Chinese prodigy Liao Xingwen, who will be seven in February 2001, continues to improve from his grade of 4-dan achieved at the MSO4 Open in August 2000.
A high-level decision has been taken to protect him from the media glare for the time being, but that by no means implies he is being ignored by the top brass. In October 2000 he was allowed to play former Chinese No. 1, Chen Zude, again - this time on five stones. It is highly unusual for such an eminent pro to give such attention, but it is all the more significant in that Chen is head of the entire Chinese mindsports organisation.
A month later Zhou Heyang, the current Chinese No. 1, went to Guilin and played little Xingwen, also on five stones - another sign of the high-level faith in him.
Xingwen gave a splendid account of himself, especially in the game against Chen, even though he lost both. It is still evident that one skill he lacks, almost certainly because of his age, is counting and assessing the value of large areas. But he was still able to force the pros to play dazzling games to beat him.
Click here for the game against Chen and here for the game against Zhou.
Additional Material 21 January 2000:
Chinese prodigy Liao Xingwen is not six until late February 2000 and has been playing go for only a year, but already he's a very strong amateur dan level. I (Mindzine go editor John Fairbairn) played him in November 1999 when he was about 1-dan. In December he entered a tournament in Guilin and was formally awarded 2-dan amateur. Then, astonishingly, he played his teacher, Wang Hongjun 7-dan pro, in an even game with 35.5 points komi Japanese style and won by 2.5 points Chinese style. This dual counting method is common in China; they can get away with it because they use different words for points in the two cases, but it is worth pointing out in case you think the komi was Chinese style, and so half as impressive. Even so, I did double check it was the case here, since I find the result astounding.
The complete game record is not available. It seems that Xingwen has to (or chooses to) write down his games after he's played them. He cannot remember all of the moves yet, but appears to be able to remember more almost each day. Since he cannot write properly yet, no-one else can make much sense of his notebook. His two games previously posted to this site were personally selected by him as games he was proud of, but he had to play them over to his teacher so that they could be copied and posted to me.
Most of us would be cock-a-hoop to get a result like that, but his teachers are very demanding. Liu Yajie said: "He played very well in this game, but please note that it's the best game he's ever played. I think he is still much weaker than a 4-dan." He's also much, much younger than any of us!
Original Article Follows:
IN THE PRESENCE OF GENIUS
LIAO XINGWEN
In November 1999 I (John Fairbairn) visited Guilin in China. Though the area is famous for its bizarre mountains and the sinuous Li river, my attention was drawn more by reports of a go prodigy. As a long-time admirer and student of previous prodigies such as Go Seigen and Yi Ch'ang-ho, I thought I knew what to expect, but even so I was astonished at what I saw. More than that, I was delighted to be able to play him, and can honestly say I have never enjoyed a game so much in over 30 years of playing go.
Thoughtful prodigy Liao Xingwen
The prodigy is Liao Xingwen. He was approaching six years old when I played him, and is already 1-dan amateur. He had been playing 10 months. The day after I played him, he also played Chen Zude on six stones and impressed even this great master.
To put Xingwen's achievement in perspective, Chen himself was 9 when he played the top Chinese player, Gu Shuiru, on five stones (which game led to his introduction to Segoe Kensaku). Honinbo Shusaku learnt go at roughly the same age as Xingwen and was taking four stones from an amateur at the age of six. Go Seigen did not learn go until he was eight, but when he was nine he was able to play a semi-professional 4-dan on five stones. Yi Ch'ang-ho did not learn until he was six.
Xingwen is therefore at least up with the best. Yet he may well go further, because of the special circumstances he enjoys.
First, whereas Yi Ch'ang-ho spent five hours a day studying go, Xingwen spends much more, and since he does not have to go to school until he is seven, he has ample time to soak up even more basic go knowledge. Second, he has two first-class teachers.
In the China of today which embraces capitalism, go players no longer enjoy the level of state support they used to. Players able to win tournaments can still enjoy a very high income, but for the rest they have to make do as best they can. One trend that is emerging is for pros to take in boarding pupils in the Japanese fashion. One such pro is Wang Hongjun. He reached 7-dan, but when he received an invitation from Guangxi Province to be their chief instructor in 1990, he accepted it, even though it meant moving from Henan Province in the north. His wife, Liu Yajie, also a pro, naturally moved with him, even though it probably blighted her own career. At one stage she was part of the national women's squad on a par with Rui Naiwei and Zhang Xuan.
But their loss, if such it is, has been Guilin's gain. They have now taken in four live-in pupils. This is the environment in which Xingwen lives. Interestingly, although superficially this live-in system has
been copied from the Japanese, the Chinese treat it rather differently. In Japan, it was traditional for a pupil to play his master just twice - once when he applied to join, and once when he graduated (or was fired). Wang and Liu, however, actively play their charges.
Xingwen joined them in July, after playing go for six months. At that time he played Liu on eight stones. By November he was already down to six stones. Liu adds, however, that he is probably stronger than he seems from handicap games, because he plays over so many even games from magazines that he has an excellent feel for even game-fuseki.
He spends most of the day playing go. A typical session might include spending a couple of hours doing life and death problems on a computer. He needs no bedtime stories because he chooses to read go books instead. He plays his co-pupils and as the youngest patiently expects to be teased (he is not yet the strongest). He never feels homesick, apparently, though his father calls in once a week from his hometown of Liuzhou, about 200 km south-west of Guilin.
Xingwen cannot actually read yet, but his parents (who are in business and do not play go themselves) have taught him the basic characters for go. Over time he has also picked up the characters of the names of famous players - he is thus in a similar position to the average amateur in the west!
What amazed me most when I played him (an even game), was that he THINKS about the game, especially the opening. I have played many talented children before. Without exception they play at very high speed and are full of tactical tricks which they try to use obsessively (and often lose interest when their tricks don't work).
Xingwen is made from a different mould. He thought carefully about the opening, crossing his arms and furrowing his little brow. I was watching his eyes the whole time. They darted over the entire board. He seemed to have as good an appreciation of the need for defence as for attack. His play is beautifully balanced.
He cannot actually reach the far side of the large Chinese boards, and the pieces are almost as big as his little hands. Yet, unlike other small children I have seen, he does not opt for the ease of playing on his own side of the board. He plays the best move wherever it is, and if that means rearranging the stones he has displaced in reaching over, he just accepts that patiently. His patience struck me again and again.
In the middle game he speeded up, but I was impressed that he did not resort to any tricks. He played patiently, like a pro. Life-and-death positions took no time. Again I watched his eyes. He took one brief look, and that was enough. At one stage he needed to heed a call of nature. When he returned, he knew instantly where I had played, even though it was a complicated position. When it came to the endgame, he speeded up tremendously and treated the whole thing as a formality, rat-a-tat right round the board - and, so far as I could tell, while he was not flawless he was still pretty accurate.
One thing he did not appear to do during the game was to count. Even at the end, he let the grown-ups take over the final count-up. I won by a few points, but I have no hesitation in saying that he is a far better player than I am already. He has a feel for the game that is patently different from amateurs. I am hopeful that he can come to London for MSO 2000, and that if I play him then he will already be giving me three stones.
The world is full of prodigies who don't quite make it, of course. I have no knowledge of what it takes to make the grade. All I do know is that I felt privileged as well as overjoyed to play him, and that I felt that I was in the presence of something rare.
LIAO XINGWEN
