

[19:01] Gazza White: but I imagine that it could have had an effect.

[19:05] Gazza White: It was a little bit disappointing. I don't think he played his best in this game,

[19:11] Gazza White: but fortunately for him it's a best of seven.

[19:16] Gazza White: So Shibano has only won three games.

[19:18] Gazza White: He still needs to win one more. And Ichiriki is nothing if not resilient.

[19:24] Gazza White: And he'll have the white pieces,

[19:26] Gazza White: the white stones for game six,

[19:29] Gazza White: which is in a couple of weeks time.

[19:32] Gazza White: And obviously I'd like to see a game seven, so I'm hoping Ichiriki wins that sixth game. But yeah,

[19:39] Gazza White: it'll. It'll be. It'll be a good fight.

[19:42] Travis: Yeah. I mean, I guess I was just thinking, as you said, that rules are rules. So it doesn't sound like.

[19:49] Travis: In a lot of games, in a lot of sports, you can't say, oh, well,

[19:52] Travis: my opponent's feeling not well, so why don't we just reschedule it? Right. I guess you can't.

[19:57] Travis: Perhaps you can't do that, or it's not in.

[20:01] Gazza White: Yeah. For a, for a match like this, I think it would be impossible to reschedule it. They don't even reschedule these types of matches for international tournaments. If, if this clashes with an international tournament, the Japanese players will simply not participate in.

[20:16] Travis: Wow.

[20:16] Gazza White: In the international tournament. And that's actually one of the reasons Iyama has not participated in as many world majors as one might expect.

[20:27] Gazza White: A lot of the time he's the,

[20:30] Gazza White: the tournament schedule just clashes.

[20:32] Gazza White: Clashed with his, with his title defenses. It doesn't clash so as much now because he doesn't have that many titles.

[20:39] Gazza White: But in the past when he was as dominant as he was, he actually,

[20:43] Gazza White: it actually wasn't so easy for him to prove himself among the international competition because he just didn't have, he just didn't have the schedule for it.

[20:52] Travis: So he had this catch 22. He's like, I. At one point, wasn't he a holder of all seven titles?

[20:57] Gazza White: For quite a while, he was holder of all seven titles for, for like a year consecutively.

[21:03] Gazza White: And a lot of that time he was not participating in the international competition, not because he was avoiding it, but simply because he was obligated to defend those titles. And the sponsors set a schedule for those title matches.

[21:19] Gazza White: And if the World Majors clashed, he simply, they simply wouldn't.

[21:25] Gazza White: Couldn't get selected for the World Majors.

[21:27] Travis: Can we define obligated? I mean, do you think it's. Do you think it's a matter of like, hey, if you hold this,

[21:33] Travis: this title,

[21:35] Travis: like there's no choice in the matter, you have to defend it?

[21:38] Travis: Or is it. Well, you can choose not to defend it, but you're going to lose face or lose your sponsorship, or I don't have no Idea.

[21:48] Gazza White: That's simply not. That's not my area of expertise. But one thing I would say,

[21:53] Gazza White: One thing I would say is that a lot of. At the time, the most of the Japanese prize money for winning a title was actually higher than. Than well or on the same level as winning a world major.

[22:09] Travis: So that gives you some incentive financially.

[22:12] Gazza White: It certainly made sense for him to not participate in the international competition.

[22:16] Travis: Right. Not to say that's the only incentive, but. Yeah, yeah.

[22:20] Gazza White: As opposed to whether he was obligated, I would imagine that even without the financial incentive he was probably obligated, but that's just my guess.

[22:29] Travis: It's hard to think. Speculation.

[22:31] Gazza White: It's. It's speculation. But in any case,

[22:35] Gazza White: now competes more often in the World Majors.

[22:39] Gazza White: But, and, and also.

[22:41] Gazza White: But regarding the whether,

[22:43] Gazza White: you know, you. Ichiriki could just ask for a postponement again. I, I think that these schedules are very rigid, like the sponsors.

[22:54] Gazza White: I think

[22:56] Gazza White: you know, once those schedules are set, it's,

[22:58] Gazza White: you know, if you can't make it, tough luck. You know, if you suddenly get sick,

[23:03] Gazza White: you know, tough luck. And you know, if he was so sick that he couldn't play, he would have just had to forfeit the game, I imagine. And I think that that precedent has happened in the past.

[23:12] Travis: I see.

[23:14] Travis: It's funny, it reminds me of John Fairbairn's new book, How Strong Was Go Seigen?

[23:22] Travis: And I don't know if you've read it, Gazza, but I've only started it, so I'm not fully through it yet. But it starts with Go Seigen in the heyday when he's sort of at the top of his game.

[23:37] Travis: And I guess the Nihon Ki-in is. You probably know way more about this than I do, but in the book it says, okay, they kind of try to figure out from the.

[23:46] Travis: I think it's from the Kansai Ki-in, which is the other Japanese Go association, and the Nihon Ki-in.

[23:52] Travis: Let's get a group of people to play against Go Seigen to see if we can make it interesting or whatnot. And the scheduling got crazy.

[24:03] Travis: They were trying to make it sort of fair between the Kansai Ki-in players and the Nihon Ki-in players. But then one of the players was moving to another house,

[24:14] Travis: And so it was a problem and so it created all these issues. So I can see if it was that rigid back then, I could see why it might be so rigid now.

