News About Go

A Chinese player has won an important Go tournament: Chang Hao makes history at Nong Shim Cup www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-22 09:36:00 BEIJING, Feb. 22 -- Chinese go chess player Chang Hao beat South Korean 9-dan Park Yeong-hun on Thursday at the ninth Nong Shim Cup in Shanghai to claim the first trophy for China in the competition's 16 years history. Chang Hao's victory at the 13th round also won him 20 million South Korean won prize money. Chang overcame Takao Shinji 9-dan at the 11th game on Tuesday to knock the Japanese team out of the cup match. He then narrowly defeated the formidable Lee Changho of the South Korean side the next day to cement three consecutive wins. Chang Hao won the 11th Samsung Cup champion by defeating Lee Changho 2:0 in the final in 2007. In 2006, he ended the 1st Kangwon-Land Cup ring contest between China and Korea with four straight wins. The Nong Shim Cup is a gathering of the best go players from South Korea, Japan, and China. The Nong Shim Cup is sponsored by Nong Shim Food Company of South Korea. (Source: CRIENGLISH.com) ******************************************************************************** Congratulations to Chang Hao! It's been a long hard week. I'm tired and obviously missing something here. How can this be the 16th year of this "event" but only the 9th year of the "Cup?" And then there is confusion about the prize money won by Chang Hao. The article reports that he won 20 million "South Korean won prize money" which I take to mean 20 million "won" (South Korean currency). However, a photograph in the article (not included here), shows the winner holding a placard indicating "W 150.000.000", which seems to me to indicate that he won 150,000,000 won (no pun intended). So which is it, 20 million won or 150 million won - a big difference, I'm sure you'll agree. Interesting that this is the first time the Chinese have won this event in its 16 year history, even though the game of Go was invented by the Chinese in - hmmmm, working from memory here, I think it was around 600 BCE and maybe even earlier. The game was later exported to Korea and then to Japan, just like Xiang Qi (Chinese chess) was exported to Korea and Japan. Okay - did a quick off-site search for the value of a Korean won. One won equals 0.001054 US dollars. So, multiplying 150.000.000 won by the conversion rate equals $158,100 (USD). A nice pay day!