The Winning Streak
"What do you think is the most important organ for a Go player?"
Yu Jeon-hun, the 9-dan who had taken on commentary for the final match following the previous games of the winning-streak tournament, posed the question to the female caster.
"Hmm, well, since it's a mental sport, I suppose it would have to be the brain?"
"That's a fair answer, but personally, I'd say it's the *eyes*. You seize opportunities, you detect threats, and sometimes you even read what lies inside your opponent."
A professional is someone who can catch even the smallest of an opponent's habits and turn them to use in a match. Yu Jeon-hun continued with visible enthusiasm.
"It's true of everything in life, but Go in particular is a game that forces a choice at every single moment. There are countless options that exceed human comprehension, and every choice carries a price. In the end, Go is about minimizing the opportunity cost by any means necessary and maximizing the value of the move you place."
"That's certainly true — the person with the wider field of vision has the advantage, since they have more options to choose from."
"Exactly as you say. Right now, the same stones sit on the same board in front of all of us, yet every one of us sees something different. There's a difference in how much information we can extract, and a difference in how accurate that information is."
It was a matter of context — the gulf between what a professional sees on the board and what an amateur sees is staggering, both in quality and in quantity.
"Naturally, since you're the strongest player in the country, you must see the most of anyone, 9-dan Yu."
"Haha, not at all. There are many players far better than I am — and when it comes to Ryu Seoa 2-dan, that goes double."
"If I judge the position in my own humble way, her opponent, Lin Meichao 9-dan, seems to be ahead. Are you seeing it differently, 9-dan Yu?"
The female caster asked with a smile. Yu Jeon-hun nodded.
"The visible position is clearly White's advantage. But the latent potential belongs to Black. I only realized it just now, myself."
"You mean to say that Ryu Seoa 2-dan read several dozen moves ahead and designed something?"
"I don't think that's it. What's certain, though, is that she is seeing something modern professionals cannot see. An asymmetry of information."
Every professional player's standard of value judgment differs in subtle ways. Where one player reads a position as bad, another may judge it differently.
But in the modern game, refined through endless progress, those differences have grown vanishingly subtle — the average never strays far from the mean.
Ryu Seoa 2-dan's yardstick, however, is different. The reason her Go feels cognitively disagreeable, amateurish, somehow unsettling — that is why. From her own standpoint, everything she does is eminently sound and rational; to everyone else, it is incomprehensible and strange.
And yet only after studying today's game at leisure could Yu Jeon-hun bring himself to admit that the one in the wrong was not her at all — it was, in fact, the rest of the professional world.
"Allow me to play out a few moves."
Yu Jeon-hun stepped up to the demonstration board and picked up a magnetic stone.
"Oh, wow."
Barely moments after the black stone in Yu Jeon-hun's hand stuck to the board, the caster — a former top amateur player herself — let out an involuntary gasp.
"It isn't a brilliant tesuji, but it is an extraordinarily powerful move. As White, there is simply no proper answer to it."
Yu Jeon-hun continued the commentary, shifting a white stone this way and that.
"It leaves a terrible taste in the mouth, but if White wants to absorb Black's attack while minimizing the damage, this is about the best she can do. Even so, Black's momentum remains overwhelming. If Black exploits the surrounding stones and this strong shape, White will not be able to hold the line."
Yu Jeon-hun traced out Black's optimal sequence, move by move. In an instant, White's advantage was overturned.
"All I can call it is destructive. Honestly speaking, she is not a player who belongs on the women's circuit."
"No, indeed — she entered the open preliminaries of a world title event and played a masterpiece of a game against Park Pilgyu 9-dan, after all."
Back then, many had dismissed her as a talent that would flare briefly and fade. But faced with a girl now standing at five consecutive wins against the world's finest female players, who would dare utter such words today?
"Someday, I may well find myself sitting across from Ryu Seoa 2-dan myself. I truly look forward to it."
Yu Jeon-hun smiled contentedly as he gathered the stones from the board. A violent existence — one capable of tearing the established conventions of the game apart, root and branch.
What made it all the more terrifying was that she wore the loveliest of faces, a face that betrayed not a single trace of that violence.
She was never a creature who could be explained by talent alone. Anyone who held a professional diploma knew that the irrepressible seasoned craft, the sheer excellence radiating from her Go, did not spring from talent alone.
What kind of life had she lived, to temper herself to such a degree? And a mixed-race girl at that — one whose bearing sat a little apart from anything traditionally Eastern.
Watching Ryu Seoa 2-dan open the offensive at precisely the right moment, live up to every expectation, Yu Jeon-hun sank deep into thought.
The Korean players who had competed alongside me offered their congratulations and shared in my joy, while the reporters furiously popped their camera flashes.
It was a glorious moment of victory — yet I couldn't bring myself to simply be happy about it.
"Why do I have to—"
I whispered, too quietly for anyone to hear, and sighed.
The modified hanbok I'd been forcibly changed into after the tournament. Apparently, my cheongsam from last time had caused such a stir that the Korean players, led by Lee Na-ye 9-dan, had prepared it in advance against the possibility that I might win.
My hair braided by the "unnies," adorned with every manner of ornament and cosmetics, the result was an exotic hanbok girl of utterly adorable bearing — beaming straight into the camera lenses.
The photos taken at the Chinese tournament's closing ceremony had been pickled in formaldehyde forever through that terrifying medium known as the internet. Anyone could find the pictures of me in that cheongsam with a simple search of my name.
Today's episode, no doubt, would meet the same fate. And this time it would bombard my sense of identity mercilessly, from a whole variety of angles and expressions besides.
Two lifetimes combined, I was past the halfway mark of a typical lifespan. And here I was, getting my picture taken looking like *this*.
Tears spilled unbidden from my eyes. My mother and grandfather, standing far back behind the reporters, snapping photos of me on their phones with faces absolutely radiant — I couldn't help but resent them for it.
"Are you quite alright!?"
Mid-interview, the reporter questioning me asked in obvious alarm.
"Huh? Oh, yes, yes! I just got a little drowsy, and the tears—"
When I forced a smile and smoothed things over, the reporter visibly relaxed. What he had been asking about was my plans going forward.
Even had I lost today, my plan would not have changed one bit.
"Yes — I know my abilities still fall far short, but I want to challenge for the World Kiwang Title."
An open international title event. Merely advancing past the preliminaries would be an ordeal in itself — but I could not content myself with staying on the women's circuit.
Before the assembled reporters, I declared my ambition loud and proud.