Tears on the First Board
The WY Cup National Women's Amateur Go Tournament — the first day of the main bracket.
"Haaah..."
Ranked 2nd among the insei. Lee Jiah let out a long, deep sigh.
There was a time when people called her a genius, a prodigy — but she was seventeen this year, an age at which "girl" was already starting to sound like a stretch.
When her name first climbed into the top ranks of the insei league, professional certification had seemed just around the corner. And yet here she was, four years into the same struggle.
Only two years now remained before she hit the nineteen-year-old age limit.
This wasn't an international tournament that awarded professional certification points, so how she performed here had no bearing whatsoever on whether she turned pro — and still, the prize money tempted her.
More than that, if she flamed out early in a tournament with not a single professional in it, it would force her to coldly confront the possibility that her talent simply ended here. That alone would help her make peace with things. She was nervous at the qualification exams, she'd been in bad condition, she'd had bad luck — she'd thrown out every excuse under the sun, but the truth was, if her skill had been sufficient, she would have passed long ago.
"I've got to do well..."
Lee Jiah murmured to herself, sighed a small sigh, and checked the time.
9:18. About thirty minutes until the start of the main tournament's Round of 32.
She sipped at the strawberry latte she'd bought on the way over, topping up her sugar for the sake of her brain cells.
"Um, Jiah-unni? Have you ever heard the name Ryu Seoa?"
She had been savoring the sweetness, floating in a moment's bliss, when the 3rd-ranked female insei — a junior two years her junior — asked about someone she'd never heard of.
"Mm... Ryu Seoa? No."
"I heard she got straight into the main bracket on a Sponsor Seed. She's not even an insei — who on earth is she...?"
A Sponsor Seed. If she'd had to grind through the preliminaries herself, the mere existence of such a thing would have made her furious — but thanks to her recent win streak she'd earned main-bracket qualification on her own merits, so the sting was manageable.
"Probably just some strong amateur, no? A tournament placer or something like that."
Lee Jiah mumbled around her straw, unbothered.
"It says... 5 kyu, though?"
The junior's words, spoken with visible bewilderment as she checked the bracket, nearly made Jiah drop her drink. Five kyu. That was decent enough for an ordinary person, but absolutely nowhere near the strength required to challenge a main tournament bracket.
"What? Were the entry requirements really that loose!?"
"The structure's such that anyone below amateur dan level falls out anyway, so maybe they just didn't see a point in a rank restriction..."
The top female insei and the very best amateurs were, frankly, beyond measuring by amateur dan ranks, and threading through a preliminary field of hundreds of strong amateurs on anything less than amateur 1-dan strength was next to impossible.
"Hm, fair enough. Still, 5 kyu is pushing it... This isn't some local elementary school tournament..."
Jiah puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and checked the bracket. The girl was on the opposite side, so they couldn't meet before the finals — which meant, unfortunately, no easy win for her. Forcing a mere 5-kyu player into the main bracket could only be the sponsor's idea of a prank, no matter how she turned it over in her mind.
"Whoever gets matched against her is lucky... Ah. Her opponent is Hozumi Asana."
"Japan's new pro debutante, the one everyone's been talking about? The Nihon Ki-in did rush her through, but her professional certification is confirmed, apparently. The result's a foregone conclusion."
A 5-kyu player gives something like five handicap stones even to an amateur 1-dan. Considering that an amateur 1-dan gives six or more stones to a professional, how many rungs apart were they, exactly?
"Right? If I make it to the Round of 16, I'll probably face the Japanese girl myself... I'll have to teach her exactly how frightening Korean Go is. Fufut."
The girl two years younger smiled back at her, brimming with confidence.
"Mm, if it's you, Hyunju, you can do it. Let's meet in the finals."
It was wrong to presume the outcome of a match — but for near-professionals like them, confidence wasn't arrogance.
As the Round of 32 start time approached, Lee Jiah took her designated seat and studied her surroundings carefully.
She'd seen Hozumi Asana's photo in articles a few times, so the girl — drawing attention for her adorable looks — was easy to pick out.
Seated across from her was a blonde girl about the same height as Hozumi Asana.
Small and pretty enough that at first Jiah thought she was a doll, but the way those innocent eyes blinked told her this was unmistakably a living, breathing person.
"Wow..."
Lee Jiah caught herself letting out a soft gasp.
So that was Ryu Seoa, the one who'd come up on a sponsor's pass.
A girl that pretty could get away with being pushed into a tournament even if she couldn't really play. It all made sense now.
"Please begin your game when you're ready."
The tournament referee stirred her back to attention; she'd been staring blankly at the fairy-like child.
Ten minutes each, three periods of 40-second byo-yomi.
