On Friday, September 8th, 2006, I met and played a game of go with Satoshi Kataoka.  I won the game and by a comfortable margin (I don't remember exactly but I think it was by over 40 points, a kind of landslide considering our difference in rankings).

Our game took place in between Mr. Kataoka's official commentaries for NHK's national broadcast of the Meijin Tournament's first game between Cho U and Shinji Takao.  Their first game took place just down my street in Nagaoka City, Niigata where I attended the filming of the commentary.  (Shinji Takao won by only about 1 point or so, and they'll continue their match throughout their tour of other Japanese cities.)

These photos aren't so great, but you can get an idea of what it was like to attend such an event and, you know, maybe glean some tips in case you ever get the chance to play a 9d pro yourself.  In all my games with those guys, I have never lost a single one.

I never actually saw the current contenders (Cho U nor Shinji Takao) in person except for the VTR's footage of them playing in a separate room.  We were in a hall on the second floor of a hotel, and they played in a tatami room on the 3rd floor.  This was not much better than watching it at home on TV, if observing their game was your only reason to attend the event.  We could see an overhead view directly above the board, and a front view of the players sitting side-by-side via TVs in our hall.  Their moves were represented on the big magnetic board you see in this picture, where the woman and man (two of the commentators) are standing.

Each player had something like 8 hours to make all of their moves.  And they took most of it.  The game began on Friday morning, paused on Friday evening, resumed on Saturday morning, and finally ended Saturday evening, in time for the Saturday NHK live evening broadcast.  I think the commentators had memorized the game's entire sequence of moves and many tangents.

But who cares about all of that.  I won a game against a 9dan pro!  They should have been filming us!  Well, they weren't, but fortunately I had the camera with me.  It didn't have enough battery life, however, and I really was trying to concentrate on my game so these are the best shots I got right before it died on me.

Here, I intended to get a shot of both Mr. Kataoka and the board- but all I got was his tie.  Trust me, that's him.  I was also wearing a tie and longsleeve shirt.

Ok, let me back up a little, and explain how I got to this point, sitting across a board from the master player.  Since the Meijin game was going to take a good part of the weekend, three of the commentators played against the fans, but in a special set-up: each pro would sit on a swivel chair, surrounded by tables, on which there were 7 go boards.  Sitting across the tables, along the outside edges, were 7 amateurs (7 against each pro).  The pro spins around in the center at his own pace, playing each of us on our boards in turn (there were no hard time restrictions or player clocks).

Oh, I also had a little luck in obtaining a seat at a board at all- there was a draw just before this to get a seat, but getting it was a 2 out of 3 chance or so.  I wound up with board number 1- and of the pro's playing that time, it meant against Mr. Kataoka.  Only he and Ishida Yoshio (pictures of him below) were ever ranked 9dan pro, of all the celebrities there this weekend, that we got to see in person and play.  The others were 4dan pros.  So I had to pull out all the stops.

Here's a good mid-game shot.  See that lone white stone, closest to the bottom of the picture?  I think that was his most recent move when this was taken.  Just before this, I put the black stone you can see two above it, along the same line.  But I was thinking of putting it where he put his white stone- to me this was a good indication that I was actually in the game, and had some clue of what was going on- too early to tell if I had a chance at winning, but definitely in the running for claiming territory we both deemed valuable.

Go is a thinking game like chess, where the goal is to claim the most space on the board, either by surrounding your opponent's stones, or successfully defending against his attempts to invade the territory you stake out.  A game ends when both players agree it should end.  I learned how to play it in 2002, but stopped after about 6 months, until this past May when I took it up again.  You start at a rank of 30 kyu, and go down to 1 kyu, then 1dan, up to 9dan.  (No one's ever been ranked higher than 9 dan.)  Currently my rank is 17kyu.  If I play a 20kyu player, he gets to start with 3 extra stones on the board.  When I get to 16 kyu, that means I lose a stone in my handicap so that, if I were to then play a 20kyu player, he gets to start with 4 stones on the board.  Having the extra stones can help out a lot in providing your other stones support.

Against Mr. Kataoka, I started with 9 handicap stones (the limit for handicap- you can't start with more than this.  In officially sanctioned/ranked games, the limit is 6 stones).  There were amateurs who started their games with less stones, but few if any actually won against the pros.  On average, maybe one out of seven, I think.

Ok these are slightly better shots of my opponent, taken during his commentary on the official NHK broadcast- they actually contain his face.  These were taken on Saturday, and the board is at the final stage of the game between Cho (white) and Takao(black).

The girl standing there with him also did commentary.  She is ranked 4dan pro and also fought 7 players at once.  One or two of the people I know at my local club tried but did not win their matches with her.

The commentary didn't do a lot for me, personally- that is, I really couldn't understand much of whatever strategy tangents they were talking about, even if my Japanese were good enough to catch everything.  When they switched commentators (from about eight? or so... two at a time like shown), sometimes they'd go over the same sequences and threads of possible moves... so much speculation, but at times made some things clear to the mortals watching.

On Saturday, I sat in the back with some people I knew from the local club I play at.  There were also a number of kids (elementary to high school age) that were there on Saturday/Sunday, and in the mornings had their own matches with the pros, same set-up as described above.  I saw my neighbor who lives above me with her son on the way out, and found out even he plays go.  Not when he's running around stomping all over my ceiling causing a ruckus!  If I ever play that kid, and I probably will, there will be no mercy.

There was another activity during the day, when the sponsor had a contest for the audience.  They turned off the VTR displays of the pro game, and had us write down our guess of the next move on pieces of paper.  They collected the papers, and when the move was made, people who guessed correctly got some kind of prize.

