This Is My Go
The preliminary match room was sparse.
The professionals who had packed the place so tightly there wasn't an empty board to be found had thinned out all at once. That emptiness made it feel real.
Everything comes down to this one game.
Today's results would decide the thirteen players advancing to the Open Division main tournament. My current promotion points sat at ten. Reaching the Round of 32 would net me eighty more — ninety total, leaving just ten points until Point-based Professional Accession. The moment I locked in a main-tournament berth, I'd be standing at the threshold of becoming a professional.
But... why are there so many spectators?
The game hadn't even started, and people were already lingering around my board. Korean professionals I'd crossed paths with once or twice during the integrated preliminaries. Among them, Lu Yuan 6-dan, who I'd played yesterday — and Sun Yao 6-dan, who'd faced me when I was still Mumyeong.
Awkward.
The sensation of being watched. I still wasn't used to it. Of course, not every gaze was meant for me. I lifted my chin and looked at the opponent sitting across from me.
Byun Woo-bin, 5-dan. Ranked nineteenth in Korea. Champion of the Open Rookie King Tournament. Runner-up in the Badukwang Match. A rising star they said would one day carry Korean Go on his shoulders.
Last night, I'd tracked down the games from his finals and watched them through. To put it simply: he was good. His style was intuitive fighting Go — more aggressive than mine, more daring. He shook. He shattered. He dragged you in. On the surface, you could say we played similar Go.
But.
Byun Woo-bin's stones carry emotion.
Creativity and instinct, woven together so naturally they seemed like one thing. When he pressed hard, those stones felt almost alive. Once he caught a wave of momentum, he was the type you couldn't stop.
...Not an easy opponent.
That much was clear. To be honest, even if I gave it everything I had, there was no guarantee I could win. Was that why?
Why am I shaking like this?
It wasn't fear. It was a good kind of tremor — something inside me slowly warming up. This was fun. And I was looking forward to it. More than any vow to win — a single game against someone I could throw everything at and still not have enough. That was what had my heart racing.
"Please take your seats. We will now begin the fourth round of the Ciel Bank Cup Integrated Preliminaries."
Supervisor Heo Gyu 9-dan's announcement landed with a heavy, dignified weight. The stones rattled as we drew for color.
White.
Black would have been nice, but I wasn't disappointed. The pressure komi applied — depending on how you used that advantage, it was worth more than having the first move. Especially in a game like today's.
I bowed before the match, and my eyes met Byun Woo-bin's.
...He looks like he wants to kill me.
I had a pretty good idea why he hated me. Even as a top-tier professional, he was barely twenty — still too young to keep his own feelings in check. And when it came to matters between a man and a woman, that went double.
That doesn't mean I have to go easy on him.
Byun Woo-bin picked up a stone and set it on the board. A sharp click. Upper-right 3-4 point. I answered at an unhurried pace — lower-left star point. And then his hand shot out immediately. A fast play for the opening, pressing me with momentum, with the clock, trying to bury me under pace.
I'll take it.
I answered softly on a star point of my own. I didn't clash with him head-on this early. Instead, an invisible contest of momentum filled the space between us. The sequence moved quickly. It was a standard opening, but beneath the surface a hidden current was already running. Attach to the 3-4. Hane. Extend. Cut. We were both reading a great deal. And neither of us was backing down.
Here it comes.
A flow that had started in joseki and spread across the upper side. I was already a step ahead of the position in front of me, sketching the development in my head. Just before the stones connected, Black didn't have many paths to choose from. Among them, the most dangerous one. The one he was most confident in.
Click. He came down that exact path.
Just as I expected.
The Badukwang Match final I'd watched on YouTube had followed a similar shape. He led the battlefield, induced changes, played adventurous and challenging moves. That was Byun Woo-bin's Go. In the end, his opponent Woo Seok 5-dan hadn't been able to endure it and collapsed.
But Seo Yeon-seok 8-dan had been different. The strength to look at the whole board and weather the momentum. The posture to hold his ground even when shaken. In the end, Byun Woo-bin hadn't been able to break through that wall. That was why he'd finished as runner-up. The spear hadn't pierced the shield.
He tried... but he couldn't shake him.
I made the same choice. Not a frontal clash — acceptance. Not a reckless counterattack — waiting.
No need to get swept up in emotion.
I wasn't being overwhelmed by his momentum. I held White. I had the advantage of komi. I hadn't taken the first move. I was simply calm. I just didn't see the need to meet fire with fire.
A spectacular victory? There was no such thing. You didn't have to capture a giant group. You didn't have to run up a hundred-point lead. In Go, a half-point was enough to decide a win or a loss. So I chose the method with the highest probability of winning. Not a head-on fight — a way to reliably smother Byun Woo-bin and beat him. Not on intuition and feeling, but on calculation and precision. By raising the proportion of AI Go.
He's scared.
Byun Woo-bin muttered it inwardly, almost a sneer. He didn't know much about In-ha's style. Amateurs left no official match records, no game scores that could be archived. Still, beating Kim Dong-gyu 8-dan, Lin Sui 8-dan, and Lu Yuan 6-dan — names that actually carried weight — was worth acknowledging.
But that was all. He didn't care in the slightest.
Whatever Go he plays, I'll just crush him with skill.
He was confident. He was Byun Woo-bin. He'd been competing against the same professionals In-ha had faced for years, and he'd stacked up far more wins. A nameless amateur. The fact that they were even sitting at the same board was an insult.
...Anything that gets in my way, I remove.
