Wagered Go
The neighborhood Go club, with its boards lined up in rows. It was the kind of place where you paid by the hour to play Go or janggi, much like an internet café. Online Go had become so widespread that such clubs had withered compared to the old days, but Go's popularity hadn't yet faded entirely, and a fair number of people were deep in their games.
After watching my match, when my grandfather asked where I'd learned to play, I made up a story — that I'd picked it up at school, gotten interested, and had been studying hard through TV programs and books ever since.
If that were true, he said, it would be a truly remarkable talent, and he wanted to see my game with his own eyes. And so we came straight here, to this Go club.
It seemed things had snowballed beyond what I intended, but Go was the only talent I had, and for my family's sake, I was ready to take it up again. To sharpen my instincts, playing as much as possible was the only answer — and facing an opponent across a real board would let my sense recover that much faster.
"Welcome, Master Ryu. It's been far too long. Is the child beside you the granddaughter you were always boasting about?"
The man, who appeared to be the club's owner, greeted my grandfather warmly before shifting his gaze to me with a question.
"Yes. This is my granddaughter, Seoa. She's worth boasting about, don't you think?"
"Haha. Indeed. What a lovely little lady. It's been a while since your last visit, so that'll be three thousand won for you — and for our young lady here, on the house, as a special treat."
"Today I came intending to have my granddaughter play, not myself. Would you happen to have a suitable opponent for her?"
My grandfather asked the owner, laying out his skill assessment with the practiced calm of a man trading in a familiar currency.
"So the little one has studied some Go, has she? What's her rank?"
"At least 3-kyu. I don't know her exact strength myself yet."
"3-kyu at her age? She must have studied quite diligently."
The owner gave a light whistle of admiration and scanned the players' board on the wall.
Go's rating systems were never perfectly unified across the internet, tournaments, and local clubs, and in a neighborhood club like this one, ranks were generally only distinguished from 1-kyu down to 18-kyu — meaning 1-kyu marked the strongest player in the neighborhood. Anyone at 3-kyu or better was considered a local master.
"Then why not have a game with me?"
A man who'd been watching our conversation cut in, his eyes on me.
"Very well. Seoa, don't feel any pressure — just give it a try."
"Haha, I don't like putting pressure on a child either, but a game without money on it is no fun at all, wouldn't you say? Let's make it twenty thousand won, exactly."
Apparently I looked like easy prey — a harmless little girl playing Go, just asking to be taken advantage of. Judging by the man's rough, sleazy appearance, he was probably planning to win quickly and spend the winnings on a free lunch and some midday drinks.
"No, that's all right—"
"I'll play, Grandfather."
I cut off my grandfather, who was clearly casting about for a more suitable opponent, and stepped toward the man. Anyone who made a living off betting Go, after all, would be someone confident in his skill.
"Our little one's got some spirit, I like that. Fine. Your grandfather says you're about 3-kyu? I'm a 4-kyu myself, but since I'm older, let's call it even with a handicap."
With that, the man sat down before the board and grabbed a handful of white stones.
Nigiri — the traditional way of deciding who takes black. The senior or stronger player grasps a handful of white stones, and the other guesses odd or even with black stones: guess right and you take black; guess wrong and you take white.
I placed a single black stone on the board to signal odd, and the man laid his captured whites out for counting.
"Black for me, then. Let's have a good game, little one."
Whether he was desperate to hold black, or simply trying to rattle me, I caught a faint glimpse of it with my own eyes — a practiced sleight of hand, the kind that comes from plenty of practice, slipping a few white stones into his sleeve to make the count even. And stones hidden away like that could serve him later too, if the game turned against him — material for secret stashes and outright cheating.
But calling it out would do nothing but make faces red on both sides. So I let it pass without a word. Black or white, the stronger player wins regardless.
"Of course. The pleasure is mine."
Clack!
The moment the greetings ended, the man slammed his stone down with a crack loud enough to startle anyone.
Knight's move at the upper-right corner — the 3-4 point.
The deliberate intent to intimidate and cow me was plain to feel.
My grandfather, who had been watching from the side, frowned and glared at the man. But reacting emotionally was exactly what the opponent wanted; it would only mean being led around by the nose.
Unshaken, I picked up a stone.
The smooth, polished touch of a Go stone in my hand for the first time in ten years filled me with an inexplicable euphoria.
