Peeking at the Answer Sheet
The Yangjangchi Cup.
A girl who had defeated a Chinese A-League pro by resignation.
She had slashed a full six years off the previous record for youngest main-draw qualifier, set at eighteen.
Round of 16. And waiting for her there was Huang Xuan 9-dan, a fixture in the world's top ten by official rating.
He makes a conscious effort not to fixate on Ryu Seoa 2-dan, keeping his gaze locked on the board instead.
By merely reaching the main draw, she had already proven that her strength brushed shoulders with the world's elite.
It was only within China that people refused to acknowledge her ability, doubting the authority of the Korean qualifiers — right up until one of their own A-League pros crumbled without a fight.
The girl's appearance is a weapon in itself.
Deceived by that innocent, guileless shell, an opponent goes on underestimating her strength — and by the time the monster inside reveals itself, the throat is already in its jaws. There is no time left for regret.
One must not try to understand her through common sense and prejudice.
To do that, one must ignore the opponent's face entirely and judge her only by what takes shape on the board.
Black for the girl.
In the Round of 16 as well, she held black and won.
She is not the kind of player who navigates a game through the raw genius and unpredictability typical of young prodigies — she is a fighter who seizes the initiative from the opening on the strength of a powerful fuseki and shakes her opponent apart.
She is formidable in classical openings too; in the Round of 24 she brought out an entirely original fuseki and crushed her A-League opponent underfoot.
Devastating in the early and middle game, but her stamina seems to falter in the late stages — a player with a weak finishing kick.
If the game could be steered safely into the endgame, she could be overwhelmed.
The shadow of an eight-point komi (seven and a half under territory scoring) would grow heavier with every passing minute, pressing down on black.
Huang Xuan 9-dan unfolds a territory-oriented strategy from the very start, seizing all three corners.
"…"
Black plays a fifth-line shoulder hit. Huang Xuan 9-dan's face contorts.
Even a third-line shoulder hit concedes profit to the opponent; a fifth-line shoulder hit — surrendering even the fourth line — is nothing short of taboo.
If one of his own disciples had played such a move, a simple scolding would not have come close to settling the matter. The worst kind of move. Its meaning is beyond comprehension.
If he strained to divine a rationale, it would be that the move generates expansive potential. But does that potential truly guarantee enough to overcome the profit white has gained?
No. Absolutely not.
Eight points of komi. Once white secures a little more territory, black will grow anxious — and the move she just played will become the decisive blunder of the game.
Huang Xuan 9-dan reaches his hand toward the lower side.
But the girl ignores it entirely and places her stone on the right side.
She's just abandoning the lower side?
How on earth did she learn positional judgment, to respond this badly—
No. There's something here.
If her Go were truly this wretched, there is no way she would have beaten an A-League professional by resignation.
She is like a baseball player who hit a home run in the major leagues. Luck may well have been on her side.
But the claim that an amateur could hit a home run off a major-league pitcher is pure fantasy.
In the end, this was a result backed by genuine ability. Nothing less.
Doubt takes root in Huang Xuan 9-dan's mind.
There is an apple hanging within easy reach, ready to be plucked.
The spectators outside, the commentators, the professional players — even casual Go fans of low amateur rank — none of them would hesitate to reach for that apple.
How simple it all looks from the outside.
But the one who actually plays the move must bear the full weight of that choice.
What if it isn't as simple as it appears? What if something is being overlooked? What if the girl has already discovered a riper, more luscious apple hidden deep within the thicket?
Doubt chases its own tail, spiraling onward.
Yet he cannot read her intention at all.
The hand extended toward the apple trembles — like Adam's hand, reaching for the fruit of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.
But he has already burned through a great deal of his clock. Thinking longer seems unlikely to reveal anything more.
Huang Xuan 9-dan takes control of the lower side.
Fortunately for him, nothing catastrophic follows. The girl plays with unbridled freedom, stones scattered wherever she pleases, flinging out amateurish moves one after another.
He resolved not to let his guard down, but by this point he cannot quite swallow the bitter laugh rising in his chest.
So she was just a child after all.
She had seized victory through flashes of brilliance, but her form was probably wildly inconsistent.
Refined, she would no doubt become a tremendous player — but Go this unsystematic could never reach completion.
Yet as the game rolled toward the endgame, Huang Xuan 9-dan began to feel a nameless wrongness.
The black stones dominating the center had, at some point, grown thick and solid.
Every stone he had dismissed as terrible had taken up position at a vital point of the board.
Like pieces of a puzzle snapping into place, the black stones connected, layer upon layer, each move answering the last.
"…Good God."
Black stones perched at every strategic point.
Push stones deep inside to reduce the territory, and they would be cut off and isolated.
But if not now, there would be no chance at all. In truth, it may already be too late.
Something had to be done now, before the position grew even thicker.
Huang Xuan 9-dan scrambles to plan an offensive.
But this was a battle decided from the moment the stones were placed.
White retreats in powerless rout, stones fleeing one after another.
And with that single battle, the game collapsed into a verdict.
Against a player who designed the opening while gazing into the distant future, he feels no will whatsoever to overcome the deficit in front of him now.
On the surface, white still held a comfortable lead. But look a little closer, and the picture was something else entirely.
"There are no moves left…"
Huang Xuan 9-dan declares that there is nowhere left to play, overturning his stones to signal his resignation.
My hotel room.
Mom and Dad, who had come along to cheer me on, stepped out for a while to see the night skyline, and I'm sitting here with a tub drawn, soaking just my feet.
I beat Huang Xuan 9-dan in the Round of 16, then took down Taiwan's Zhang Shufen 9-dan in the quarterfinals — my third straight win in the main draw.
In the semifinal, a best-of-three series, I'll be facing Yu Jeon-hun 9-dan — someone with history tied to me.
I've more or less accomplished what I set out to do, and yet I feel no joy at all.
Before entering this tournament, I'd believed that winning a world title would prove I had become something more than 'Shin Chang-mo.'
But I had misjudged.
The 'wall' meant to test the limits of my past life does not exist here either.
Through the asymmetry of information, I had merely vaulted over that wall by a loophole — never broken through it head-on.
Of course, I'm not so arrogant as to claim I could casually take two wins off Korea's strongest player.
But if he had lived in the same era as me — if he had seen the future of Go… then he — no — every player in this tournament would have been far, far stronger than that.
"It wouldn't hurt to take a little break, would it…"
Father has recovered his health, and the money worries are gone. Thanks to investments made with no real risk to speak of, my assets keep multiplying at a frightening pace on their own.
I'll be enrolling in middle school soon, too. I want to give my studies some real attention.
I decided once more to pour everything into Go — but greedy as I am, I don't wish for a life that contains nothing but Go.
A life with no family, no lover, not even a single decent hobby — a life where only Go existed. How unbearably lonely that was.
After this tournament ends… I think I'll rest for two years. Three, maybe, if it comes to that.
Could I ease the information asymmetry, at least a little, by writing a book about my Go in the meantime?
Of course, I'll keep playing. I have a disciple I'm responsible for, and I hardly want the strength I've built up so carefully to rust away.
I'll simply keep my tournament appearances to a minimum.
It would be poor form to strut around flaunting my results after sneaking a peek at the answer sheet.
"Whew…"
The tournament isn't even over yet, and here I am drowning in pointless thoughts.
I lower myself into the bath and let my body and mind alike drift away on the buoyancy of the water.