“If you play too fast in the early to midgame, you might make a frivolous move, and if you play too cautiously, you might run out of time in the late game and make a big mistake.”
The 9th Ng Si-Bae World Professional Go Championship, in which South Korea’s No. 1-ranked Shin Shin-seo (23) 9-dan is battling China’s Shekou (23) 9-dan for the title, is governed by a rule known as the “fullness method”.
Invented by the tournament’s founder, the late Ying Chang-Chi, it is a Chinese method of counting stones (dots) to determine the outcome of a game, as opposed to the Korean and Japanese methods of counting houses.
Black’s bonus is 8 points (7 jiban), which is more than the Korean version (6 jiban) and the same as the Chinese version.
The most unique rule is the 3-hour time limit for each game and no second reads.
Most world championships offer five one-minute (or 40-second) second readings in a two- to three-hour time limit.
A second reading is when a stone is placed in the first minute and another minute is left, so you can continue playing without a time limit.
However, this is not the case in Ngoc Bae, which does not have a first read rule.
If you don’t finish the game in three hours, you will be given an extra 20 minutes and two points will be deducted as a penalty.
If the game is not finished after the additional 20 minutes, another 20 minutes are given and the penalty is increased by two points.
However, if you don’t finish in the second 20 minutes, you lose time.
This can be frustrating for a knight who is running out of time late in the game.
Shin Shin-seo pulled off a dramatic upset against China’s Zhao Tianyu 9th dan in the first game of the best-of-three semifinals in January 2021.
In that game, Shin was at a disadvantage until the very end, when Zhao Tianyu was penalized for an extra 20 minutes in the endgame, and then ran out of time.
“It’s clear that Shin Shin-seo has the edge in objective skill in this Ng Si-bae final, but due to the unique rules, it’s very important to play well against the clock,” said Park Jung-sang, 9-dan, head coach of the KB Go League’s Korean Price Information Team and a Go TV commentator.
“With no second reading, if you play too fast in the early and middle moves, you may make a frivolous move, and if you play too cautiously, you are bound to run out of time in the later moves,” Park explained.
He also said, “It is not an exaggeration to say that Shin Shin-seo has not played well at the World Championships recently, but he is overwhelmingly strong in terms of skill.” “If he can overcome the pressure and calmly show his skill, he will have good results.”
Shin Shin-seo and Shaker will compete in the first leg of the third round of the 9th Ng Sibae Finals in Shanghai, China on April 21.
Game 2 will be held on the 23rd after a one-day break, and the final game will be played on the 24th in the event of a 1-1 tie.먹튀검증
The prize for winning the tournament is $400,000 (approximately $537,000), the highest in the world, and the runner-up prize is $100,000 (approximately $134,000).