I wonder whether we are seeing the birth of a new trend. Just recently we had the SuperMeijin in China with just three players (China, Japan, Korea).

A somewhat similar event has just been announced, the 1st Wuxing International Championship, which (in November) will have four players. The two from China will be Kong Jie as the leader in the rankings plus the winner of the Weifu Cup. The significance of the latter is that this event is sponsored by a Wuxing real estate company - Wuxing is an industrial town in northern China.

The Korean representative will be Ch'oe Choel-han and the Japanese Yamashita Keigo. The winner will take home 200,000 yuan and the bottom two will still get a tasty 50,000 yuan.

The time limits are one hour each.

So we can see here an ideal situation from the sponsor's point of view. They just have to pay three or four players instead of a couple of hundred, the adminsitration becomes trivial (two days in a hotel that does all the work), and at a couple of hours each the games become very televisable, even live. And of course they've got the world's top players (more or less). In the case of this event, you can even double the chances of a home victory.

Perfect for them, but what about the mass of go professionals, who are already facing uncertainty? Wuxing does at least have the Weifu Cup whch caters to the whole pro cadre, but for how long if their new event proves more televisual. Also, this is yet another case of shortening time limits in China from the once usual three hours each. I do hope go is not turning from true love to bang bang, thank you ma'am.

With this development many pros face difficult times. It makes sense from a sponsor's perspective though.

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With almost every news I read I am more certain that Japan is the greatest plce to be pro in.

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You raise interesting questions, John. But it seems like these tournaments have the greatest advantages in the international scene, which should comfort pros a bit.

The prizes for this tournament are actually a little small compared to Korean tournaments, though Chinese tournaments seem a bit smaller. Obviously it's a good deal for the four players.

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Your "more televisual" comment reminded me of a question I've been meaning to ask. I wasn't sure if you or someone else knew the answer. How often is Go shown on TV (In Japan or elsewhere)? And what are the dynamics of the shows? Do they normally show it live, or is there a lot of cutting and only showing a game summary (or at least removing thinking time)? Are they big/medium/small ratings types of shows?

I thought I had read a long time ago about somewhere having a semi-regular Sunday televised tournament with commentary, but I have no idea where I heard that or if my mind is just making stuff up.

The NHK games are broadcast every Sunday, but the games are played earlier, and edited for broadcast.

I think in Korea they have their own Baduk channel. also NHK broadcasts NHK cup weekly (along with its shogi tournament).. I don't know about China and Taiwan.

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I think China has a pay-per view Weiqi channel.

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"Those who calculate greatly will win; those who calculate only a little will lose, but what of those who don't make any calculations at all!? This is why everything must be calculated, in order to foresee victory and defeat."-The Art of War

To me this seems similar to the older style of sponsored events between strong players (Go Seigen's Jubangos, the matches against Shusai, etc), instead of annual sponsored tournaments. Though I guess these events are different in that they involve several players, instead of just 2. I do think you've hit the nail on the head though of the preference to this style format due to smaller sponsor commitment.

I guess it has been said before, implicitly or explicitly, but if this new tournament format becomes popular it will be harder for the lower ranked pros. As it is the lower ranked pros usually get eliminated during the preliminaries anyhow but they at least get the chance to play and sometimes a young star rises out of the preliminaries to enter a league (e.g. Kato Masao and the Honinbo tournament). I think if I were a corporate high mucky muck I'd want to sponsor an open tournament for amateurs and younger or lower ranked pros. That would do more to promote the game than sponsoring three-way or four-way playoffs between the top players, and if would give amateurs something to aim for.

Actually it was very, very different. First of all there was no market for go then. The newspapers were in the act of creating it. Big-name games had a value then that they don't have now. Secondly, there were very few pros. This made it easier to ensure every snout could find a place in the trough. For example, in the 1930s when New Fuseki was at its peak, there were only 40 to 50 players in the Oteai (and no Kansai Ki-in). That small number made knockouts impractical, so league or round-robin or win & continue events where everyone gets a decent number of games were the norm. For example, the very existence of the Oteai meant that every player had a guaranteed income through having a guaranteed 16 or so games a year.

The NHK Igo no Jikan consists of a half-hour lecture/lesson followed by an hour-and-a-half showing of a game from the NHK tournament. The game is shown with real-time commentary by a famous pro. The games are edited to fit the time allotment so if it is a shortish game they show the whole thing and they fast-forward through part of it if it is a long game. No moves are omitted but they are played through quickly by the announcer, with no commentary. This is possible because the games are broadcast some time after they are actually played.

There is a satellite (premium) channel, the Igo-Shogi Channel also.