The tournament rules allowed no generous cushion of time — there was no room to let her mind wander.
The nigiri at the first table placed Black on her side. Her opponent was an amateur 6-dan who looked to be in his forties.
Lee Jiah bowed politely and deeply, then placed a black stone on the upper right corner and swiftly pressed the clock button.
Even top professionals can't avoid frequent blunders in fast-paced games.
Which meant that the first priority was avoiding any mistake that proved fatal, and the key to victory was minimizing the number of mistakes in the first place.
And the only real answer to mistakes was time. It wasn't just about playing well — time management mattered just as much. All the more so in amateur Go, where the board was littered with unorthodox moves and bizarre, unpredictable shapes.
Sparing even a single second, and investing it in the fights instead — that was her plan.
To keep the fuseki phase from eating her clock, Lee Jiah played as concisely and economically as possible.
Her condition was good. Her opponent mixed in every trick play imaginable, but the essence behind them was easy to read.
Perhaps to compensate for the gulf in skill, he launched an aggressive fight along the right side before the fuseki was even finished. A seasoned, dignified offensive — sharp enough to belong in the main bracket, but he'd picked the wrong opponent.
Spending the time she'd banked, Lee Jiah steadily seized the initiative in the fight. Her opponent, ground down by the fierce exchange, tried to compromise and retreat, but she bit down and refused to let go, denying him any way to disengage. With no other option, he had no choice but to slog on through a losing battle.
To settle the game early, Lee Jiah sealed off the airways of his Daema — his massive group — for good, and with that, the game was over.
"Well played, young lady. Hmm — a shame, for your first main bracket."
Her opponent gave a wry smile as he cleared the stones.
"You played well too. I'm sure next time the result will be better."
"Yes, thank you. And you — fight hard and take the whole thing!"
"I will! Thank you very much."
Parting with a bow, she turned her gaze away from her departing opponent and scanned the tournament hall.
The clicking of Go stones still rang out in full swing. It seemed hers had been the first game to finish.
"..."
Lee Jiah looked again at the table where Hozumi Asana and Ryu Seoa sat.
Hozumi Asana, her eyes red and rimmed, was shedding tear after tear.
"Huh...?"
The one player in this entire hall with a confirmed professional debut — and that girl was wiping away tears over a 5-kyu opponent. It defied all common sense.
Steering clear of the tournament officials, she headed toward Hozumi Asana's table.
But before she could get there, Japan's young deity bowed her head deeply, rubbed at both her tear-soaked eyes, and forfeited.
Hozumi Asana then ran straight out of the tournament hall, brushing right past Lee Jiah.
"Good heavens..."
Had she blundered into some illegal move and lost in the most absurd way imaginable?
Even if her opening had been a mess, the gap between a professional and a 5-kyu amateur was wide enough to claw back from.
Nothing short of a rule violation made sense. And if Ryu Seoa had actually beaten Hozumi Asana on pure strength — then even her cocky junior, the 3rd-ranked female insei who'd been so certain she'd handle Hozumi Asana in the Round of 16, had no reason to feel safe.
Lee Jiah arrived belatedly at the table where the two had played, but Ryu Seoa had already left her seat, and the stones sat scattered and shifted — presumably knocked askew when Hozumi Asana bolted.
"Hoo..."
Left with no alternative, Lee Jiah left the venue in search of the restroom. She was idly passing the time with a drink when the announcement marking the end of the Round of 32 sounded, and the players began trickling out one by one for their break.
"Unni! How'd it go!?"
Her junior came walking out with a pleased expression, asking whether she'd won.
"Yep, I won."
"Then why do you look so gloomy?"
Her junior tilted her head at her, puzzled.
"Did you see Hozumi Asana lose?"
"Hozumi Asana... lost? To a 5-kyu nobody?"
"Yep. Ran out crying, too."
"Serves her right, haha. Guess she got careless and broke a rule or something. She's going to be thoroughly humiliated over this, no? Could her pro debut even get rescinded?"
At Lee Jiah's words, her junior laughed without a trace of concern.
"Still, be careful. She could be a secret weapon someone's been raising in the shadows."
If Ryu Seoa had truly defeated Hozumi Asana on skill alone, then the only explanation was that she was a disciple secretly trained by a top-tier professional.
"Please. If she were anyone's disciple, she'd have an amateur dan certificate by now. Who trains their own student and doesn't even get them ranked? Shame I won't get to punish Hozumi Asana myself, but what can you do. I'll win mine easily, so let's grab lunch after the Round of 16!"
Her junior brushed off Lee Jiah's worry with a laugh and made the offer.
But when the Round of 16 began immediately after the short break —
Lee Jiah found her junior on the verge of tears, her face even more wretched than Hozumi Asana's had been.