IMPRESSIONS FROM A GO LEGEND

John Fairbairn was kind enough to record the vital points of the visit of Cho Hun-hyeon 9-dan to the third MSO. John is a noted author and translator of works on go and shogi. This report is  based on his post to the Usenet news group rec.games.go. 

We were privileged today (26 August) to have Cho Hun-hyeon 9d at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London.

Cho gave a talk on go which covered history and a brief survey of the current go scene in Japan, China and Korea. He also answered a few questions at the end. Below are some of the highlights of what he said. Nam Ch'i-hyeong 1p graciously provided an excellent translation, but any misinterpretations are mine.

Impressions of go in Japan: Cho spoke very highly of Go Seigen and said he had no rivals until he had his accident, though he praised Kitani as a teacher. (Cho shared Segoe with Go as a teacher so there may be a bit of school loyalty). He picked out only Sakata and Fujisawa of the generation after Go, and of the modern generation said Cho Chikun is still the best player despite his loss in the Honinbo. He thought go was in decline in Japan, partly because there were too many competing leisure interests for young people, but also Cho Chikun is not Japanese and he thought that was also a drawback for the public interest. The emphasis on young people was important, because over the past few decades go players have begun to reach their peak ever younger, and teen power seems likely to take over soon.

Impressions of go in China: He praised Nie Weiping but thought that of the current crop Chang Hao was superior in domestic tournaments but Ma was still Chang's superior in international events.

Impressions of go at home in Korea:  Cho praised Kim In of the older generation and said Yi Ch'ang-ho and Yu Chang-hyeok were the best of the new generation, though Yu was 8 years older. He thought Korea was now dominant in world go and he expected that to continue because of the fantastic level of interest by children in Korea.

Cho giving a simul at MSO 3. Monna Reiko of Japan faces the master.

Asked how, as a teacher, he made Yi Ch'ang-ho so strong, he said he did have some things to teach but it was mainly Yi's innate talent and hard work. Even at elementary school age, Yi worked on go 5 to 7 hours a day - "I know because I was beside him." He also said that go has three elements - opening, middle-game and endgame and for a player to be the best in the world he had to excel in at least one of those elements. He said Yi excelled in the endgame: "He is the best there has ever been at the endgame."

Asked (jokingly) whether he had also taught Yi to smile (he is nicknamed the Stone Buddha), he said go is a very serious matter and Yi takes it very seriously, though he is a "calm" person anyway. Go pros are used to having their photos taken a lot, but since most photos are taken during games it is inevitable that they will appear serious most of the time. But in addition, it would be bad for Yi, as the younger player, to "laugh" (I presume "smile" was meant) when he won a game (and the implication was obvious: he wins most of the time so he doesn't get much chance to smile!). But away from go he is a very lively and amusing chap, he said.

Asked whether the Asian financial crisis had rocked Korean go, he said that at the time of the crisis they had lost about one third of their sponsorship, but since then it had gradually recovered, and he expected that by the end of the year it would be back to pre-crisis levels.

Day Two:  Cho allowed us to ask more questions in a round-table session today (28 August).

He said the strongest player in the world at the opening is probably himself by a slight margin, while Yu Ch'ang-hyeok is best at the middle game.

He described his life with Segoe. He said it was Segoe's dream to have as a pupil top players from China, Japan and Korea. He got the first two with Go Seigen and Hashimoto Utaro, and was overjoyed to get Cho. But this joy turned to sadness when Cho had to return to Korea for 4-5 years military service. Cho believes this is what caused Segoe's suicide. There were two letters left, one - the well known one - saying it was ill health, but there was another private one that indicated it was the loss of Cho.

Cho learnt mostly about the philosophy of go from Segoe. He learnt most about go technique from Fujisawa Hideyuki. When Cho arrived back in Korea, at age 20 after 10 years in Japan, he had mastered go techniques but what was lacking was mental discipline. Ironically this is precisely what military service gave him (he did not say so here but he suffered discrimination from fellow officers because of his links with Japan).

When he was young he studied 5-7 hours a day but no longer needs to study that way. Because he can carry it all in his head, he can now study anywhere, anytime.

He says he has no pupils other than Yi Ch'ang-ho because he has not been able to find anyone with the ability to make it to the very top.

One of the highlights of his career was the match in the Ing Cup with Nie Weiping. Cho believes it was an historic match. Had Nie won, he thinks China would now be in the ascendant. Asked why he was still is a world-class player while Nie has tailed off, he said it was because Nie became a politician (senator).