[24:26] Gazza White: Yeah, yeah yeah. John Fairbairn would be a great person. He would. He would know more about this.

[24:34] Travis: He would. Yeah he would. Yeah.

[24:37] Gazza White: Yeah.

[24:38] Travis: I just. I actually I.

[24:39] Travis: Unfortunately he has.

[24:42] Travis: He's hard of hearing but he. So audio would not work but he was nice enough to do an a text email interview and and so we did get that I think a week or two ago which is.

[24:55] Travis: Was interesting but yeah, he would be. I wish.

[24:58] Travis: Wish we could ask him a ton of questions. Okay so that happened at the. For the Meijin Ichiriki Ryo was.

[25:10] Travis: You perceived him to be ill and sick and so he's down for the count now.

[25:15] Travis: Let's see if maybe the.

[25:17] Travis: Maybe the momentum can shift for him.

Korea: 49th Myungin

[25:21] Travis: Maybe we can go over to the Myungin in Korea and just talk about that a little bit. My understanding, Gazza, is it's a long-running Korean professional competition, and Shin Jin-seo made it through to the championship final, correct?

[25:37] Gazza White: Yes. The Myungin – I'm not sure exactly how it's pronounced – is a tournament that's in its 49th edition, but it did actually get stalled.

[25:57] Gazza White: It stopped for a few years, I think during the pandemic, and I imagine it lost its sponsor or something like that.

[26:07] Travis: Right, right.

[26:08] Gazza White: Other tournaments didn't stop during the pandemic; they moved to computers. I guess the Myungin got a new sponsor, and this is its 49th edition.

[26:26] Gazza White: Nowadays it's run as a double-elimination competition.

[26:30] Gazza White: So if you lose a game, you're not eliminated. You just go into the losers bracket, and from there you have to win all of your games. The winner's bracket has been completed.

[26:42] Gazza White: And as you said Shin Jin-seo did win the winner's bracket.

[26:47] Gazza White: So he goes directly to the final and there are three players left in the losers bracket.

[26:55] Gazza White: Lee Ji-hyun and Shin Min-jun.

[26:58] Gazza White: They're going to be playing on the 6th of October, and whoever wins that will play Park Junghwan. Then the winner of that gets the other spot in the final, which will be best of three.

[27:16] Gazza White: So yeah, Shin Jin-seo he.

[27:19] Gazza White: He has won four yet to. There were 16 players in. In the. In the main tournament. So to win the winner's bracket you had to win four games without losing so Shin Jin-seo did that.

[27:34] Gazza White: And then Park Junghwan was the loser of the winner's-bracket final. So he only needs to win one more game to get a second bite at the cherry and get back into that final.

[27:47] Travis: I see. And Shim. And Jun was the player. Did he not win one of the recent additions of the Samsung Cup?

[27:58] Gazza White: Oh, he.

[28:02] Travis: Against Ichiriki Ryo? Or was that the LG Cup or something else?

[28:08] Gazza White: Shin Min-jun actually just recently lost in the final of the LG Cup. I think that was to Wang Xinghao.

[28:19] Travis: Okay.

[28:21] Gazza White: Oh, no, sorry. He won the LG Cup. Is that right?

[28:24] Travis: Yes. Yeah, that's right. I know it was against Ichiriki Ryo.

[28:29] Gazza White: Oh, sorry.

[28:29] Travis: Ended up winning. Was that last year?

[28:31] Gazza White: Last year, right. Last year he won the LG Cup against Ichiriki Ryo. That's actually his second LG Cup. And this year he made the final of the LG Cup and lost to Wang Xinghao.

[28:44] Gazza White: It was interesting because no one has actually won the LG Cup in consecutive editions, so Shin Min-jun was close to achieving something that no one had ever achieved before.

[28:55] Gazza White: But Wang Xinghao won the last LG Cup.

[29:00] Travis: Took it. The last one. Is there anything in this,

[29:04] Travis: For this event, is there anything we're learning about Shin Jin-seo beyond him just being an absolute beast, winning so many games and being so dominant?

[29:16] Gazza White: Well, he's still the best. He's still the best in Korea and the best in the world. It's. He's. He's. It's been like that for. For. Since 2019.

[29:30] Travis: Yeah. Didn't just hit a record. It was like 81 months consecutively or something like this.

[29:35] Gazza White: Oh, yeah. So he's. He's topped the Korean rankings for.

[29:41] Gazza White: Since the start of 2021.

[29:45] Travis: Wow.

[29:46] Gazza White: And he's. He's been.

[29:48] Gazza White: Yeah, he's been at the top 81 straight months. That's crazy. Maybe. Maybe it's 81 straight months or something like that.

[29:54] Travis: Yeah. Yeah.

[29:55] Gazza White: I didn't realize that was a record. I would have assumed that Lee Chang Ho had had more consecutive. But I don't know how. I don't know how they might.

[30:04] Travis: To your point, it may not be a record. It might just be impressive. So.

[30:09] Gazza White: Yeah, but. Yeah, but he's.

[30:11] Gazza White: He's. He's comfortably at the top of the Korean rankings and he's also pulled off some more.

[30:19] Gazza White: I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but he pulled off some More Nongshim Cup heroics at the start of this year.

[30:24] Travis: Oh yes, you did mention this. He kind of like carried the Korean team pretty much.

