Go with the Flow

by Cho Hunhyun

  Anticipation becomes much more important to experts, especially, in professions such as real estate investors, stock brokers, and fund managers, whose job is to forecast the market. Most experts are skilled at understanding what is happening to the economic policy, consumer sentiment, price index, real estate market, and stock market in each country today. They are able to connect the dots to forecast the big picture; for example, the future of the world economy, consumer price movements, favorable areas of investment and the probable returns, in connection to each other.

  The forecast may not always be accurate. Even exceptional experts, or a Go player 9P like myself can arrive in the wrong conclusion because of missing an important factor, but largely, because we are inclined to interpret things to our advantage. The urge to seek immediate gains can be misleading. Organizations and the society as a whole make the same mistake of interpreting to their favor and as a result, making the wrong decision. For instance, why were prominent economists unable to predict the 2008 global finance crisis in advance? Why did banks take the risk of providing mortgage loans to people with low credit rating? Worse, how could they even think of selling subprime mortgage-backed derivatives to investment banks?

  The best a rotten apple can produce is a glass of rotten apple juice. It will still be the same rotten apple juice no matter how much sweetener or scent are added. An alarm should have gone off when those mortgage-backed financial assets were traded in the market to warn about their repercussions. Nevertheless, no one warned against the dangers of those assets. Blinded by immediate gains, no one did a thorough analysis of their impact on the economy. Everyone dismissed the flickering danger signal as they sought after short-term high return on their investment.

  When one is blinded by immediate gains, one fails to foresee three or four moves ahead, compromising the positions on the board. A Go master never becomes too excited when a position that can bring immediate advantage comes into view. The opponent would have probably seen it too and must have already braced to take a counter action. Throwing oneself into what looks appealing now could result in a dire loss later. The more tempting it is, the greater the risk. It could be a bait which would cost one an arm and a leg.

  Try to refrain from skimming over a situation. Look at the big picture. What one finds attractive, others may find attractive, too, which ironically, makes it less valuable. Furthermore, there must be someone out there going after what is more valuable with a bigger picture in mind. Try to see the forest and not just the tree while asking oneself if one is aligned with the direction one wishes to follow. Keep sight of the overall view and ride on the stream. The rest shall follow.

  Batoo: The Worth of a Bad Move

  Online games were in full swing in Korea in 2009. And I too got a firsthand experience of this huge change that swept across the country. I found myself sitting in front of a computer wearing a headset to play some games on line. I have never played any other games but Go. I played ‘Batoo,’ short for ‘Baduk (the Korean term for Go) Jentoo,’ or Baduk Battle. ‘Batoo’ was an online board game built on the offline Go. It had similar rules with Go, but as its name suggests, included more exciting combat-style factors.

  People became concerned when I, “a respected National Hand,” according to them, became attracted to online games which seemed to be intended for young people.

  “It’s ungraceful of a National Hand to play online games.”

  “He is crazy about making money.”

  “He is trying to make up for his poor performance in Go.”

  I received more than enough disapproval and accusations, but I had my own reasons. I did not know how others saw it, but it was not anything close to a spur-of-the moment decision to play online. I had thought about it seriously and give it a try to look ahead, although it may have been a bad move.

  Less people were playing Go in Korea and Korean players who had gone from strength to strength were on the verge of being outperformed by Chinese players. There were more entertainment choices outside the household and even more exciting online games penetrating every household, resulting in Go losing ground. The future of Go depended on the young generation but they were losing interest in the game. There seemed to be very little that could be done about the trend. I thought the game of Go should reach out to the young people if they no longer came to play Go.

  I assumed that those who liked Batoo would be interested in Go as well because the online game was rooted in the Go. The basic rule of capturing the opponent’s stones to expand territories by building houses was the same, except that ‘Batoo’ had some special rules and gambling elements to it that allowed beginners to develop strategies to beat a Go player 9P. Another appealing aspect of ‘Batoo’ was the World Batoo League which awarded a total prize money of 1.2 billion won in a year.

  I became involved in Batoo hoping that this fun game would appeal to the young and eventually make them being interested in Go. I was engaged from the beginning to provide advice on the development of the game and played in the World Batoo League with junior players. I had interviews with various media outlets to promote the game. I allowed myself to be the face of this novel game and the wingman. I did not mind being crushed when playing games with those who were far younger than I was.

  Many were apprehensive and disapproving of my involvement in promoting Batoo. They felt Batoo was damaging the reputation of Go, let alone attracting more people, and eventually drive people away from playing Go. They had a valid concern, but we could not afford to cling on to the reputation of Go because the world had moved on. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in a swimming pool, swimsuits must be worn. The world was a different place and we had to change accordingly.

