hmm.... day 2..

entrance of the competition area..

was having the women team event and the only pro team there is japan team.. china n korea are in the special game room...

The hair of the france lady in the third board really caught my attention. Look like one of the character in harry potter, the predict future lady in the school.

My lunch.. i din go mac.... they serve this in the hotel....was kind of surprise..




the building i stay in....




friendly game in pair go......

a group of ang moh reviewing...dunno wat counntry r they from...

the common area is filled with ppl all the time...mostly the western ppl. this is my first time seeing so many western ppl playing and discussing go. Somehow i am quite touched by their attitude and passion towards this game especially when they dun have a pro teacher in their country to guide them.

the draw lots session for mens team. is very lame...cause everytime they will throw in 2 balls, ball A and ball B and one country will draw first and after that is obvious there is 1 ball left, but they insist the rep from the second country to draw the remaining ball and sometimes no one comes forward to draw and they wait n wait for someone to draw that 1 ball ... haha... ok, maybe they think is fair this way or let all country to show their rep face...

ok, zhixiong ask me to take this pic.... his imagination skill sux......

Flight to beijing was ok... watch kung fu panda, the oxford murder and a comedy spy show....

dinner.....

The trip took around 6 hours and it was 11pm when i reach beijing airport....

So the airport was quite empty when i reach there....

Good news is when i walk out from the immigration this booth is just in front of me... bad news is i have to seat there and wait till 1am for the next shuttle bus..

I am sure this is totally opposite of what karen has experience... no crowd, no light....got stuff at the booth for quite some timme cause they cant find my name.....

The place i stay in... hmm.. is quite scary cause is kind of big and i am the only one staying there... got a living room, 2 toilet, 2 room...

Now in changi airport....

So strange to be going alone..

Holiday huh...

ok, hope i will have a good time there.

Was even angrier when he told me that....

I dun think anyone can understand how i feel now.


Y must you wait till i sms u then u tell me you cant go? Do you know how excited and happy i was when i know i was in this com? i spend so much time n effort finding joseki for us, planning for training hoping to get good results but is all bullshit in the end. Why must you do such a thing to me? All these times i trusted you and i keep telling myself you will change to be better, that we still have time to train and i dun wish to give up on you. But no.... i am the biggest fool. Look at all the training, look at how many times i ask you for training, look at how many different excuse you gave to run away from training and can you believe i still carry high hopes. This is the biggest joke in my life. Why cant you put yourself in my shoe? In the first place if you really dun wan to go to this thing so much y the hell did you sign up? How can you be so selfish? Is this a game seeing how much patience i have? If i have to blame someone for this, it would be me for believing and trusting you so much. You have no idea how disappointed i am with you and you have no idea how much you have hurt me.

Seriously this is my worst nightmare.

If zx is upset, i dunno what word to use to describe how i am feeling now.

What is the future of the professional Go in Korea? An article by Alexander Dinerchtein


What is the future of the professional Go in Korea?

Few days ago they held an important meeting in Korean Baduk Association. Korean professionals, writers and marketing specialists of other sport games were deciding the future of the Korean pro system. First of all, let me describe the current system.


There are 240 professionals in Korea and this number is getting bigger and bigger. 8-10 new professionals are joining the system every year. Most of Go tournaments are open for everyone (all 240 pros). It's not even necessary to register every time. All professionals get tournament prizes from sponsors, even weak pros, who often lose in first-second rounds. The first round losing game fee is usually around $100-200 and it's getting bigger with the each round you survive. It's a fair communist system and old/weak professionals like it a lot. It's possible to make some money even without studying Go at all.


What is the main problem of this system?The prizes are getting smaller every year, because the number of pro players are growing. Also, the top prizes for tournament winners are not so big - so many players are sharing the budget.Lot of young players, including strong players, like Yoo Changhyuk, 9-dan want to change the current system and pay money only for tournament winners - best 4, best 8 or best 16.I made some calculations and found that it's possible to save about $150-200,000 on each tournament or $2,000,000 every year.


