opening ceremony

The opening ceremony was held this morning (August 23rd). The table was formed by Yang Yuchia (Ing Foundation), Wu Fujiu (main organizer, president of Shenzhen Chess circle), Ke Gangming (Shenzhen sports bureau director), Chen Lifeng (Mrs, vice-president of Shenzhen Chess circle), and Liang Weitang 9p (Chief referee).

A TV camera (I don't know from which TV station) recorded some images. Speeches had been previously written and pretranslated, so that Chinese to English translation could be ensured.

Players and team leaders introduced themselves to the public. Chinese (including all countries/ areas of Chinese influence) and the Thai player talked in Chinese, Koreans in Korean, and Japanese in Japanese, with translation to Chinese. Western players used English.

Followed the tournament draft, using the traditional method of the poker deck.

Then Mr Yang explained the Ing scoring system, comparing it to the Japanese and Chinese and claiming it solved their flaws. He said Ing rules expect not to penalize players by placing extra stones to prove that a group is dead. He said that Chinese mentality can't accept somebody say "this group is dead, because I am stronger and I know".

Since there was enough time, he went on to explaining suicide and special life and death cases, based on the bent 4 in the corner. There was no time to explain the Ing ko.

Chun Poong-Jo 8p, the Korean team leader, who is well known in Europe since he has attended many EGCs, went on to discuss with Mr Yang how Korean rules were slightly different to Japanese.

Mr Yang insisted when comparing rulesets that he absolutely did not want to offend any country nor say a ruleset was better than other. He finished saying that it would make sense to have soon a unified ruleset, and called the different Go Federations to make efforts in that direction. Go is the only sport with different rulesets, a drawback to become Olympic sport.

Somebody asked (in Chinese) that since under Ing rules, players get 2 penalty points for every overtime period they use (and forfeit after the 3rd), if it was considered legal to play useless moves to punish the opponent. Mr Yang said no judge could determine if a move is legal or not.