I’m bored in my hotel room, so I’ll document my experience at the first annual Midwest Open (spoiler alert: I’m having a good time!)
I’ll start by saying that it’s very convenient to have a cool tournament like this so close to home. My venture started on Friday evening after seeing my kids off to bed. Since the tournament is only 2.5 hours from my home, I could enjoy a relaxing dinner with my family before heading out.
The drive went smoothly. I half listened to some go lectures in my car, and tried to stay alert. The roads were nice until just before I arrived at my hotel. I got in around 10pm to the quaint hotel I had booked. The hotel is about 1 mile from the playing venue - walkable. They offer free breakfast and parking, but I was disappointed to find that there was no gym. Oh well.
I unpacked my things, settled into my room, texted my wife, and went to bed.
After waking up, I freshened up and went to the hotel breakfast area. I quickly recognized some go players, including Eric Yoder, an AGA 6d. He’s been part of Inseong’s program, and is an all around nice guy.
I chat with folks a bit, then headed to the playing area. There was an icy rain, so I drove instead of walking.
I arrived at the venue, and checked out the facilities. Overall, quite nice.
Here’s a picture of the main playing area:
And then the review area, mostly for Kim Yoonyoung 8p to review games:
The next thing of notice were the personalized name tags. It was a nice touch:
And oddly, I was given some sort of bag (more on that later):
—-
So that was all cool. What to do next? Well, registration was still going on, so I did my best to chat with folks, and meet new people. So I made rounds visiting various cliques, introduced myself, and chat.
Around 9am, there was an opening ceremony. Devin, the organizer, gave a short speech, and this guy played several musical instruments to get things rolling:
His performance was unique, but I enjoyed it. He did some music with guitar and harmonica as well, along with another piece with a different instrument I don’t recall the name of. I have some videos of the performance if you’re interested.
—-
Anyway, after this, Devin explained some unique aspects of this tournament:
1.) Except for the first pairing, the main section (not masters) is self paired with computer assistance. It means that when you’re done playing, you can utilize their software to find another player to play.
2.) There’s a reason for the bags. Namely, in the evening, there are activities like go trivia, puzzles, and mini games. Doing well on those activities earns you coin tokens. Furthermore, whenever you win a tournament game, you get coin tokens. You can use coin tokens to buy handicap stones in simultaneous games against Kim Yoonyoung 8p. And if you win, you earn - you guessed it - coin tokens.
So what’s the deal with these coin tokens? Well, if your (self-chosen) team has the most coin tokens at the end of the tournament, you win one of these Felix swords:
And of course, there are other prizes and trophies, too, for doing well in your division (there are state championship trophies, too - but not for Michigan, so I cannot win one):
So that was all cool. After some more logistics, the tournament began. Here’s a picture of my first opponent (I asked if he was ok with the picture):
I’ll continue with the game in the next post.