[30:29] Gazza White: Yeah. For the, for the sixth year in a row. Which is.

[30:33] Travis: Whoa.

[30:35] Gazza White: Which is quite insane if you consider that, you know,

[30:39] Gazza White: China,

[30:40] Gazza White: the depth of China has been,

[30:42] Gazza White: you know,

[30:44] Gazza White: unparalleled. Like this is the deepest. Like these last 10 years are the deepest the Chinese squad have ever been. And you know, for six of those years Shin Jin-seo just beat literally, literally everyone.

[30:57] Gazza White: For six of those years, Shin Jin-seo has essentially beaten everyone who challenged him in the Nongshim Cup and dispatched them.

[31:02] Travis: Wow.

[31:03] Gazza White: So it's, it's just kind of unprecedented. Well, you know, not since the days of Lee Chang Ho have we seen sort of dominance and it's, it's clear that he's. He's still the best.

[31:16] Gazza White: There's still.

[31:17] Gazza White: He. While he's, while he's not doesn't win every game. And that's not to be expected. He's still the favorite every time someone plays him.

[31:29] Travis: It's so different from other. I'm sorry, Go ahead.

[31:32] Gazza White: Yeah, and he's got. And he's clearly the favorite for. To win this title as well.

[31:37] Travis: No. Yeah. I mean it's so interesting. Again it's like in the game of Go,

[31:42] Travis: even if you are just insanely dominant like Shin Jin-seo is,

[31:47] Travis: you still lose. I mean you still lose plenty of games.

[31:52] Travis: But it's like I compare this to other sports or games where I guess there's just more.

[31:59] Travis: I guess more luck maybe. But it's like you think of like certain, like, like maybe basketball or tennis and you just think about how many times,

[32:08] Travis: you know, a certain player will just win. Like Roger Federer, right. He just dominated for a period or Djokovic or you know, things like this. But to me it's like Go almost reminds me of another sport I used to be interested in.

[32:24] Travis: And they actually share very similar characteristics. I'm curious: when you were watching the Meijin, did you have the game on or any of the games on

[32:34] Travis: what's your setup? I mean will you just be like doing things in your house as it's playing in the background kind of thing?

[32:40] Gazza White: Um, yeah, kind of. Yeah.

[32:44] Travis: You'd be watching a movie or something while it's on. I used to watch professional cycling,

[32:50] Travis: you know, like Tour de France. Right. And they would do the same,

[32:52] Travis: same thing. It'd be like a six hour game, you know, match or six hour ride.

[32:57] Travis: And I would be like, all right, I'm not going to watch this as intensely in the beginning,

[33:01] Travis: but it also had that element of just. It was impossible. It was very hard for the same cyclist to win consecutive in anything. And it sounds like you're saying in this,

[33:14] Travis: a lot of these competitions and Go, that's just challenging as well,

[33:17] Travis: which makes a lot of sense.

[33:21] Travis: Anything else to say on the Myungin?

[33:27] Gazza White: One thing, one thing that I found interesting and I still don't have a.

[33:32] Gazza White: I still don't have an explanation for this: they're actually not playing over the board. They're playing on computers,

[33:40] Gazza White: but in the same room.

[33:43] Gazza White: Like they're just across from each other, a couple of meters away from each other on computers. And I, I don't know why I, I remember asking in the stream and I didn't understand it.

[33:52] Gazza White: I wasn't really.

[33:53] Gazza White: I was confused about their answer because the first time I watched one of the rounds of the Myungin, it was on computers, and I just assumed that it was

[34:06] Gazza White: It was only going to be just a one time thing. And then every,

[34:11] Gazza White: every other stream of the Myungin, they were on computers as well. And I was like, okay, so I guess this is

[34:17] Gazza White: this is the standard setup that they're going for this tournament. But I still, I don't really understand why.

[34:22] Gazza White: Seems a bit weird to me.

[34:24] Travis: That is very, very interesting.

[34:27] Gazza White: It's. It's like. Yeah, there's. I can, I can come up with all types of conspiracy theories as to why I should have asked.

[34:34] Gazza White: I should have asked An Younggil, actually, because he was in Korea recently for the World Amateur Go Championship, so I should have asked him to ask.

[34:45] Travis: Okay. The only thing I can see from just searching, a very quick search so I, I can't verify is apparently on some Korean news sites they're calling. They've changed the main tournament to what they call face-to-face online Go.

[35:03] Travis: Um,

[35:04] Travis: let's see.

[35:05] Travis: Oh, they're at the Baduk studio but they enter their moves on the computer.

[35:14] Travis: Huh. That's weird. Yeah. I'm not sure what that's about.

[35:21] Gazza White: It certainly didn't happen. Pretty sure it didn't happen the last time they, they ran it. So this, it's not a, it's not a tradition.

[35:30] Travis: Hmm. Do you think it like. I mean would it be for like ease of recording? Cause if you're doing it on a computer, it's automatically capturing.

[35:39] Gazza White: Yeah.

[35:39] Travis: Moves for broadcasting. I don't know.

[35:42] Gazza White: It's certainly, it's certainly possible. Yeah.

[35:46] Travis: Strange. Yeah.

[35:47] Gazza White: Yeah. There could be, there could be any, any sort of reasons like maybe the sponsors or whatever. They don't, they don't. They're not confident in the clocks that are used or something like that.

[35:58] Gazza White: So automated like again, I'm just throwing out ideas.

