Lee ChangHo Born 1975-07-29 Rank 9p Stored games 2520 Using this name 1934  biography...  title matches...  game collection...

Cho Sonjin Born 1970-04-18 Rank 9p Stored games 895 Using this name 895  biography...  title matches...  game collection...

	1	2	3	T
Lee Changho				3
Cho Sonjin	R	R	4.5	0

 their earlier games...   all their games...

Excerpts from an interview with Lee Changho

(...)

Question: Last year, Go Seigen made a comment on you. Go said you "studies a lot and hard, but in terms of talent doesn't look as good as Cho Hunhyun, your teacher." What do you think about this?
Answer: I agree. There are many inspiring moments in Seonsangnim's (Sensei, Teacher) or ChangHyuk's Baduk. My Baduk is not much so. I wish I could play a good game beyond winning and losing, but it has been hard for me. ChangHyuk, even when he is quiite behind in territory, has the ability of turning around the tide of game by attacking opponent's weak groups. He really is superior in that. But I get easily nervous when I am behind in territory. I am more of a pessimist and optimist.

(...)

Question: Could you give your amateur fans some advice how to improve their Go skills quickly?
Answer: Well, the most important thing is the Love of Go. (silence for a while) Ability of reading moves is the most fundamental in Baduk. So the shortest way of improving Go skills is to improve your ability of reading moves. For that, I would recommend to study many tesuji problems. Good Shaping and Moving are possible when you have the ability of reading moves. Baduk with weak reading is like builing a house on sand.

Question: How many moves ahead you read before you play a move?
Answer: Usually professional players, including me, read around 100 moves ahead. But that's not the case for every move. First select 10 candidate moves and then read ahead for each of them. After reading ahead 20 to 30 moves for a candidate move, one could reach a tentative conclusion like "this is a bad shape" or simply "this is not it." At that point, I stop any further reading for that candidate move and look for another. This is a process of elimination that ususally leaves one or two candidate moves. For each of these final candidate moves, I read ahead about 100 moves. This might surprise amateur players, but the more difficult thing is not reading ahead 100 moves, but deciding which of the final cadidate moves gives a better result. .... The most painful moment is when I realize that I am on the wrong way a few move after my original decision. That gives me an agony beyond description. People call me "Stone Buddha" for my lack of facial expression during games. But you will notice some changes in my face when I am in a bad situation. You have to look at my face carefully...

Originally appeared in Baduk Monthly, January 2000
Retrieved and translated by Ahn Toh-Kyeong from http://www.leechangho.com

This interview was done on December 8th 1999, one day after game 3 of the Samsung Cup finals.