Prologue — The Last Countdown
My mind is a haze. The byo-yomi timer drains away slowly, inexorably, tightening its grip on my thoughts a little more with every passing second.
This is my final byo-yomi period. If I don't place a stone now, a loss on time will be declared.
Out of options, I play a stalling move. But my opponent, already reading far deeper into the position than I am, answers the instant my stone leaves my hand — as if he'd been waiting for it all along.
The forty-second countdown begins again. Yet no matter how far I stretch my reading, I can't find a single sequence that turns the game around.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Nine."
The countdown marking the final ten seconds. Out of alternatives, I settle — and once again drop a convenient, time-burning stone onto the board.
"Kgh…"
But when the pressure of the clock finally eases and I look at the board again, I see what I've done: the move I just played has exposed a fatal weakness at the upper right corner — the last battlefield of the game.
The stone has already left my hand. There is no taking it back.
"Ha."
My opponent takes in the wretched move and lets out an empty laugh.
Ranked sixth in Korea. A rising star with demonic talent.
He already knows every obvious sequence to come, yet he doesn't play. Instead he leans back in his chair, unhurried, savoring the moment.
I'll give you all the time you need. Squirm all you like. That insolent posture says it all.
I know perfectly well that emotion solves nothing, but my reason is crumbling anyway, and rage floods in to fill the empty space it leaves behind.
I grit my teeth and search for possibilities.
There are none.
No way to break that prodigy. No chance to redeem my mistake. Nothing. At all.
"Haaam…"
Having burned a full three minutes, my opponent yawns just as I'm sinking into despair — and then plays the most obvious point on the board, a move any elementary schooler with a week of Go lessons would find.
And in all that time, I hadn't been able to find a single path out of my predicament.
"…"
I'm furious.
Furious not at the opponent toying with me, but at my own meager talent. At the unbridgeable gap that no amount of struggling will ever close. All I feel is a despair that sinks bone-deep.
I feel reason being devoured by the flood of dark emotions — and I hurl the stones down.
"And with White capturing by resignation on move 213, that's the game. Shin Changmo, 9-dan, fought hard, but with his final byo-yomi period exhausted he committed a heartbreaking blunder — and falls in the round of sixteen. Given that he was eliminated in the preliminaries of every other recent title tournament as well, this must be a bitter pill to swallow."
"Indeed. Hard to believe it's been only three years since Shin Changmo, 9-dan, won an international title and held two domestic crowns. The decline since then has been unmistakable. And after today's loss, we saw him struggle badly to compose himself."
"Right. A brief but brilliant peak — that was Shin Changmo, 9-dan. What would you say is behind this sustained slump?"
"Compared to other top professionals, Shin Changmo's reading and intuition were always relatively weak. He was a player who overcame that flaw through sheer effort and passion. Stronger than anyone in orthodox positions, but vulnerable to unconventional play. In his prime, his unshakable solidity used to punish anyone who strayed from the joseki — but after AlphaGo's arrival, he failed to adapt to the new trends and slid into this slump."
"That's certainly true. As professionals have integrated AI programs into their study, opening play has changed dramatically from the old patterns. From Shin Changmo's perspective, it must feel as though the weapon he spent his whole life honing has been rendered useless."
"Still — he's a man who clawed his way to the top on grit alone. I believe he'll overcome this crisis, and someday show us that same solid Go of his again. And with that…"
In a room thick with cigarette smoke, I replay the broadcast recording of my own game, over and over.
There was a time when getting stronger was joy enough that I'd review my lost games again and again until I was satisfied. Now, in place of that joy, there is only despair.
My strength was always the opening: buying time, banking small gains, then entering the middle game with that surplus in hand. But after the AI era leveled and standardized the opening, that advantage evaporated. In Go, half a point can decide everything. Once I lost my edge in the early game, my fall was swift. My entire strategy rested on defending the time and profit I'd banked early and outlasting my opponent — but lately, with no time left for the endgame, I've more than once simply detonated alone on the board.
At some point, losing had come to feel inevitable — so obvious even I accepted it without question. My confidence, my passion, even my interest in Go itself, drained away bit by bit.
Playing a game isn't fun anymore. Reading a game record isn't fun anymore.
But if you took Go out of my life, what would be left?
I gave up on my studies as a boy and threw myself into nothing but Go. I have no real hobbies; I can't cook so much as a basic meal, can't manage even the simplest housework.
To most people, Go is just a game. But in my narrow, cramped little world, Go is my entire life.
And everything I'd built over decades came crashing down because a fashion changed. Everything I had ever done now feels meaningless. Hollow.
No matter how hard I thrash, all I'll be remembered as is the fastest-burnt has-been the Go world ever produced — a single lucky year, then nothing. It won't even take long for them to forget me completely.
Maybe it's a sordid excuse. But past thirty, can I really absorb new concepts as fast as those young rising stars do?
I used to believe that effort could overcome anything, to some degree. Now I am simply, utterly exhausted.
I pour the antidepressants — prescribed starting last year — into my mouth. I've heard they don't work faster just because you take more; you're supposed to keep a steady dose and wait for them to build up. But without leaning on the pills, I don't think I can endure this at all.
The doctor drilled it into me never to drink while on the medication. I upend a soju bottle anyway, forcing the alcohol down my throat.
As long as I can get drunk, nothing else matters.
"Ugh…"
Somewhere around the bottom of the second bottle, a violent dizziness crashes in on top of the drunk.
I clutch my head and sink to the floor, but the dizziness only grows worse.
Whether it's a side effect of the antidepressants or the alcohol on top of them, I can't tell.
A crushing pressure seizes my chest as if my heart were about to burst — and I collapse, just as I am.