[36:01] Travis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're. We're both again.

[36:03] Gazza White: Yeah.

[36:04] Travis: That's interesting.

[36:05] Gazza White: Something I, Something I could find out. Yeah, for sure. I just found it curious, that's all.

[36:12] Travis: It is strange, right? You go to other places –

[36:16] Travis: I mean, you know the Japanese pro scene quite well, I think. And like would they ever dream of doing that if they had the chance to do it over a board?

[36:25] Travis: Like, probably not.

[36:28] Gazza White: Yeah.

[36:28] Travis: That's like sacrilegious to them, right? It's like. I don't know. I mean it's.

[36:32] Gazza White: But like certainly for a title match or something. Yeah, it'd be sacrilegious. You need the temple, you need the shrine and all of that.

[36:41] Travis: Special room.

[36:43] Gazza White: Yeah. You need the, you need the board with the legs, you know. Yes, yes.

[36:48] Travis: And wearing like the monk robe or whatever it is that, that's.

[36:51] Gazza White: Yeah, yeah. And the referee and stuff. They don't even like, they don't even use automated clocks in the title matches. They have like.

[37:02] Travis: Yeah,

[37:03] Travis: that's awesome. That's the way you have to do it. Just have a person like, just to show it like almost reminds you of like feudal times. It's like, you know what, we're just going to take a whole person and tell us the time.

[37:14] Travis: Okay, interesting.

[37:16] Travis: All right, so that's the Myungin in Korea.

Japan: Kisei System and Ueno Asami

[37:21] Travis: And then another one you wanted to touch on that happened recently I think is the Kisei and what happened with the female player Ueno Asami from Japan.

[37:35] Travis: So.

[37:35] Gazza White: Yes.

[37:36] Travis: Can you speak to that? Because I think there's some cool. I think there's some good news there, right?

[37:41] Gazza White: Well, yeah, so the Kisei is actually – we already touched upon the Kisei as one of the biggest in terms of

[37:51] Gazza White: The prize money. It is the biggest domestic title in Japan.

[37:57] Gazza White: It's prize money is 43 million yen by the way, for first place.

[38:03] Gazza White: So that is. Wait, no, that's not right.

[38:06] Gazza White: Oh yes it is right. 43 million yen. So in Australian money that's over $400,000.

[38:13] Travis: It's 272,000 here. Yeah.

[38:16] Gazza White: And that's. That rivals. That rivals or outright is higher than many of the world majors.

[38:23] Gazza White: So wow.

[38:25] Gazza White: It's a very prestigious tournament in Japan and it, it's also one of the most complex tournament structures in professional Go.

[38:34] Gazza White: There are four leagues in the Kisei, the highest being league S and then league A, league B and league C.

[38:47] Travis: Do we know elite S stands for? I don't know. Okay, okay.

[38:52] Gazza White: Yeah, it's just the highest league.

[38:57] Gazza White: I think it's some sort of system they have in Japan where S is the highest and then it's abc.

[39:02] Travis: Got it. Okay.

[39:03] Gazza White: Sorry.

[39:06] Gazza White: But those leagues have promotion and demotion, like European football or soccer. So if you do really well in one of the leagues, then in the next Kisei you go up a league.

[39:22] Gazza White: And if you do really poorly, then in the next Kisei you go down a league.

[39:27] Gazza White: And at the end the champions of each of the leagues as well as second place in league S participate in a final step ladder playoff.

[39:39] Gazza White: So the league B and league C champions play each other and then the winner of that plays the league A champion. The winner of that plays the league S second place.

[39:50] Gazza White: And then the winner of that plays the S League champion.

[39:55] Gazza White: But when it gets to the S League champion, it's effectively a best of three.

[39:59] Gazza White: But the S League champion gets a one-game advantage.

[40:04] Gazza White: So the other guy needs to win two games in a row.

[40:09] Travis: Wow, that sounds complex.

[40:11] Gazza White: And then whoever wins that stepladder playoff challenges the reigning Kisei in a best-of-seven title match.

[40:21] Travis: And so that layers into, I mean just from a scheduling perspective, it's gotta be a million games, does it not?

[40:27] Gazza White: Or not necessarily a million games. And most of the games.

[40:31] Gazza White: So league S, league A and league B, they have about. So league S has six players and they just play round robins. So they'll play five games each.

[40:41] Travis: Okay.

[40:42] Gazza White: League A has eight players and again round robins. So they'll each play seven games.

[40:48] Gazza White: And then League B, that has 16 players,

[40:52] Gazza White: so they, they're split into two divisions of eight round robins. So each one play seven games.

[40:59] Gazza White: And then the division winners will have a playoff to determine the champion of league B.

[41:08] Gazza White: Right?

[41:09] Travis: Yeah.

[41:10] Gazza White: And then league C is,

[41:14] Gazza White: is somewhat different. It's not round robin. There are 32 players in league C and it's done more so at a knockout style where because there's 32 players in knockout five games will determine will leave one person undefeated.

[41:37] Gazza White: So that will. Whoever wins all five of their games, they're the champion.

[41:42] Gazza White: And after four rounds there were two players that were undefeated.

[41:48] Gazza White: Fujita Akihiko and Ueno Asami.

[41:57] Gazza White: And Ueno Asami is one of the strongest women players in Japan.