Yuzuha. The way this guy hovered around her had been an eyesore from the start. More than anything, the way she looked at him. Byun Woo-bin was the one who'd stayed by her side since their trainee days. He was the one who'd proven himself with results on the professional stage. And yet the one she'd reached for wasn't him — it was some nobody amateur. That was humiliating beyond endurance.
Calm down.
He drew a breath and shook off the stray thoughts. The game was still on. He sank back into the board.
I overwhelm with momentum.
That was his way. The reason he'd survived. The clearest language in which skill could be proven. Sweep the battlefield. Shake the opponent. And in the end, crush them.
Click. Under his assault, the man across from him gave ground. He didn't meet the momentum head-on. Passive. Defensive. Retreating.
So he wants to imitate AI Go?
Byun Woo-bin's mouth twisted. AI Go was strong. But it also had a fatal weakness. If your research wasn't deep enough — if your analysis fell short — the blunders multiplied the moment you entered the early middle game. And this was an amateur.
How long can he keep that up?
Byun Woo-bin started putting variations into his stones. Momentum. The speed of change. He dragged the entire battlefield toward greater complexity. And then — click. A white stone settled on the board. A move anyone would call ordinary. Unremarkable. And yet it grated, faintly. Something unpleasant. As if the board had warped, just a fraction. A grim premonition that it might even be a Blue Spot.
Coincidence. He can't keep this up.
Byun Woo-bin shook it off. Hitting one was possible. He reached out again. He didn't let the momentum break. He pressed even harder. That was how you made an opponent collapse.
Click. A white stone landed in silence. A move that answered the variation without letting the shape fall apart.
What is this move...
Byun Woo-bin inhaled without meaning to. There was no force in it. No momentum. And yet it severed the pulse of the position with perfect accuracy.
Don't tell me he's reading my moves? No. That's impossible.
A faint unease seeped in. This board — maybe he wasn't the one holding the initiative. Maybe this was a flow the other man had been leading him into. Byun Woo-bin bit his lip.
That's absurd.
He couldn't admit it. He couldn't accept it. And yet this filthy feeling... was familiar.
W-wait.
For an instant, he reached back through memory. The 41st Badukwang Match. The final against Seo Yeon-seok 8-dan. The game he had never been able to break through, where his momentum had been neutralized. That sensation he'd felt then — of his momentum snapping without even realizing it had snapped.
This is what he was aiming for?
He hadn't broken the momentum. He'd let it run — in the direction White had intended. Not even a professional. A mere amateur. Byun Woo-bin felt his palms go damp.
I'm being led around? Me, Byun Woo-bin... by some amateur?
He denied it. Nothing changed. That sense of dread seeped in like a hand closing around his throat.
...This can't be happening. Absolutely not.
Byun Woo-bin ground his teeth. Losing was fine. Anyone could lose. But this one person — the man sitting in front of him, Kim In-ha — he would rather die than lose to him. Petty pride. Yes, that was what it was. Which was exactly why he had to win. Even if he had to play a reckless move. Even if the path was ridiculous.
Click. Byun Woo-bin threw down a winning move.
Blue Spot.
AI-style Go. Weather Black's shaking. Weather it again. Hold the center until the most favorable position arrived.
Click. Thick. Click. Solid. Calculated retreats. Deliberate compromises. Not killing the momentum — playing so that it flowed as if finding its own place, naturally.
The weakness of my AI moves was that the accuracy only held in the opening.
That couldn't be helped. The more complicated the board became, the harder it was to chase the AI's recommendations. Humans weren't artificial intelligence. Precise positional judgment — and value judgment — would always hit a ceiling.
If I can just raise the accuracy through the middle game... no, even just through the early middle game.
It didn't have to be a Blue Spot. A Green Spot was fine. What mattered was not being shaken. The most stable move. The most optimal move. The most efficient move. I didn't need to get ahead. I only needed to endure until these moves stacked up and created an opening.
Click. One of my white stones settled onto the shoulder of a black stone and sat there, quiet. Like a mountain. It didn't move — and by existing, it forced Black to re-examine his entire sequence.
I'm taking the initiative back.
Inconspicuously. But unmistakably. His flow was slowly breaking.
Not "I've won." The current had shifted. Anyone who played Go would feel it instinctively — that faint inversion of the air. Byun Woo-bin couldn't have missed it either.
Click. He counterattacked without hesitation. An oppressive pincer. A straight-line assault to seize the initiative back. A heavy move, strong enough to rattle everything I'd stacked so carefully.
I endure one more time.
But I didn't endure blindly. I followed the AI's recommended moves — and mixed my own intuition into them. One stone. Then another. Answering without stopping. Never charging either. Quietly, but firmly, I advanced.
Click. A pincer in the upper left. Click. A breakout on the right side. Click. Cleaning up a cut toward the center. Every one of them ordinary. Moves without flourish. And yet they were calculated, stacking without a tremor. The more they did, the more Black's momentum softened — and at last, it broke. There was no particularly winning shape to speak of, and still my Go was advancing, and Black was hesitating, unable to keep up.
Ah.
For a moment, my mind went clear. This game had no violent shaking. No extraordinary reading. No brilliant move that struck from a blind spot. A sensation completely different from any Go I had played until now. Not simply chasing the AI's Blue Spots with compulsion — but intuition and data, the two of them, weaving into one.
A chime rang in my head.
A system message window appeared. Unlike when I'd first obtained the talent with a roulette ticket, there was no forced injection into my mind. No system update flooding in.
I know.
The corner of my mouth lifted, just slightly. This wasn't a power the talent had given me. It wasn't a path the AI had led me down.
This was Kim In-ha's Go. Go, by Kim In-ha. Go that only Kim In-ha could play.
This is my Go.