Korean Culture Festival 2014

BADUK… yes indeed, it’s called baduk… the English verb denoting movement from one location to another has no relevance…

Yesterday, at the V+A Waterfront in Cape Town, members of the Cape Town Go Club braved the beautiful weather, tourists, and the light breeze to teach baduk at the Korean Culture Festival 2014; supported by the Korean embassy, it was organised by South Africans interested in Korean culture. For the most part this mean lots of K-pop and the obligatory dance competition (which was kinda the star of the event, and probably the entire point for those who organised the festival), but also – of course – a taekwondo demonstration, and baduk…

When I packed up my board and stones in the morning, I expected that we’d just be a bunch from the club sitting there and playing matches amongst ourselves; I mean, we were right next to a table with face-painting and make-up, how could we hope to compete? To our surprise we generated quite a bit of interest. The key was that we just started playing matches, which led people to watch and ask what for the sake of cute puppies on the internet we were doing. In the end I think more than 10 people sat down to learn the rules and play a game on a 9×9 board with one of us; we handed out about 15 flyers, and I saw none of the lying around the waterfront afterwards, so in my book that’s a success!

Corner Killer explaining the rules through a friendly game of capture baduk.

The festival itself was kinda drowned into the usual buzz of the waterfront, but I think it definitely helped to get people to stop and look, most who had no clue that the festival was happening in the first place. Also, presenting the game as “baduk” made me happy, and definitely helps my underground movement aimed at changing the name of the South African Go Association to South African Baduk Association… Those 15 flyers had BADUK printed in large letters on it, and even our banner promoted this superior name for the greatest game ever. (Apologies, I’m just a bit high on Korean pride after the festival.)

True to Korean culture, 4 people were needed to dish up one bowl of bibimbap

Two kids trying out a game of capture baduk against each other, with a club member kibitzing under the guise of giving advice.

The obligatory demonstration of Taekwondo…

Update! Promotion time…!

So it has been a while since I posted; the main reason is that I have spent a lot of time traveling for work, and I ended up spending a sparse 4 nights or so at home in the last month and a half… Thus my little hiatus in keeping this blog alive; not to worry, CPR starts now! And hereby a quick run down of what you’ve missed:

I got promoted to 20k! On the SAGA system that is, if you look me up on any of the online servers my rank remains below that… I’ve played a total of 7 games over an actual board in the last month and a half, and have won 5 of those. 6 of those were against an 18k in Johannesburg; they were 5 handicap games from 5 to 3 stones, of which I lost one played at 3 stones, the 6th game was an even game at 6.5 dum [덤, komi] where I took white and won as well (this game didn’t get registered on the system for some reason, or I might be edging towards 19k by now). Upon my return to Cape Town I played Mr. 10k Master, with 9 stones handicap and 19.5 reverse dum to even the game out (being 21k on the system at this point.) The result was a win by about 40 points, which means I won on the board without the help of that reverse dum. And tada! 20k! Slowly I am catching up with 10k Master, very slowly, and next time we’ll have just a 9.5 reverse dum… My aim is to catch him, he is the Akira Touya to my Hikaru Shindo! And after that… someday… Mr. Corner killer 2k will be my next rival… someday…

My last match, the one that promoted me, was interesting. I played 10k Master more than I’ve played anyone else, and having not faced him in real life for over a month, it was interesting to see how the game has shifted. It is the first time that I’ve actually noticed my own progress, as I recognised when he was trying to trick me; his style of play is familiar now, while mine is still developing (and thus still somewhat unpredictable)… I wonder if this actually gives me some advantage…

So what else? Well the South African team has moved ahead, won against Cyprus and Ireland; so they’ve chosen the Springboks route over the Bafana Bafana one… Currently they are 3rd in their group, with 5 points, behind Bulgaria and the United Kingdom. Next match is against Iceland, in Round 4, on Tuesday 9 December; tune in on IGS!

Turning the tide in a game!

Remember the gremlin on my board? I fought back, I battled, and I won… I thought I was merely saving face by continuing the game, hoping to limit my loss to about 20 points or so; many a time I thought about resigning in shame… But by 0.5 points I claimed the narrowest of victories… You can see the game here on OGS, not sure if you need an account though; I’ve numbered the stones on the diagram below, though. In any case I am immensely proud for not giving up; and also, if you look at the diagram of the final position, clearly I can’t properly count because those two lost stones (A & B 11) on the left side show my lame attempt to invade, which turned out to be unnecessary.

B+0.5; game setup: 6.5 dum [komi], Fischer 14d+1d

However, what won me the game was actually my opponent passing premature at move 246: the bottom right wasn’t secure yet, both P and Q 1 were not played, so the fact that his pass gave me seonsu [선수; sente in Japanese] and I played Q1 before he could play R1 won me the game… So while I am proud, I must be very honest in saying that it was a tiny slip up on my opponent’s side that gave me this game.

Overall it was an interesting game, and I think I learned the value of thinking when you play, I mean that is really really important. But seriously, it was perhaps two slip ups on my opponents side together with managing the grab the initiative quite a few times. If you access the game, it was (according to my humble DDK opinion) move 97 that started shifting the game around to… well not my side, but the middle-ish. Then, when I played move 241 at L19 , I think if he responded O18 instead of K19 then he’d kept the three stones at P19, thus securing the a win.