[42:03] Gazza White: And so she was one game away from becoming the League C champion. There have been several Japanese women players who have reached League C in the Kisei in the past,

[42:17] Gazza White: but none of them had won more than three games before.

[42:20] Gazza White: So you know, Asami won four games. She won her first four games. Unfortunately she didn't win that final game. She did lose to Fujita Akihiko. So she didn't become the League C champion.

[42:33] Gazza White: However,

[42:34] Gazza White: by winning four games,

[42:36] Gazza White: she earns promotion to League B for next,

[42:39] Gazza White: for the next Kisei,

[42:43] Gazza White: the next Kisei tournament next year.

[42:46] Gazza White: So that means that she'll be competing in League B. And that's the first time a woman has qualified for League B in the Kisei,

[42:55] Gazza White: which is very exciting. So she's guaranteed to play seven games in the league because it's, because it's now around robin.

[43:05] Gazza White: Yeah, very exciting.

[43:08] Travis: Wow, that's big. I imagine that's perceived as a pretty big deal, to reach that level.

[43:14] Gazza White: It's, it's a huge deal.

[43:16] Gazza White: Mind you,

[43:17] Gazza White: While this is the 51st Kisei, they certainly haven't had this structure for all 51 tournaments. I'd say maybe 15,

[43:27] Gazza White: maybe the last 10 to 15 tournaments they've had this league structure.

[43:32] Gazza White: But still,

[43:33] Gazza White: um,

[43:34] Gazza White: still when you think about it, you've got six in League S, eight in League A and then 16 in League B. So that is what, like 30 players.

[43:46] Gazza White: So she's,

[43:47] Gazza White: and, and then you've got the,

[43:49] Gazza White: the reigning title holder. So that she's, she's considered in the top 31 players in the Kisei structure,

[43:58] Gazza White: which is like quite impressive.

[44:01] Travis: What do you think this structure ends up either intentionally or unintentionally doing to the level of play or the level of just endurance that's required. Do you think this is like a natural weeding out process that's versus going to a world championship tournament and you could have other players there?

[44:31] Travis: I mean, am I making sense?

[44:33] Gazza White: Yeah, this is. Well, this structure is very different to what you would see in most of the Korean tournaments and international competition where it's essentially knockout. You, you have to like either knockout or, or double elimination where you know, you basically need to keep winning games and it's, it's a lot more random.

[44:55] Gazza White: Whereas. Interesting.

[44:56] Gazza White: Whereas with the Kisei, it's more traditional. There's less chance that weaker players will rise through the structure and challenge for the title.

[45:13] Gazza White: And that's often why, when you look at the Kisei and the players competing at the top of it, you see very familiar names.

[45:25] Gazza White: There are like other Japanese title matches outside the big two.

[45:30] Gazza White: The challenger is usually determined by knockout, so you get more variety among the players challenging for those titles and even sometimes winning them.

[45:46] Gazza White: Whereas in the Kisei, it's very much a standard top-five Japanese player who's challenging or

[45:57] Gazza White: Yeah. Holding the title.

[45:59] Travis: I see. So it effectively chance start the,

[46:04] Travis: the chance of something somebody randomly has a good streak of luck and gets to the top, it just goes down significantly because of the volume of games. And so you were seeing the people that have just been consistently very good.

[46:17] Gazza White: Yes, because everyone in the Japanese professional system has a chance of winning the Kisei, regardless of where they are in the league structure.

[46:23] Gazza White: Every tournament has a knockout to determine the final spots for League C.

[46:33] Gazza White: every tournament there's a knockout to determine the final spots for league C.

[46:40] Gazza White: So anyone can qualify for league C any, every year regardless of how well they did last year.

[46:46] Gazza White: And theoretically you can win league C and then you can win every step in the stepladder playoff to. But it's just,

[46:54] Gazza White: it's just so much harder because you've got to beat the league B champion, the league A champion, league S runner up, and then you've got to beat the league S champion twice.

[47:04] Gazza White: So.

[47:05] Gazza White: Right.

[47:05] Travis: So statistically it's gonna be very difficult.

[47:09] Gazza White: It's gonna be, it's gonna be very difficult because you, you're playing you. You're guaranteed to be playing the strongest players. Like. Yeah,

[47:16] Gazza White: it's like when, it's like when Hsu Hao-hung won the Asian Games,

[47:21] Gazza White: right, He had to beat the best of the best and that was considered like a miracle fairy tale run. You have to do something like that. But it's probably like an order of magnitude more.

[47:32] Gazza White: It would be an order of magnitude more impressive.

[47:34] Travis: Right. He did that over like three games. You have to do it here over like seven games or something at least.

[47:39] Gazza White: Okay.

[47:40] Travis: Wow.

[47:41] Travis: So do it. Shu Hao Hong did and do that many more games.

[47:45] Travis: Yeah. And it's interesting though, right? It's like that's two very different things. It's like, oh, you're. If you're in the C league versus the S League you're generally considered not as good.

[47:54] Travis: But then they want to allow for the very slight possibility that, if you're on a hot streak, maybe you can get a bit further up that ladder.

[48:04] Travis: That's crazy. Very interesting.

[48:06] Gazza White: Yeah,

[48:07] Gazza White: It's a really interesting structure, and I don't mind unique structures. The novelty can make it fun.

[48:17] Gazza White: The novelty can be exciting.

[48:21] Travis: Right?