How to use them? It's possible to increase the prizes for tournament winners or make a new tournament, maybe together with several sponsors, with the first prize close to $1,000,000, like in golf, chess or tennis. Of course, the last option is very attractive. Lot of parents want to see their child winning $1,000,000. Kids spend all their time on studying Go and the door of becoming pro is too narrow. Why shall someone spend too many efforts just for trying to win $50,000 as a first prize? There are so many other, easier methods of making this amount of money.


Some opinions:


Yoo Changhyuk, 9-dan: Yes, I would like to change the system and increase the prizes. Go is currently dying in Korea and it's already dead in Japan. Lot of schools are closing their doors. It's necessary to make Go more attractive! I want to see most tournaments open, even for amateurs and foreign pros. It's even possible to ask players to pay entry fees!


Chun Poongjho, 8-dan (vic1000 on KGS): Go is not only a sport. Professionals are working hard on making Go popular, even if they are not strong enough for winning pro tournaments. It's important to respect such people and pay them for their work.


Park Chinyeul, 8-dan: New system will destroy Go in Korea just in 3 years!


This topic is very happening in korea now. Yoo Changhyuk, 9-dan (in chinese is liu chang he) is proposing the new idea of increasing main prize and cut down on the losing game fee. well many older generation players and weaker players are objecting greatly to this cause it means no income for them.


I think that singapore should have a pro system but not like the one in korea, china or japan. Maybe like a semi pro cause this will give ppl especially young generation an aim to work hard to be better player. Like what the singapore sports sch is doing, study in the morning and spend the rest of the day training their sports. When i was in korea i ask the kids why are working so hard like mad? then they say they have an aim which is to be as good or as famous as those who appear in the baduk tv (GO channel in korea).



Look at the young generation in singapore now, they are playing go because they want to help the sch to get good results but what happen after they graduate? Most of them will stop playing cause there is no reason to play, there is no more motivation to put in so much time and hardwork into go anymore. The competition prize in sg is so not attractive, VOUCHERS!!! while the first prize in chinese chess com is like S$2,000.



We cant follow the above 3 countries to have internal pro competition cause the market here is too small, however if is with the rest of the countries in south east asia, is possible. something like south east asia countries sg, thailand, vietnam, indonesia, brunei, malaysia etc...combine to be a country in terms of pro system where players in these countries can join pro competition held by any of these countries.


Of course all these will never work without sponsors.

No sponors=no pro system=no improvement=no new blood.

Was looking at the medal tally list in world mind sports games and i saw singapore on the list.

Singapore won a bronze in international chess. Congrats!!

Training today n dunno y i get tired easily........ getting old.

China news report on wmsg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oBXdnCA6aI

yea....

nothing is fair in this world.

u might lose something but somehow u will get it back in some other form.

One fine day bear and rabbit meet up and decide to have some fun in the forest.

While they are having so much fun, suddenly both of them wanted to shit.

So they hurry to one shady corner to do their business.

As they are shitting, bear ask rabbit a question,

" aren't you afraid of staining your beautiful white fur??"

The innocent rabbit reply

"nope!"

The bear then grab the rabbit up and clean his butt.....

Joke of the day.... zhi xiong was reading this joke book in kino and he laugh like mad the whole day.

Just saw karen's blog and she posted up some pics in beijing, mostly airport pic.

Internet is expensive there...S$2 an hour.....

Today had the longest training so far and thanks to zhi xiong/wenjun who pair up together helping us train, and zhou xiang helping us review. Even though is pair go i learn alot today.

Went mac for supper.... wasabi fries is not my type, zhi xiong loves it..he is so excited about it. He even took 4 pack of wasabi fries powder home. Think he is going to put them in hot water and drink them up before sleep...

Was on the train with zhouxiang, zhixiong and yuqi and we were standing in the middle of the platform chatting. When it come to sembawang, some strangers alight leaving some empty seats and then there is this guy who came to the seats and do the favourite singaporean action - touch the seat seeing if is hot. zhou xiang was telling us that the guy should bring a thermormeter along. wahahahahahahahaha

DAY 6


Had lunch in the hotel and dun enjoy it cause it not my type of meal....

grass...





fish.... look like a piece of sai though... as usual the mass potato is nice






opening speech in thai by thai go association president....






pro player behind no idea what is he talking about......

teaching game by pro... was kind of hurry to airport so no time to play...

