On the 11th and 12th of May the first Baduk conference
was held. This event, organized by the Baduk department
of the Myong-Ji university in Yong-In, Korea will be a
yearly one. Below my impressions of the event and my
experiences with the Baduk culture in Korea in general
which I collected during my stay in Korea.
Prologue
In December the Dutch Go Association approaches me with
the question whether I would be interested to attend
a conference on Baduk in Seoul. They suggest I could
talk about my website for example. Of course, I am
very enthusiastic about the idea to participate the
conference and the same week I write an abstract for the
presentation which contains a global description of the
plans for my website which I had been carrying around
for a while. I keep things vague on purpose so I will be
able to change the focus in the months before the actual
conference.
In February I receive the invitation from the conference
committee in Korea and a hectic time starts to get the
article finished in time. I want to use this unique
opportunity to talk about GoBase as well, a go database
program designed and developed by me and Geert-Jan
van Opdorp. Consequently, the article will cover two
subjects: GoBase and the website new style.
The first version of the article is rejected: too long,
but after some evenings of hard work and creative
rewriting I can reduce the article by some 20 pages
and this new version is accepted (see below for the
electronic version).
Meet and Beat
The 10th of May I arrive in Korea and am welcomed at
the airport by the "Meet and Greet" team, a group of
students who will take care of us during the days to
come. I will soon start to call them the "Meet and
Beat" team since besides good care they also provide
Baduk lessons on the board with one-sided results.
Most students are strong Baduk players (4-6 dan) which
was the case for most Koreans I have played. All very
strong: good reading abilities combined with a polished
sense for shape and direction of play.
The topics
The conference itself was interesting in the sense
that a wide variety of subjects were discussed. From
artificial intelligence to the effects which playing
Baduk has on the human brain. From teaching Baduk to
children and grown-ups. From middle game strategies to
rational methods to play the endgame. From the history
of Baduk to the ways to popularize the game. And from
the rules of Baduk to the ways to use modern facilities
such as computers to enlighten insights in the game.
The presentations
The presentations themselves were more or less interesting,
mostly depending on the time the participants had invested
beforehand. While some participants were still cutting
and gluing on the very day of the presentation, others
were fully prepared with laptops, presentation software and
slide shows. In general, most participants seemed to feel
that the allotted time for the actual presentation
(between 20 and 30 min) was a little short.
Media coverage
The attention of the media was enormous. Baduk
journalists, television teams and an American
documentary team are present. Myself, I was interviewed
three times in total. Twice by the Americans and once
by Kwang-Gu Lee from the Chosun Daily newspaper. I have
given my presentation twice during my stay in Korea.
Once was a private presentation for the internet branch
of the Korean Baduk Association. My personal wish to
establish contacts for future corporation with Korean
organizations were thus realized and I feel that some of
the meetings I had might have follow-ups in the future.
The Korean Baduk culture
During my stay in Korea I got a good impression of the
Korean Baduk culture. There is the Baduk faculty at
the university (more about that later on), there are
over 1000 Baduk schools with a wide range in strength
and ambition, there are a countless number of Baduk
clubs and there is a 24-hour Baduk TV channel to quench
the thirst of the estimated 12.5 million Baduk players
(about 60 million inhabitants in Korea). This undoubtedly
makes Baduk Korean sport number 1.
The Baduk faculty
Before my visit to Korea I didn't have a clear picture of
what a Baduk faculty comprised but now I do have some
idea of their activities and plans. Globally, you can
achieve three aims with the study: if you're interested
and have the capabilities you can become a professional
Baduk player, you can practise to become a Baduk teacher
or you can focus on becoming a so called media expert
(think of teaching and reporting facilities using all
modern techniques such as the internet). The program
runs since 1997 and lasts four years so coming year
the first graduates will be delivered. It will be
interesting to see where they eventually will end up.
During the studies a continuous program of tsume-go is
covered. A set of about 10.000 problems divided into
various levels is presented over the years.
