An amusing take on dads joining the school egg and spoon race. Yoda Norimoto's son Taro was due to play in a pair-go event at the Nihon Ki-in but developed a fever. So dad stepped in - a pro in an amateur event - presumably to avoid leaving the little girl of the team partnerless.

The pro-am team didn't win their class, though. I didn't see the full results, but maybe there'd been too many losses in previous games. Maybe Yoda eased up, or maybe one good move in four makes no difference at a certain level.

But far from resenting an "illegal" entry, the amateurs were reportedly overjoyed.

BTW Yoda seems to have lost a lot of weight since I last met him.

This reminds me of a story I heard about Guo Juan at an AGA conference. Supposedly, they were one short for a pair-go game, so Guo Juan stepped in to help. She looked at her opponents and her partner and decided there was a 12 kyu gap in their strengths. She went on to play the match as a 12 kyu complete with silly DDK mistakes like empty triangles and pushing groups from behind. It turned into a close match and I believe Guo Juan's team lost by just a few points. Truly the ways of pros are mysterious.