  Batoo may have caused damage to the reputation of Go, but it could not have caused any further decline in the number of people playing Go. Batoo was only one of many online games. No matter how much fun Batoo was, people were eventually going to return to play the authentic strategy board game of Go which had survived for more than 4,000 years. Batoo could not have possibly posed any threat to the authority of Go. Even if it did, it would have been a light jab, at most. Go would still have been invincible. I was determined to promote the on-line spin-off of Go in the hope of redirecting the crowd to the ancient game and reviving its popularity. It was not an impulsive decision and I had thought everything through. I knew that there would be criticisms. I knew that Batoo may not take off. I also knew that the failure would reflect negatively on my reputation as the National Hand. Nevertheless, I was not afraid of scandalizing the Go community. Rather, it was liberating to act on my personal conviction. Someone in the Go community had to do it. I believed I was in the best position to take the risk considering my age and reputation. The pressure and the responsibility would have been too much if someone younger or older than me took the risks associated with Batoo.

  Being involved in Batoo turned out to be a bad move for me. A bad move is a move that is against the interest of a player. Professional players work hard to avoid bad moves because they can tip the entire game to the disadvantage of the player in the blink of an eye. Victory is reserved for those who avoid making a bad move, not those who make a move akin to the stroke of a genius. In the real world, however, one may be forced to make a bad move with knowledge that it may bring more harm than good because of circumstantial issues, or to stick to one’s principles.

  I believe in the evolution of Go. I am willing to take a blow to my reputation if that is what it takes to move Go forward. There are people who join labor or civic movements for a social cause without expecting any personal gains. Some are devoted to things that do not promise them financial benefits nor public recognition. But standing by one’s principles makes the soul feel liberated.

  Unfortunately, Batoo was not successful. It had to shut down its service and my vision to expand the foundation of Go perished with Batoo. Some may have sneered, “Hunhyun, it serves you right!” But I don’t think it was wrong to support Batoo. B
atoo failed, but it was worth trying. Just because the outcome was not something one had in mind doesn’t mean it was a bad idea.

  I am still looking for an effective way to promote Go. I have worked hard with the hope of including Go in the next Summer Olympics as well as at the National Sports Festival, a nation-wide sports event held in every autumn in Korea. I am ready to take my chances, including making another bad move, to promote Go and make way for its evolution.

  The Three Color Rainbow

  There was an interesting show about the colors of a rainbow on television. Koreans are taught that a rainbow has seven colors. But I found out this standard is taught only in a few countries, including Korea. In the U.S., the ‘official’ number of colors of a rainbow is seven, but most Americans believed a rainbow had six colors, as most Europeans did. In Ancient Maya, the colors of the rainbow were classified into five according to historical records. This finding reminded me of how the older generation in Korea refer to the rainbow as a ‘five-colored rainbow.’ Those who are taught that a rainbow has five colors could actually see only five colors in a rainbow. The shade of orange between red and yellow, or the difference between navy and purple, hardly meant anything to them. If one is taught the rainbow has three colors, the visible spectrum of colors is bound to be simplified into those three colors, leaving very little room to explore what is beyond.

  In fact, a computer-generated color analysis of a rainbow shows that it has tens of thousands of shades. Although they may not all be distinguishable by the human eyes, we may still be able to tell that there are more than seven colors in a rainbow. However, the moment one is taught a rainbow has seven colors in school, one no longer makes the effort to inquire about the colors of the rainbow. When it comes to skills, one stops challenging oneself to hone the skills necessary to move on to the next level believing that one has already mastered it all.

  That is when things start to go wrong. We believe we know everything and that we had thought through every option before making a choice. However, this is a serious delusion, simply because no one has the capability to know everything. It happens in Go competitions. One misinterprets the situation on the Go board because of an unanticipated variable. But the more one trains to play Go, more knowledge is accumulated, hence one becomes progressively better at reading the positions. Intuition and experience are important but one has to have a wider scope of knowledge. One must continue to learn to be able to read the position on the board from different perspectives.

  For this reason, learning must go on. Reading text books on Go, analyzing game records, and solving as many life-and-death problems in Go must continue for a professional player to sharpen the game skills. Learning, in the broader sense, could include collecting information and building knowledge in one’s relevant field, and to keep oneself excited about what is happening around the world.

  The game of Go is a miniature of our life. But professional Go players tend to be cut off from the real world. Background knowledge in history, culture, or the society is not required to play the game. One can be the best in Go without having the slightest idea of the rest of the world. Master Segoe had no idea how much a sack of potato cost or which route the buses in his neighborhood took all his life. Now that I have slowed down on building my career, I have started to watch the news and dramas on the T.V., but I did not have a clue on what was happening in politics and the economy at the height of my career. I did not even have enough time to just practice Go. If I had any spare time, I preferred to use it to solve one more life-and-death problem to deepen my knowledge of Go. I believe I was not the only Go player who chose to train oneself in seclusion. Most professional players are geniuses when they are playing Go; but one may be surprised to find out that they have very little practical knowledge of how to get by in the real world.

