Go is like life

Posted by

Diesen Artikel auf Deutsch lesen: https://www.go361.eu/2019/de-frankfurt-cwl-staffel-go

Relay-Go in Germany

Twelve Go players from China and France met in Frankfurt am Main and contested a Go team competition in a single game on a board.

The game is called Weiqi, as the Go game is called in his native China. But it’s a little different. The competition in Frankfurt is part of the Chinese “City Weiqi League” (short: CWL).

Just like a relay race, players step on the same board and play up to 60 stones of the game. The rest of the team is on another board and analyzes the ongoing game with their coach. It is possible for each team to apply for a break (á 3 minutes and max 3 times per team). The team captain can exchange a player already before the 60 stones. Overall, up to five players per team play this game.

The game mode is called in Chinese 接力赛 (Jiēlì sài = relay race), the organizer of the CWL calls it in English “Relay Game” and the author uses in German – based on the Chinese name – the term “Staffel-Go”.

The CWL is a commercial go-league in China that has involved some teams from other countries, such as Osaka in Japan or Paris in France.

The goals of the CWL organizer are high-level go-games, the expansion of Go’s reputation and an ecosystem for Go events with good networking in the industry. In the future, 100 cities will participate in the city league and generate a turnover of 100 billion yuan (over 12 billion €).

The league is in coordination with the Chinese Go Association (中国 围棋 协会 Zhōngguó Wéiqí Xiéhuì), but is independent of this.

On August 3, 2019, the teams “Paris Global Top Healthcare” from France and “Zhengzhou Hpson” from the capital of the central Chinese province of Henan met in Frankfurt am Main. For this purpose, a program with a short presentation of both teams and the planned program was published.

For Paris played on the day

  • Shutai Zhang (7d ♂)
  • Xing Liu (7p ♂)
  • Yutian Niu (7p ♂)
  • Cheng Teng (2p ♂)
  • Qi-David Wu (5d ♂)
  • Camille Lévêque (2d ♀)

and for Zhengzhou arrived

  • Yuzheng Guo (5p ♂)
  • Qi Xiao (1p ♂)
  • Haowei Zhang (1p ♂)
  • Wenkai Yang (1p ♂)
  • Qianyu Wang (1p ♀)
  • Jiayin Bao (6d ♀).

Each team plays on a separate laptop for the input and timing. Via the Internet, the referee on site as well as the teams can follow the game directly on Internet-enabled devices. After a thrilling two hours, Paris was the winner.

The game was connected with a trip, so visited the teams the day before Luxembourg and visited the local Go club. And even after the game you did not diverge directly, but played with the spectators from Frankfurt, Darmstadt and Karlsruhe nor “normal” Go or single-color Go. Two professionals from Zhengzhou had fun on the 4×19 board, which was available for the teams and spectators in addition to a round-go board and beautiful 19×19 boards. The event itself took place in a Chinese restaurant and Co-Organizer “Badischer Go-Verein” provided a big demo board and high quality playing material for all. The day ended with a shared Chinese noodle meal and German beer for both teams and the spectators.

The game can be seen here: http://qpzb.cwlchina.com/wechat/lishi_detail.aspx?gameid=8890

Info box

The teams in the league must meet certain conditions

  • At least one amateur player has to play
  • at least one woman has to play
  • At least one player from the eponymous city has to play along.

In the group stage, Chinese top-70 pros and pros born after 31 December 1984 are not allowed to participate, and this restriction will be dropped for the elimination stage.

More about CWL at cwlchina.com in English