[48:22] Gazza White: The novelty is always, is always. Is always a little bit fun.

[48:28] Travis: Right.

[48:29] Gazza White: And this is a really prestigious tournament as well. I will say I've looked at the history of

[48:38] Gazza White: I've looked at the history of the Kisei since they started this stepladder structure, and the challenger has always been the S League champion.

[48:47] Gazza White: The S League champion has always won this stepladder playoff, and I think that one-game advantage in what is effectively a best-of-three is

[48:56] Gazza White: has always been very strong.

[49:00] Gazza White: Hopefully one day we'll see, you know,

[49:02] Gazza White: a bit of an underdog winning the challenger playoff spot at least that would be interesting. But typically yeah, there hasn't been a miracle. There hasn't been a like a miracle run just yet.

[49:17] Travis: I mean. But to your point though, I mean just. And then we'll leave. It is like if, if, if you're finding that every time or every single time the challenger is always from the S League,

[49:27] Travis: are we just proving that our system doesn't work? Like you know, I don't know what that's maybe not. You're saying there could be some.

[49:36] Gazza White: They might like there's. You can argue that you're proving that the system does work if you.

[49:42] Gazza White: Because that's true. The S League like it's, it's like it's, it could be confirmation bias like you, you really don't know,

[49:50] Gazza White: right?

[49:50] Travis: But it makes me think of like other.

[49:53] Travis: And again, this is great guys because my understanding is that you're, you're an organizer. Like you organize, you know, tournaments and things in Australia, which is, which is great. So you have a particular background that's helpful.

[50:04] Travis: But I think about other things like in society like so for example,

[50:08] Travis: the lottery system,

[50:09] Travis: right? So people.

[50:11] Travis: I was looking at the history of the lottery in the United States.

[50:15] Travis: In some, some states they pioneered it and it was this concept of you can get somebody to put in a tiny amount of money, right? It's just a tiny amount of money,

[50:24] Travis: but you have this chance of winning a huge amount of money.

[50:28] Travis: And it was really interesting, right? Like in the 50 states in the United States,

[50:33] Travis: they looked at per person, per capita,

[50:37] Travis: which state does has the highest per capita spending on buying lottery tickets? And it was Massachusetts.

[50:46] Travis: And I happen to be. I was born in Massachusetts. But they kind of pioneered the first lottery systems to make them truly random, to try to make them random.

[50:59] Travis: And people,

[51:00] Travis: no joke, the number, the amount people spend per capita in Massachusetts, like, it's like twelve hundred dollars.

[51:06] Travis: I mean, it's insane. I'm like, what? What? That's incredible.

[51:09] Travis: And so when we take it back to this system,

[51:13] Travis: it makes me think of,

[51:15] Travis: okay,

[51:17] Travis: is it supposed to maybe get people a little bit, maybe the players in the different leagues to say, you know what,

[51:23] Travis: maybe I can make a run at this.

[51:25] Travis: But it just has not happened yet to your point. So that's. That's a very good point.

[51:30] Travis: Yeah.

[51:31] Gazza White: It is interesting because there's a similar structure in Japanese shogi,

[51:37] Gazza White: which is like closer to another Japanese game, but it's closer to chess.

[51:43] Gazza White: And they have even more complicated systems, but they do have a Meijin,

[51:49] Gazza White: which operates on a very similar structure to the Kisei, except they don't have the stepladder.

[51:57] Travis: We can jump up. We can jump all the way up. Okay.

[52:00] Gazza White: Yeah. So if you. If you're in league C and you win it, you have to wait.

[52:05] Gazza White: You have to wait four years before you can even challenge for the Meijin. There was a prodigy maybe six or seven years ago – perhaps more recently – who joined the

[52:19] Gazza White: professional shogi scene. He immediately started beating amazing players and established himself as one of the best in shogi very early on.

[52:32] Gazza White: But he couldn't actually compete for the Meijin because he had to go through the layers, one year at a time, over four years.

[52:42] Travis: Yeah,

[52:43] Travis: years and years. But see, in a way,

[52:46] Travis: this sounds crazy, or maybe it doesn't. It's like he should wait. Like he.

[52:50] Travis: That if you're down in the, whatever, three or four leagues down,

[52:54] Travis: shouldn't you.

[52:56] Travis: Like, by definition, you're in that group unless you are a prodigy. And there's very quick acceleration.

[53:03] Travis: Yeah. To me, the step, the stepping of the whole system, to me just makes less sense. But like, for example, like in college sports in America, we have like, divisions, right.

[53:12] Travis: There's for different school sizes. Because if you're a very, very big school,

[53:16] Travis: the idea is you probably have a better chance of getting a lot of good players in that sport.

[53:21] Travis: Whereas if you're Division 3, your school's smaller. So they group it.

[53:25] Travis: They group it that way, and to me it almost feels like, okay, you have Division 1, Division 2, and Division 3.

[53:32] Travis: But by the way, the champion of Division 3 can then play another game to beat D2D1. That would be actually.

[53:39] Travis: You're right, novelty maybe. That would be really fun.

[53:42] Travis: That's really cool idea.

[53:44] Gazza White: One thing with this step ladder structure is even if you're in league C and you make it all the way to the final step ladder against the S League champion, if you lose that, you still only get promoted to league B.

[53:58] Travis: Yeah, that makes sense. So they shouldn't let you go all the way up automatically.

