Stars invade Seattle for Go board-game championship

By Marc Ramirez
Seattle Times staff reporter

	ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Yuya Okazaki, a writer with The Yomiuri Shimbun, rests in the media room as the two-day Go championship takes place next door in Seattle's Fairmont Olympic Hotel. Unknown to many Americans, Go is lucrative to its star players. The champion will get $400,000.
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The world's highest-paying Go title match kicked off yesterday not in a Tokyo exhibition center but on the 11th floor of Seattle's Fairmont Olympic Hotel. There, in secluded concentration, reigning champ Keigo Yamashita dueled challenger Naoki Hane for the 28th Kisei-sen title and a $400,000 prize. (The loser gets about $200,000.)

"Look at them," said Ken Ohba, the event's travel coordinator, watching the action alongside a handful of Japanese journalists on a TV monitor in a nearby hotel suite. On the screen, the competitors seemed still as desert lizards on an August afternoon. "They're thinking, thinking, thinking."

Players take turns placing their stones on open intersections of the board. Stones, or groups of same-color stones, are eliminated from the game when stones of the opposite color occupy the surrounding intersections. The game is over when both players elect to pass, convinced that stones placed on any remaining open intersections are likely to be captured.

Why would the world's most accomplished Go players travel 17 hours to face off in a country whose residents are largely unaware of the game? "It's to let people know what Go is," said tournament director Kazunori Fukuya, a senior editor at Yomiuri Shimbun, the Japanese newspaper sponsoring the event. Each year, the best-of-seven tournament's first match is played abroad — last year's was in London — to help promote the game.

	ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Photographer Toshiyuki Kon works on his laptop while the Go championship game is broadcast on closed-circuit television. The championship, featuring Keigo Yamashita, left, and Naoki Hane, is taking place in seclusion on the 11th floor of Seattle's Fairmont Olympic Hotel.

"What people need to understand is that Go has a long and continuing tradition," said Seattle enthusiast Scott Arnold. "It's not this brand-new thing."

Invented in China, Go eventually made its way through Asia, not reaching the U.S. mainstream until the last century. Per capita, it is most popular in Korea; China rules the roost in sheer numbers.

But nowhere is it more prestigious than in Japan, where top players enjoy celebrity status and six-figure incomes. Yamashita's strategically strewn stones earned him about $750,000 in 2003 alone, Ohba says.

Seattle is home to one of four international Go centers founded by late Japanese Go champion Kaoru Iwamoto, and the president of the American Go Association (AGA) is Seattle's Chris Kirchner.

The match also coincides with another major Go event — the second North American Toyota/Denso Oza championship. About 300 players will compete this weekend for $10,000 in Seattle and New York City, with each site's winner representing the U.S. in Japan's World Oza Cup.

After a brief, ceremonial photo shoot of the game's first move yesterday, spectators were booted from the room. Except for a one-hour lunch, the players took no breaks; it was a 9-to-5 affair. The game will resume today.

A few miles north, in the University District, dozens of Go enthusiasts crowded like Scrabble tiles into the Seattle Go Center to watch the simulcast and hear commentary by Go professionals.

"For the local Go community, this is a huge deal," Arnold said. "I know a lot of people who've taken the week off."

Marc Ramirez: 206-464-8102 or mramirez@seattletimes.com

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