  Unlike professional Go, most jobs are closely linked to what happens day-to-day in the real world; a good writer chooses a topic that the public can relate to; a good songwriter creates a melody that can appeal to the taste of the masses; a doctor has to be an effective communicator to work with the patients; and the competitive edge of an IT person lies in keeping oneself up-to-date with the latest technology and their application in everyday life.

  To anticipate the events of our lives, building expertise in one’s field must continue while keeping abreast with what’s happening in the world. We need to be open to different topics. Knowledge and information acquired must be stored in the mind like a database. Those pieces of information may seem irrelevant to one’s job today, if accumulated over time, evolve into a system of knowledge and experience that help make an informed decision on the next-steps of life.

  The humanities have an important role to play here. They serve as a framework to gain in-depth understanding of the world and humanity. We get to trace the footprint of mankind in history, philosophy, science, and the arts and look at the world and our future with a wider perspective. When we put things into perspective, preludes to larger events become visible, giving insight and moving us to prepare for what is to unfold.

  Anxiety stems from limited knowledge and information. As the saying goes, knowledge is power. Those who are well-informed can minimize making mistakes and anticipate further. One must work hard to gain knowledge and improve skills. Stay excited about learning and open to different areas. Being well-informed is the best strategy to anticipate the variables that can impact one’s life.

  Chapter 6

  Masters’ Ways to Self-Heal

  Replaying the game after winning is a winning habit; reviewing the game after losing it prepares one to win the next game.

  Face Your Mistakes

  The winner of the 2014 Guksu Title Match was going to be decided between Cho Hanseung 9P and Lee Sedol. Hanseung was a gold medalist in the men’s Go team event in the 2010 at the 16th Guangzhou Asian Games. Sedol lost the first two rounds to Hanseung. But I was very impressed by Sedol during the game review.

  A game review literally means the player ‘replays’ the game. In professional Go, however, it is rare to go through every single move. It is even more so in longer games because both the winner and the loser are too exhausted to replay the game after being engaged in a 2-3 hour nerve-braking brain battle. Game reviews become a huge burden. Instead of a game review, the players usually give a brief overview about what went well for the winner, what the loser missed, and the move that decided the outcome of the game.

  Hanseung and Sedol’s game review, however, did not turn out to be business as usual at all. Sedol poured questions at Hanseung as he kept picking up the stones and placing them around the grids. The seasoned timekeeper, who was quick to foresee that the session was going to stretch over his duty hours, happily left giving them all the time they needed. It took Sedol and Hanseung another hour and a half after the timekeeper left to go over their game. Not only that, the review evolved into a full-scale discussion as others joined in to give their analysis of the game. The review paid off when a few days later, Sedol won the third round after blitzing Hanseung. Although Hanseung won the championship in the end, the way Sedol got right on to face the causes of his defeat in the second round and quickly applying the lessons to outscore Hanseung in the following round ought to be highly commended and applauded.

  At the 3rd Tongyang Securities Cup held in 1991, Rin Kaiho 9P lost to Changho when the game took a dramatic turn to Changho’s favor despite Rin Kaiho’s predominance throughout the match. But Rin Kaiho was a true Go master both in terms of skills and character. Rin Kaiho did not reveal a single tinge of resentment against his 17-year old opponent who took away the world champion title before his very eyes. Instead, he sat down with Changho and took the time to review the game. Ever since that day, Rin Kaiho became Changho’s most admired person.

  Game reviews may come across as extraordinary or even sentimental to those outside the Go community. How is it even possible to have the winner and the loser sit face-to-face to go over a game they had just finished pla
ying? It seems like the dignified way of closing the match. For the Go players, it is both professional courtesy to agree to a game review as well as the most efficient way to learn why the game was lost or won.

  Anyone who loses must find out the reason of defeat one way or another. The easiest way would be to ask the opponent sitting across the board than trying to figure it out alone at home. Having said that, reviewing immediately after a game may not be easy at all when the game itself is arduous most of the time. It becomes harder to endure, particularly, when one has been defeated. One feels torn apart as one tries to process powerful emotions such as anger and disappointment. Imagine having to repress one’s emotions and sit through an entire review. It is painful indeed as if someone is rubbing salt on one’s wound. The loser of the game may appear calm but inside one is suffering.

  A professional player who has just been defeated experiences mental chaos despite appearing confident and composed. At the 2001 LG Cup World Baduk Championship, Sedol finished second place after losing to Changho three rounds in a row in the final match. He had, in fact, won the first two. The 17-year-old Sedol showed incredible self-control during the game review, but he was said to have cried buckets for a long time when he got home. From time to time, we come across players who decline game reviews and are in such a rush to get home. The audience may think they lack professional courtesy. But, in reality, they may be rushing to a washroom because they cannot hold back their tears.