Jin had put 12 of the candidates at the 6 go tables, and had them challenge each other first, before he trained them. He milled around, from table to table, with the 13th candidate.
"You're going to know more about Go before you play your first game. You won't have a bye after today," he said to the 13th.
"There are two drawers underneath each table. Take the bag of stones and place it close to you on the table. Look to see what color you have."
12 men pulled out the drawers. First only two them found where they were, and then everyone went to look at the first two and saw how to pull out the small wooden drawer.
Finally everyone had their stones.
"If you have white, you are the challenger. If you have black you are the challenged. Those of you who have white stones, press the challenge button in the middle of the table."
Once again there was a delay as six of them looked for the button. Finally they had all pressed it.
The module was speaking to all of them.
"Yoshitaka Norio challenging Kirishima Shigetoki"
"Hasegawa Akinari challenging Date Takejiro"
"Hiroshima Tamasine challenging Iwai Kamatari"
"Morine Sekien challenging Iwasaki Teinosuke"
"Butch Hoffman challenging Johnie Rayford"
Most of the men were from Toyota's network, but it was obvious some had come from far away, probably to participate in the Sword Master's Challenge, and had already lost that before signing up for this.
"If you have the black stones, you can place them first."
Four of the men started in the exact center, which wasn't part of any opening. There was very little power projection from the center.
Two of the men played on the edge, which was also pointless.
Jin watched one of the games and commentated:
Akinari played K10, the exact center of the board.
White played J10, to the left of black's stone.
"Very tactical, and also stupid," Jin said.
Black played J9, surrounding white's stone from 2 directions.
J11 for white, extending stones, K9 for black connecting his 2.
"All tactical play."
"Oops, I didn't mean to lay that one done," White said, playing E8 on accident.
"Better than what you have been playing. Once you've placed a stone, that's it, no take backs except during practice," Jin said.
Jin continued to rip into the total novices who played without considering any of the beautiful ideas that he loved in Go. They had no idea about Life and Death, openings, balance or anything else.
Takejiro somehow figured out ladders. As white, he realized he could keep trapping black and black couldn't escape because Black had stumbled into a ladder situation .
Finally, after black had wasted a long chain of stones trying to escape, he realized he was going to lose them all. So he decided to go play by himself somewhere else. White's board position was ridiculously strong after he made the ladder finisher to take 11 of Black's stones.
Black continued to hang out by himself in the lower right corner.
White played some good moves for a beginner, taking territory in the lower left. Black made moves in the lower and then middle right, and then came back to the fight in the middle. White came back too.
"Looks like Takejiro might be on his way to 1-2, way to go. There's a long way yet to go. Akinari, you've got a lot to learn."
Jin continued to be blunt in evaluating the novice game.
White was trying to claim everything on the left, and everything up top, leaving black with only the bottom left.
Black tried to intrude into the bottom left.
Later, black tried to get too aggressive there, but recognized he was going to get laddered so didn't help out his doomed stone this time.
Takeijiro and Akinari went off and did there own thing for a long time, but Takeijiro had way more territory.
They made random looking moves here and there, respecting each other's territory. Black should have been trying to get inside white's space, but he wasn't
Black's own space was so filled by black tiles, that white was better off just building up his own space.
Finally black had done everything he could in his own space, and started passing while white tidied up his own.
The final score was Black 50, White 103.5, an utter blowout.
Some of the other games were even more ridiculous. Jin looked and saw two games where players were trying to completely fill in their territories.
Jin watched as white completely filled in his territory, black took everything, and then black lost on time.
"Don't fill in territory. Your territory is points that are not occupied by a stone, but are safely protected by nearby stones. If you fill in territory, you take away your own liberties."
White won four games, Black won two.
"Kawaida, take Shigetoki's spot."
The board showed the relative plus/minus of the matchups. If they hit plus 5 against a higher ranked opponent they would move up in position, but since this was a special circumstance with all 1-1 players, Jin and Sandra would hand pick the players to move up.
"Think of it this way, if you have your army everywhere, then there's no place for your people to live," Jin said to Shigetoki. "Place your stones to provide nice little villages for your people to live. Connect your villages and challenge your opponents villages."
Jin went to watch Hoffman playing Rayford.
"All those squares on the board, they are potentially your color's citizens. Don't get too distracted with fighting in one place that you forget you can hang out elsewhere."
Two players finally got in a ko situation. Basically a situation where they would have been able to go back and forth taking the same stones, but the game didn't allow them to repeat a position they'd already seen. The module even said, "You can't place a stone at F1 because that would repeat a position that has already happened before.
They kept making moves elsewhere, and then taking the ko back once the position had changed.
Finally Hoffman won, and the rest of the games ended one by one.
"So you all know just how clueless you are without training? Now I will show you what you need to know.
No comments:
Post a Comment