I didn't guess correctly, but my guess was one up and one to the right away from the correct one.

This photo was taken during Sunday.  This is one of the best players of the game, Mr. Ishida Yoshio.  His nickname was "the computer" during his heyday because he could count quickly and accurately.  While I think I have a decent vision of the board at times, counting large areas of the board's points and scoring at the end is not something I can do so fast (also I got used to my own (actual) computer doing the scoring for me, automatically, when I play on the Internet).  All the pros could score up games quickly.

Mr. Ishida also visited my local club a few months ago, to give a lecture and play a gang of amateurs.  At the time I didn't know who he was or anything about him, and was just disappointed I couldn't find a game because everyone was focused on watching his games with the local kids.  I came that day looking for some comp, and didn't find much at all.  I wasn't able to grasp much from his lecture either, so it was kind of disappointing, really.  This time, it was much more rewarding.

On Sunday, I had another chance to play Mr. Kataoka, actually, having won another drawing at a seat.

Since I had already won my gold medal- I mean, had a chance to play the pro- on Friday, I decided it would be a nice thing to offer my seat to someone who entered the drawing of luck, but didn't get his own chance to play the man himself, you know, mano-a-mano.  (or, at least, mano-a-mano-seven-at-a-timeo.)

Of course, this would also guarantee an extension of my bragging rights straight through the rest of the weekend.  100% victory record history against the 9dan pro, baby.  Never lost to any 9dan pro in all my games, how many people can say that.

This is Mr. Ogata, our local club's president, standing next to Mr. Ishida.  He is 7dan.  Also, standing behind them and leaning over a bit was another organizer who tried offering me advice during my game with Mr. Kataoka, and we exchanged business cards after the match.  If I ever need life insurance, he's the man, I guess.  I was the only foreigner, so I'm sure I stood out most of the time (not to mention, a person not over 50 or a kid under highschool age).

This shot was taken during the drawing, when I stood in line to take an envelope.  Inside the envelope was a piece of paper with a number on it, and if the number was 14 or less, then you got a seat at a table with one of the 2 pros that day.

Here's how I prepared for the game:

The week leading up to it, I played about as many games as normally with people by Internet.  The night before, I concentrated on a mantra of "what does that accomplish?" (to make sure I asked myself that whenever I moved while playing).  I wanted to make sure I got as much sente, or tempo/initiative as I possibly could get out of my moves.  In addition, my strategy also involved playing loosely (not too cramped up in thick bunches), and making sure not to play too close- not wanting to invoke any wrath by engaging him for no good reason.  Other than that, play a traditional strategy of securing as much of the corners, and sides as I could and worrying about the center of the board for last.

It managed to work out great.  I wound up giving up a good portion of the top side edge of the board, but wound up with all the territory I had fought for except for a reasonably small invasion of one of my corners.  I kept one corner, and most of two others.

The big win happened near the center, though.  I defined a territory that wound up sweeping right across most of it.  There was one critical point- I know how critical it was now, because if I hadn't been aggressive enough, he would have compromised my defense of the center, and if I hadn't been connected enough he would have broken through it with a decent capture or two.  It just got steadily less and less desireable for him to play inside that big area.  Soon, all that was left was to connect up and close up the borders.  Even by that point, though, I knew he could go for some trickery and probably succeed to obtain a win due to his expertise alone.  He has probably forgotten more about this game than I will ever learn.

I really don't recall exactly how much I won by, but I'm pretty sure it's safe to say it was by a landslide, considering everything.  As soon as I did win after it was all counted up, I reached up my hands in victory, then graciously thanked him for the game.  He spent two or three minutes after, explaining a couple things I missed (one was trickery!)

The corner he got was something I could have answered back to successfully, he explained later, through one of several possible plays at a certain critical point (how early or where I didn't know while playing).  While playing, I knew enough just to be thankful he didn't kill one of my groups, and to keep him contained to that corner- good enough for me!

To explain a bit more about the pros' skill displayed during these one-on-seven matches, they are sitting on this chair in the middle, rotating around to each player.  That means that you get to concentrate and think about your game the whole time, while he has about 1/7th the time.  What really impressed me, though, was how he could turn back to my board, and quickly see where I had moved.  At first I was indicating where I'd gone, and he's nodding his head like hm-mm, yup, then after a few moves I notice he sees it pretty quickly- so I think he really was thinking about my board while juggling all the other boards' positions in his head as well.  Technically, that's knowing critical locations of 361 possible locations, times 7.

I knew I didn't have to tell him where I'd gone each time- and I didn't make it a big spectacle or anything, it was just my way of being cordial and a good sport- so I wouldn't win on account of him having to catch up each move I made.

From my side, there was pressure as well, you understand.  Here is a chance I may never get again in my life, to sit down with a pro, someone who's been there and back to tell about it, and to see how well I can do- quick! concentrate!!  and stay focused!  You don't really go into these situations expecting to win, really, you just hope to do your best and see how much you can survive, or how much of the board you can keep against a master.

After our match, I got him to sign my program of the event.  Most people bring folding fans and have their favorite pro sign the fan itself.

The guy in red shirt, scratching his head here, is my rival from above.  He lost his second game.  I think that guy in the middle with his hand digging into a bowl of stones won, and all other 6 players lost to Mr. Ishida.

Ok, now on to better pictures.  This one and the rest below were from a friend's camera.

These were all taken on Sunday, just before they left the venue for the train station to take a shinkansen back to Tokyo.