Koreans strongly believe that good reading skills is
the basis for good Baduk play. They have put me on
problems for endless hours hoping I would get the mood
for solving Baduk problems and maybe also since they
quickly noticed that my game (and likely of most western
players) shows various cracks and holes in this area.
I have to say that spending a while in such a
culture of reading is very inspiring. After some days
I actually couldn't play any automatic moves anymore but
instead tried to read out each and every move before playing.
How to teach Baduk?
During the conference the subject how to teach Baduk
to children was discussed heavily. Soon it became evident
three different type of schools exist:
- Teach the children how to capture a stone and then let them play
capture-go (the one who captures a stone first wins). This method
is popular partly due to the efforts by Yasuda Yasutoshi, 9p from
Japan and is promoted by the EGCC and other European and American
Go teachers.
- Teach the children the principles of Baduk by means of all
kind of games and by using illustrations using computer software.
This is the method promoted by Yang Woo Ga from Taiwan, also
known for his work for the Ing foundation. Each Baduk principle
is introduced using a small story, allegory or explanatory diagram.
- Teach the children by giving them problems of increasing difficulty:
hitting stones, capturing stones in a ladder, in a geta, making groups
alive and dead and so on. This is the Korean method. Reading forms
the basis and other aspects of the game which don't require reading
like building territory and strategic concepts are introduced next.
Baduk an olympic sport?
Another topic which came up various times during the conference
was if, how and when Baduk can become an olympic sport.
The importance of Baduk as an olympic sport was acknowledged by
all. For example, it would help the popularization of Baduk,
especially in the Western world. However, in my opinion there
are quite some problems to solve before this plan can be realized.
- There are a large number of existing organizations (some of which
have a tradition which goes way back) who need to get united into
one international organization which should represent all and at
the same time be able to operate efficiently.
- Baduk lacks any form of doping control. This sounds
silly but will surely be important when Baduk wants to become
an olympic sport.
- Another problem will be the fact that Baduk
is hardly known to the members of the olympic committee.
- Finally, which rules will be used once Baduk will be an olympic
sport? The Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Ing, Australian or maybe
the American rules?
But in general the attendants were optimistic about these issues
and it will surely be a key element in the Korean long term
planning and strategies.
Friendship matches
During my stay in Korea I participated in a total of four
(what was misleadingly called) "friendship" matches.
The results varied from 0-18 against a team of youngsters
in a Baduk school to 10-10 against a random selection
taken from the visitors of the largest Baduk club in Seoul
(three halls with a total capacity of 1700 seats).
The other two matches were against the female and male
students of the Baduk faculty. In total this provided
the visitors with another 7 wins against 31 losses.
Teaching games
Of course, there were lots of opportunities to play
professionals as well.
Myself I played a simultaneous game against
Yang
Keon, 5p during our visit of the
Hankuk Baduk Association. Although I got an enormous
handicap (6 stones) still I am very proud of this game
considering the very praising comments I received from
the professional after the game.
The other game against a professional was with
Kim
Sung-Rae, 2p. The invitation for the game was more or
less as follows: "we are nicely settled now drinking
soju (Korean wodka) and all, so this is a good moment
to play a teaching game. And in case you play bad
moves you should consider to drink more soju."
That game had a predictable result.
The same Kim gave all participants a personally signed
book containing problems taken from practical situations,
very useful.
Epilogue
The days were long, starting from 07:00 (and sometimes
even 06:00) till 22:00 in the evening, and exhausting
but the amount of impressions we got from Korea and
especially the Korean Baduk culture are unique in my
opinion. They let us see behind the scenes up to the
studios of the Baduk television station. We could watch
the professionals play their BC Card Cup games and
we could hang over the boards of insei playing their
nerve-wrecking qualification games. An incredible
hospitality and an enormous eagerness to give the
Western go players a good impression of Baduk in Korea
was the common denominator during the whole visit with
our friends in Korea. | 
Playing: In Between Rule Systems and Freedom,
Rating the proficiency of Baduk/Go players,
Amateurs' Scientific Contributions to the Future of Go,
Baduk and Human Life,
Some Problems of English Translation of Baduk Terms,
A World-wide Go Game Repository,