Thursday 25 July 2013

Last day of the Go Camp

Everything has to end but the end of the Go camp came rather fast. The last day started quite normal with the 9th league game. I was able to win against a 2 Dan (with handicap) reaching a final score of 5 wins and 4 losses.
After the final endgame lesson there was a special event. The winner of the camp league was supposed to play against a top professional. The only person with just one loss was Lionel Zhang, 6 Dan from US.

Final endgame lecture.
Lionel got one stone handicap which means he took black and there was no komi. As an additional advantage he got 1 hour of basic thinking time. His opponent was Yukawa-sensei, 9 Dan. Since he is a professional he just got 5 minutes and therefore had to play most of his moves in the 30 second byoyomi.
First move of Lionel.
The game was live reviewed by another professional right next to the actual game. I think Lionel was a bit disturbed by that but for professionals it seemed nothing special.

Live commentary of the Kobayashi Opening played by Lionel.
As another special feature we were asked to guess the next move a few times. If that was the case the player whose turn it was had to write down the next move. Then we were told four different options for the next move and the ones who answered correctly got a small prize.

Yukawa-sensei is writing down his next move.
Lionel failed to handle a slight overplay of the professional correctly and therefore got a bit behind. He tried to come back but could not catch up again and resigned when the endgame began. Nevertheless it was a very interesting game to watch for all the spectators.

Subsequent analysis of the game.
After the show game there was the official prize giving. The best players of different strength sections got some cool presents. The winners in the Dan section even got a nice magnetic go set.
I got a tea cup that was created to celebrate Yuki-senseis Tengen title for writing this blog. I really appreciated that but was therefore unable to make a picture of all the prize winners since I had to be there, too. 

Maeda-sensei was a bit confused about the prizes.
We had a "Good bye"-dinner in the evening and afterwards went back to the playing site. Many of the professionals who had done some teaching dropped by that night and played games or told funny stories while enjoying Japanese drinks.
We even got an additional Shamisen presentation by Nakano-sensei. Most of us used the last chance to perform typical Japanese music themselves and went to a Karaoke bar later that night.
After a long night of celebrating on Saturday everybody had to leave. Some people had to go home immediately others spent a few days more in Japan but everybody agreed that it would be great to come back next year.

With this post I close the coverage of the Osaka Go Camp. I hope you enjoyed reading the blog. 
I would like to learn more about how you liked it so feel free to leave a comment with praise or blame.

Finally I would like to thank the organizers Maeda Ryo and Li Ting again for inviting all of us to Osaka.
The only picture of both I could found.



7 comments:

  1. Thank you again for such an incredible blog! I hope that one day we will be able to meet across the table as well! You did a great job with the posts and I hope to one day hear more about another go trip!

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  2. Thank you so much for keeping us updated on the camp! I heard about it during last years congress but couldn't go(although I really, REALLY would have liked to), so your blog was more than I hoped to find about what the camp would really be like. Thank you so much for all your insights - not only into the camp - and for all the photos! I enjoyed your blog a lot and feel kinda sad it's going to end now. I hope, that if you ever again do something similar, you'll keep us updated again! Thank you!

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  3. Thank you very much for giving us some information on how the camp has been! I wanted to go this year, but really couldn't. Next year I will most likely be able to go, so I have one question:
    How useful do you think the camp has been for you? (Pretty big question, I know, but I primarily think of how much you feel you have learned, and secondarily of what you feel about the camp/visiting Japan overall.) I read some tongue-in-cheek remarks from the organizer, I believe, promising dan-players one stone and kyu players several stones. Do you think that has come through? (If you have been able to reflect on/test your own progress yet.)

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  4. Waitwaitwait... Will there really be a next year, then?! Do you have any information on if there will be another camp next year? Have the organizers said anything about it, by any chance? This would be so awesome...

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    1. A camp next year is definitely planned and as far as I know they want to announce it in the next 1 or 2 weeks.
      If you need further information you could contact the organizers directly: osaka.go.2013@gmail.com

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  5. *Zalando scream* Thanks a lot for this information! It's brilliant to hear that there'll be another chance next year, I'll definitely watch out for more information on next year's camp. Seems like I found a great way to spend my first self-earned money. ^^v

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