Heard from my thailand frend liu xing lost quite alot of games here. I am not surprise... he did not really sleep the night before.. having big 2 fun with us....






korean player cui zhe han






the chinese player who play big2 with us for the few nights. Similiar with zhou xiang and xie tang, he is ex insei too... he now open his own weiqi company....




took 4 days to remember that i went attended his class in shanghai 2 years ago...




signature of liu xing...

cui zhe han's

lee sedol's

oh... 1 thing that really shock me is lee sedol's voice. I thought yang shi hai's voice was unique but lsd's voice was so special... very very very soft and abit girly. i am not kidding. u will agree with me when u hear it...

Day 5


The night before i was playing card games in philip room with philip, jingna, joyce and a chinese guy till late. Heard that lee sedol book the 1am plus flight back to korea while lee chang ho and cui zhe han are playing computer games in their room.


Was in the cab and someone said this "life of professional go player is not bad, if u r good u can earn so much money just by playing a few games and also being classified as upper class ppl.


Very true. But who knows the hardship behind these success?


The things they give up just to be stronger? eg.. Time with family? Fun times with friends? Playing computer games and so on...The sacrifice they make hopping to improve even though they are not sure what the result will be are not what many ppl will trade for.


When i woke up it was already noon so went to get instant noodles and tibits for lunch.


At night we went to a ulu resturant which claim to be a famous stall.

This big pot is actually shark fin...


Adding rice and beansprout in.... new way of eating... Not sure how it taste cause i dun eat shark fin since few years ago after watching discovery channel...

wen jun favourite again....oyster with egg....

Then there is chicken or duck feet.... not sure which animal it belongs and i did not eat. Not because feet is dirty but i just dun understand why people is willing to spend so much time digging out so little meat to eat...

Again they served crab. I dunno y but they keep serving food that i dont like to eat. Y crab cause everytime when i see those crab in seafood stall i really feel upset for them... being tied up and they wait there to die. Is kind of cruel and tats how ppl judge it being fresh....

Finally....

i manage to post pictures up.....

DAY 4

The competition room... Well, you can see is quite nice here but the night before the first game it was kind of choas. Last min change of whole arrangement, then after much discussion change back to original, the table not high enough, weiqi board reflex light, and so many last min problem... But everything was solve... Those who work really hard are the hotel staff cause they have to move stuff here n there in middle of the night.

liu xing is early.... a burden match for him since he lost the first match..

Both lsd and lch reach almost the same time but lch went to the toilet a long time to either wash his face or make up...

Manage to take down the first few mins of the game.... if u notice, lch was going through all his pocket as if finding stuff, or isit his usual routine before the start of competition? In the last few mins of the video you can see lsd playing with his fingers. that is kind of his trademark. I dunno y but he loves to do that, maybe is a habit.

so the games began............

as usual the discussion room is filled with reporter and pro. I really like this place cause there is always good food and drink just outside and u can eat all you wan... see, i enjoying eating till i forget to take pic of it....


chen zhu de was in the discussion room today...


ok, lunch time....

after this 1 week in thailand, it make me officially hate western food... look at this appetizer.. is like a meal for giraffe and the plate looks like coffin to me...hahahahahhaa...

when i saw the main course i was stunned... the first thing tat came to my mind... is tat soap form? well, i enjoy the mass potato alot but the rest is average only...i still dunno wat that form is...

ok...this is not bad...ice cream is good...

sad for liu xing...lost his game... 2 games lost due to dead dragon....

liu xing look really sad....even lee sedol came to review together..

lch won... after their game, they actually review for around 2hours. Amazing...

At night we went to get a short train experience.

TADA!!!!! Food again...

wen jun will like this...oyster in egg or something...lots of oyster.. But i dun really like to eat oyster in thailand cause they sort of leave a huge lump of oyster in the open space and you can see fly zooming here n there around it..

tom yam i think.....

green curry n chicken... i have taste so many different stall of green curry in thailand cause is so nice...

this swensen signboard look abit funny...i mean the color....