[54:02] Gazza White: The stepladder is just to see if you can qualify to challenge for the title, right?

[54:09] Travis: So you could win the title through some miracle.

[54:13] Travis: You could be in the C league or B league,

[54:16] Travis: do amazingly well, go all the way up to challenging the actual title holder and win.

[54:22] Travis: But then you only get promoted to a next level up.

[54:26] Gazza White: Well no, if you win the Kisei you're the Kisei champion though.

[54:30] Travis: So it's like it doesn't even matter.

[54:32] Gazza White: If you actually win the Kisei,

[54:36] Travis: If you challenge the Kisei and you

[54:38] Gazza White: win, then you become the Kisei champion.

[54:40] Travis: Got it. But if you challenge and lose, you go up maybe one league.

[54:44] Gazza White: If you don't win the Kisei, then you just get promoted one league.

[54:48] Travis: Got it. And so the last point I was going to ask is: what do we know about Ueno Asami? You said she's like the top female player in Japan, but

[54:58] Gazza White: Oh, she's close. Yeah. She's either the top or one of the top. Maybe it's arguable with Fujisawa Rina.

[55:08] Gazza White: But I would consider her to be the top.

[55:12] Gazza White: I don't know exactly what. I'll try and see quickly what women's titles she holds.

[55:20] Gazza White: And she may have.

[55:23] Gazza White: She may have.

[55:24] Gazza White: Okay, so she holds the Women's Meijin,

[55:27] Gazza White: the Women's Kisei and the SENKO Cup.

[55:36] Gazza White: The Women's Kisei is not quite the same type of

[55:39] Gazza White: It's not really the women's equivalent of the open Kisei. It's actually a fast-time-control tournament, so it's very different.

[55:48] Travis: It's like very different. Oh, interesting.

[55:50] Gazza White: Okay. But according to a Nihon Ki-in page, she's won 20 titles.

[55:57] Gazza White: I would say most of those are women's domestic titles.

[56:01] Gazza White: I believe she did win a women's major.

[56:07] Gazza White: I don't know.

[56:08] Gazza White: I don't know which one.

[56:10] Gazza White: Oh, she won the. Yeah. In 2022, she won the International Senko Cup Women's World Championship.

[56:21] Gazza White: So yeah, she's.

[56:25] Gazza White: She's definitely won a lot of titles and she currently holds three of the women's domestic majors. So yeah,

[56:33] Gazza White: she's a 6-dan in Japan, which is very strong. In Japan you only get promoted based on your results in open competition.

[56:42] Gazza White: So all of her women's titles don't qualify.

[56:46] Gazza White: All of her performances in women only events don't qualify her for promotion. So to be six dan is very strong.

[56:55] Gazza White: Yeah, but she also has a sister, Ueno Risa, who is also really strong, one of the strongest.

[57:03] Gazza White: Oh, wow.

[57:05] Gazza White: So yeah, she's. She's actually.

[57:07] Gazza White: Yeah, she's. And she was well known when, when she first turned pro that she was a very strong player.

[57:14] Gazza White: Yeah, she proved herself quite early.

[57:17] Gazza White: Um, but.

[57:19] Travis: And I, I was seeing something on the.

[57:22] Travis: I was actually talking to somebody else and she has. She's. Her nickname is the Hammer Princess, which is pretty cool. And that's. I think it's a pretty.

[57:31] Gazza White: Yes.

[57:32] Travis: Pretty unique name.

[57:34] Gazza White: Yep. Yes. Yeah, I think they've done photo shoots like on that where she's holding a massive like, oh, hammer and stuff like that. Yeah, because that's great. I think it was because of.

[57:44] Gazza White: I think that's because of her play style, like very attacking.

[57:48] Travis: Oh, okay. Yeah, so like very aggressive.

[57:51] Travis: I see something that like she has a tendency to attack large groups rather than steer towards like quiet games or something like this. Okay. All right.

[58:00] Travis: Okay. Is she fun to watch as a result or not? I mean.

[58:03] Gazza White: Oh, I would say so, yes, she definitely plays it.

[58:06] Gazza White: So yeah, I would say she has a rivalry with Fujisawa Rina. They're similar ages and they've played in a lot of the domestic women's finals against each other.

[58:18] Gazza White: And I'd say that Fujisawa Rina has a – yeah, they definitely have contrasting styles.

[58:24] Travis: Yeah.

[58:26] Gazza White: But yeah, she's been, she's been a strong player in Japan like up, up the top there for a number of years now.

[58:33] Gazza White: And she's still quite young. I think she's like 25 or 24 or 25.

[58:38] Gazza White: Cool.

[58:39] Travis: I know she has this book out called Play Like the Hammer Princess, and I think BOARD N'STONES, the publisher, just produced it. So I'm trying to get my hands on it.

[58:52] Travis: Cool. Very cool. Okay, great.

Following Professional Go Across Countries

[58:55] Travis: No, this is really,

[58:57] Travis: really helpful to go through, Gazza.

[59:00] Travis: So, yeah, we talked about the Pair Go Championship, the Meijin, the Myungin, and then a little bit about the Kisei system.

[59:08] Travis: So this is really awesome.

[59:11] Travis: Great.

[59:12] Gazza White: Yeah, I don't have much information on the Chinese professional scene. That's more Xiaodai's area of expertise.