Tap.
I set my stone down with a crisp motion, and it landed with a clear, ringing sound that was pleasant to the ear.
Star point, lower-left corner.
No matter how lofty a meaning one bestowed upon it, Go was, in the end, a game — I had no intention of condemning betting Go outright as long as it was played for fun.
But resorting to such shabby trickery, treating Go as nothing more than a means to grab money — that I could never overlook. I fixed my gaze and my thoughts on the board alone.
After some forty moves traded back and forth, I had a rough read on his strength. Whatever his attitude toward the game, his actual skill was considerable.
His claim of being 4-kyu was almost certainly a lie too; in reality he was probably a 2-kyu. Which made it all the more unforgivable.
"Hey, little one — Seoa, was it? You play pretty well for such a tiny thing. Looks like you've been studying hard under a teacher, hmm?"
On move fifty-one, he laid a meticulous trap while deliberately striking up conversation.
A well-buried snare that could trip up even strong amateurs if they let their guard down.
Fall into it unseen, and the losses would be ruinous.
Instead of answering, I placed my stone without much deliberation.
It was not the standard response. If anything, by strict reckoning you could call it a bad move.
"Heh heh. Little one, when an adult speaks, you ought to answer. One parent a foreigner, and nobody taught you any manners? Haha."
The man, who wore his emotions openly, grinned from ear to ear as he placed his stone exactly where he expected me to play.
He must have believed he'd gained a big advantage. In truth, I had simply absorbed a modest loss and answered his deception in kind — with a deception of my own.
And he moved along my script, beautifully, exactly as I intended.
I continued down the sequence that would lead him to destruction. It was certainly not a flawless, airtight scheme.
But it was intricate and precise enough to slip past an opponent drunk on carelessness and arrogance.
"My apologies, little one. You really should have listened to your grandfather."
Walk carelessly enough, and you won't notice a thing until you're standing at the very lip of the cliff.
I lightly shoved the man who had walked there on his own two feet.
"Wh-what!?"
Only at my casually placed stone did he seem to finally understand. Only after peering down into the dizzying depths below did the danger register.
Pushed by me to the cliff's edge, his fingers barely hooked over the rim, he thrashed belatedly to climb back up.
All it would take was a light stamp on his weakening hands, and he would plunge into the abyss.
But I chose not to. With the game one move from over, I drew my hand back and played elsewhere.
I had no intention of granting him a clean death with a single fatal blow. I would kill him slowly, leisurely, as uglily and miserably as I could manage.
"Ugh... ngh..."
Having survived by my mercy — a mercy that felt nothing like mercy — he flushed crimson with shame. He'd apparently stewed in humiliation long enough; he glared at me ferociously and slammed down his next move with open aggression.
In swordsmanship, they say a powerful attack breaks your stance.
Land it, and you might cleave even a heavily armored opponent in two — but miss, and you're left wide open for a long, unforgiving moment.
Go is the same.
Every attack carries risk. That is why an attack must be cautious, must be meticulously planned.
Hoping a punch thrown on impulse, without reading your opponent's movement, will actually land — that is the thinking of a fool.
The moment I answered with effortless ease, his offensive collapsed on the spot, and my chance to counterattack arrived.
But I didn't rush.
His openings were everywhere, which meant there was no need to force anything.
Merely taking one step toward a weakness within the sword's reach was enough to make him flinch and shrink away.
As if he'd never been aggressive at all, his Go turned passive, defensive.
Once balance breaks and superiority is decided, the one being chased has no choice but to play his best moves and pray his opponent errs.
But a man of that kind of composure and patience and iron nerve doesn't stoop to hiding stones up his sleeve.
The moment his mind wavered, his Go collapsed to the point of being painful to watch.
Rather than knocking the staggering man down for good, I toyed with him thoroughly, relentlessly.
His shoulders hunched lower and lower, and his gaze sank steadily toward the floor.
"..."
Head bowed deep, he silently pulled out his wallet, extracted two crumpled ten-thousand-won bills, flung them onto the Go board, and bolted out of the club as if fleeing for his life.
My win by resignation, playing white.
As my concentration lapsed and the fatigue of the game brought on a faint dizziness and a draining weakness, I looked around — and found that everyone in the club who'd been playing Go had stopped playing entirely, and was crowding in a tight ring around me.