Ask me what I know about weiqi and I’ll tell you all I know is that it’s a board game that uses black and white pieces. And that it’s a killer mind game. So when my friend came to me and asked me to play for the hall, I honestly have no idea why I agreed.
Perhaps if it was chinese chess or english chess, I might have stood a better chance. But this is weiqi, a game where your choices are close to unlimited. Besides the fact that I had zero training in my life. I certainly liked my odds better in my studies, which is already at the lowest possible state. So I had a crash course in the rules a day before the competition. taught by my friend. We started out fine, till enough people came along and then we got distracted and started playing bridge. Following which, more people came along and we played this game which I forgot the name but sounds like spy.
The first day of the games, I woke up groggy and lost. Realizing that I had almost no preparation, I made my way to the competition venue and awaited a certain sealed fate. For the first 2 rounds of the day, I was made the umpire and hence avoided an early death. Funny thing about umpiring, the umpires often have no knowledge of the game that is being played. So in that hall, probably 75% of the umpires are engrossed in their phone games rather than paying attention to the progress of the match.
For me, I attempted to use the time and “borrow” some tactics. Unfortunately, the matches I umpired were between such pros that they played much faster than I could follow. Seeing the speed where they played and ended their turn, I strongly suspect that they were already 10 steps ahead in their head. For my second match, one of the players was in fact the chief umpire, so he had to go off multiple times halfway through the match to settle any disputes. Imagine that. Umpiring for the chief umpire. Poetic.
Finally, the team decided it was my turn to enter the battlefield. Partially because I had not played a single match and also the fact that we were up against one of the stronger halls and we were going to lose anyway. So pretty much we had nothing to lose. The team planned for me to take on the opponent’s captain, kind of like sending a boy armed with a stick to battle a general with an ak47.
I started the match by announcing that I was in fact the substitute player and told him success was in his hands. He did not reply, making me wonder if he believed me or suspected that I was in fact an expert and my statement was meant to throw him off guard. Well, that makes no difference as I was playing black and black has the first move. Throughout the game, I honestly have no idea what I was doing. I merely followed 2 principles I thought was workable. First, to conquer more general territory at the beginning and strengthening them given the opportunity. Next, block all incoming attacks.
My opponent attacks aggressively, so I was forced to play defence except for a few moments where I did not defend and instead attacked him, leaving him utterly confused. He probably knew halfway through the game that I was in fact a newbie and thus did not go full out to end me. For a period of time, I played speed with him and each move lasted barely a second. Afterwards, I was defending all the way, thus the result above.
Truth be told, this was my first ever complete game of weiqi in my life, hence I totally had no idea how the game was going to end. When I laid a black piece to complete my wall, he simply shrugged and said that’s it. Looking at the board, I thought I was going to win, since it looks like I had a larger territory. Hence I was elated when the chief umpire announced that black won. That was when I saw the doubt flash across his face. Just a brief moment. “Are you sure? Count again”. My opponent demanded that in such a bold burst that I knew he was certain victory was his. And like he expected, the victor was announced to be him after the recount. Turns out the chief umpire miscounted one tile and I had lost by 0.5 points. Later on, my teammates explained to me that as black moves first, white is given extra points at the end and that was what made me lose the game.
Deep down, I was pretty sure that he gave me plenty of chances because of my inexperience. Otherwise the game would have ended long ago and I would not have conquered as large a territory as I had. Throughout the entire game, he only ate 2 of my pieces that I failed to notice were threatened. Imagine my surprise when later on I found out that he had decided to cap me. To explain the cap system would be to say limiting a strong player that you think will be a threat to you. A team only has a maximum number of cap points, so if the team has too many players with cap points, they had to choose who to send for the next match.
All I can say is he wasted his cap point, as I was obviously no threat to anyone decent. Perhaps it was beginner’s luck or simply the fact that being inexperienced means I do not follow the conventional tactics and hence making me unpredictable and dangerous. Anyway, it makes little difference as I probably will not be representing my hall next year again.