[59:21] Gazza White: Difficult to get. Yeah, it's difficult to get information because they don't,

[59:26] Gazza White: they don't do stuff on YouTube and a lot of their.

[59:30] Gazza White: They don't really have a website.

[59:32] Gazza White: And a lot of the news and information is through Chinese news sites.

[59:40] Gazza White: It's just not convenient.

[59:42] Travis: Interesting.

[59:43] Travis: Yeah, now I'm starting to use AI for research, pretty much.

[59:47] Travis: Because I can't read these things, it can find some stuff, but it's really hard to corroborate: is that true?

[59:59] Travis: Is that not true?

[01:00:01] Travis: Interesting. Okay, so it's harder to see into China.

[01:00:04] Gazza White: Yeah.

[01:00:05] Gazza White: With Japan and Korea, though, Japan has the Nihon Ki-in website. Korea has the Korean Baduk Association website.

[01:00:09] Gazza White: the Korean site.

[01:00:15] Gazza White: Right. So even though they're in Japanese and Korean,

[01:00:19] Gazza White: They have official websites,

[01:00:23] Gazza White: so you can get the actual

[01:00:25] Gazza White: you know,

[01:00:26] Gazza White: news with a lot more certainty.

[01:00:31] Gazza White: But with China, they don't have a proper consolidated website, and news is often on random Chinese news pages.

[01:00:44] Gazza White: It's just difficult, and it can be hard to corroborate if you don't have

[01:00:52] Gazza White: you know, the best sources.

[01:01:00] Gazza White: Well,

[01:01:02] Gazza White: It's not for me to say. My guess is that they just have their own ways of getting information,

[01:01:11] Gazza White: And yeah, that,

[01:01:13] Gazza White: that.

[01:01:14] Gazza White: Those,

[01:01:15] Gazza White: those methods just,

[01:01:17] Gazza White: just don't require Western catering to Western interests.

[01:01:24] Travis: Right. Well, I'm not and I'm not.

[01:01:27] Travis: I certainly don't have a complete sense of the entire history of Go, but the impression I've gotten is that when I think about figures in the Go world trying to spread Go to other countries,

[01:01:46] Travis: I have not.

[01:01:50] Travis: This doesn't mean much, but I haven't heard of many Chinese names,

[01:01:54] Travis: at least explicitly. I've heard of Japanese. Japanese names, you know,

[01:02:00] Travis: Iwamoto, who literally, like, just created a foundation to, like, set up places.

[01:02:05] Travis: I've heard of Koreans, you know.

[01:02:09] Travis: Was it Myungwan Kim? Right?

[01:02:12] Travis: Yeah.

[01:02:12] Gazza White: In Australia, you've got An Younggil.

[01:02:14] Travis: An Younggil, right. Does that sound accurate?

[01:02:22] Gazza White: That's the experience I've had.

[01:02:26] Travis: Yeah. So who knows what the reason is for that. But it might be not at all intentional, but interesting.

[01:02:32] Gazza White: I mean, maybe, maybe, maybe in future. But again,

[01:02:36] Gazza White: the professional. The professional interest in the west is still low.

[01:02:41] Gazza White: Like,

[01:02:43] Gazza White: it's a niche.

[01:02:44] Gazza White: It's a niche thing,

[01:02:46] Gazza White: you know, it is what it is.

[01:02:48] Travis: And it's funny though, too, because in just connecting with,

[01:02:51] Travis: there's been a decent cadre of German Go players that I've just kind of triangulated on through the show,

[01:03:02] Travis: and they've been wonderful. It's been really fun to talk with them,

[01:03:05] Travis: but it gives me the sense that,

[01:03:09] Travis: that,

[01:03:10] Travis: you know, it's. I don't want to say bigger there, but like, it's just more developed there.

[01:03:15] Travis: And I think there are historical reasons for that because it kind of came through Europe, I think, to. To get to at least America.

[01:03:22] Travis: But when I talk to them, they're like, yeah, it's dead here.

[01:03:25] Travis: They're like,

[01:03:26] Travis: it's dead in Germany. And you're like, oh,

[01:03:28] Travis: man. Okay. Like,

[01:03:30] Travis: you know, and that dead is the wrong word. But it's just like you said, it's a very niche sport.

[01:03:37] Gazza White: So.

Closing

[01:03:38] Travis: Interesting. Awesome. Gazza, this was great. I really appreciate you coming on and talking us through this.

[01:03:44] Gazza White: My pleasure.

[01:03:46] Travis: Yeah.

Final Sponsor Thanks

[01:04:11] Travis: On a final note, I just want to thank again our sponsors for the episode. SmartGo One is your all-in-one Go toolkit for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Whether you're replaying games, solving problems, or managing your SGF files,

[01:04:24] Travis: It includes a massive professional game library, a strong KataGo engine, and polished recording tools, so you can study master games, play the AI, and cleanly record your own over-the-board games all in one place.

[01:04:37] Travis: Our other sponsor is Baduk Pop, which is an app that makes Go simple and fun to learn with interactive puzzles, short lessons and an AI tutor that helps you improve wherever you are.

[01:04:47] Travis: It also gives you daily ranked problems that adjust to your level, themed sets like life and death and tesuji, plus AI and online play, so you can practice and then test what you've learned.

[01:04:58] Travis: You can check it out at badukpop.com. That's B-A-D-U-K-P-O-P dot com.