THE NEW ASSOCIATION FOR TAIWANESE GO PROFESSIONALS
The Taiwan Go Association (Taiwan Qiyuan, or in its own version: the Taiwan Chi Yuan Culture Foundation ) was formed on 17 February 2000 with the financial assistance of the Taiwanese electronics company Lianhua Dianzi Huishe. In the numerical slogan language beloved of the Chinese, it will address Taiwan's problems of the "Three Too Fews and Three Too Manies."
The too fews are too few pros, too few pro tournaments and too little income for pros.
The too manies are too many amateurs, too many amateurs and amateurs enjoying too much money (!). The idea is obviously not to declare war on amateurs, but to re-channel the massive talent and interest in the amateur ranks into ways of enabling Taiwan to make its presence felt on the international stage. In the years since the death of entrepreneur Ing Chang-ki Taiwanese go has been likened to "a crowd of dragons without a leader." That is a reference to Hexagram 1 of the Book of Changes. The portents of this hexagram are usually highly auspicious.
The Association was opened on 4 March 2000 in Taipei, under the chairmanship of the now non-playing pro 55-year-old Chen Guoxing 4-dan. He was also the first head of the Taiwanese professional players association founded in 1982.
The Association at the time of formation had one 9-dan, Zhou Junxun (born 1970), and ten other players. These were:
Dai Jianshen 7-dan (born 1958)
Lin Shengxian 6-dan (born 1959)
Zhou Kuihing 6-dan (born 1951)
Peng Jinghua 6-dan (born 1960)
Chen Yongan 5-dan (born 1953)
Yang Zhide 3-dan (born 1956)
Chen Qiulong 2-dan (born 1952)
Huang Xiangren 2-dan (born 1974)
Zhou Keping 2-dan (born 1967)
Zhang Zhengping 1-dan (born 1981)
Zhang is the only female. She qualified as a pro in Korea in 1998 - the first foreigner to qualify from within Korea - but transferred back home to join the Taiwan Qiyuan. She is also the niece of the Japanese-based star O Rissei 9-dan. Note also that Zhou Kuihing was formerly known as Zhou Xianheng.
They are also being chased by a pack of around a dozen inseis, who have their own promotion tournament. As a result of the tests in November 2000, the above pros have now been joined by four new ones: Xiao Zhenghao (age 12), Li Kuihan (13), Chen Yida (17) and Lin Zhihan (20). Xiao is also the youngest ever Taiwanese pro
The insei promotion system is a novel one. They play in a Saturday league, and the top players each month earn a teaching game with a pro. Tests for qualification as pro take place twice a year.
The other activities of the pros are participating in a the Zhonghuan Cup, which began in 1993. The novel feature of this event, which is styled on a repechage system, is that two players from China take part in main tournament. There is also a quickplay television tournament (Zhendian Cup) - just one game a week, but this is by far the most lucrative event: winner takes $T800,000 and the runner up $T300,000.
All the pros are also expected to take part in bimonthly research meetings.
The Association also supports the Zhonghuan Amateur Invitation Tournament, now in its 19th year.
Pro activity in Taiwan goes back to 1970 - under the auspices of the Wei-ch'i Association which was formed in Zhongjing on the mainland in 1942 and moved to Taiwan after the war. It was an amateur organisation, but with the support of the entrepreneur Ing Chang-ki it offered professional status (highest level 6 pin) from 1979 on the basis of providing a basic salary (including teaching fees) and providing half the fees for any newspaper tournaments.
Some tournaments began during the purely amateur days. Ing also imposed his own rules, which included 8 points komi (introduced in 1982) and the system of buying time (e.g. in the Mingren tournament, time limits were 3 hours 45 minutes each, and for every 30 seconds excess used a forfeit of 2 points had to be given to the opponent).
It is unclear to us at present what the current status of the old tournaments is, or whether the Ing rules have been supplanted in the new system. There are also some once active pros who appear to be unaccounted for. In 1999 there were 17 pros, although the term pro is perhaps deceptive - almost all were school teachers or self employed (there were just 5 pros in 1988 and amateurs could become 1-dan pro - ranked equivalent to 7-dan amateur - if they reached the main part of a tournament twice in any of the four pro events).
As far as we can tell, the Ing-backed Wei-ch'i Association remains active, and in some areas at least cooperates with the Taiwan Qiyuan. It also seems to account for the other pros. There is also a Rin Kaiho Culture Foundation
Tournaments
For the record, the tournament scene was (and maybe still is, in part) as follows.
The oldest event was the Mingren (Meijin) which began in 1972. The sponsor was the Taiwan Xinsheng-bao (Taiwan New Life Newspaper) up to 1995, then the Zhongguo Shibao (China Times).
It began as a league (three relegations) with preliminaries, but a major change was made in in 1992 because some pros were boycotting this and other events over the stereotyped format. It became a win & continue tournament over 50 games over a year for six players, who were a combination of seeds and winners of the preliminaries. The Mingren was the one with the most wins.
Game fees of the new event were $T20,000 for the winner and $T10,000 for the loser, and the Mingren also got a prize of $T100,000. ($T1 was = 3.7 yen.)
A Qiwang tournament was run by the Minsheng-bao (People's Life Paper) but became defunct in 1988 after 11 terms.
A Guoshou tournament sponsored by the Zili Wanbao (Independent Evening News) featured a 9-man league and a 7-game final with a big prize for the winner of $T300,000.
The winner of Mingren and Guoshou qualified for international events. If each was won by a different player, they played off for the privilege.
In 1993 two events began which featured cooperation with mainland China. In both cases two players from China could take part in main tournament. Both the Zhonghuan Cup (sponsor Zhonghuan) and the Yongdai Cup had a first prize of $T300,000.
There was also a Maobang Cup but we have no details.
Elsewhere in Taiwan, there were (as of September 2000) 27 go assocations in 23 cities, with most activity having developed since 1990. Teaching of go seems well organised, with over 100 places to learn in Taipei alone. One estimate is that 100,000 children are playing, many of them girls. Go teachers are very well paid, too. It appears that the boom began with the success of China's Nie Weiping in the Supergo games against Japan, but since then the exploits of Taiwan-born O Rissei and O Meien in Japan have kept the fans happy.
Use of pinyin transliteration here rather than the Wade-Giles favoured in Taiwan is for our own convenience and implies no political comment.
