Original subtitles

[soft instrumental music]

[speaking in foreign language] If you look at the core

of this tree,

there are many lines emanating.

You can only get it from a large tree.

Each ring represents one year.

From here to there, that's one hundred years.

Do you see how slowly this tree grew?

Yet its life continues.

That's why it is most fitting

for a Go board to be made from trees.

The board is a window to the human mind.

Whether we want to or not

it draws a picture of our thoughts

and reveals what is inside us

[dance music plays]

[Computer] Nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two, one.

The game has started.

The key is not to lose a game

or otherwise the top pros probably won't play you.

[Friend] I don't care about that.

Who wants to play the top pros?

Who wants to get their asses kicked?

Me.

So Andy decided he was going to be insane,

more so than usual.

He's going to try to win 40 games in a row

playing against other people online.

He has 21 hours remaining.

No, I need a four.

[dinging]

[Friend] So what number win is that?

It's two.

There are two ways you can get very good at this game.

One, you study very hard and take lots of good lessons,

think hard, study, do your homework.

The other, you play maniacally

for days on end without stopping.

[upbeat instrumental music]

Every time I'd go to the Go club in Flushing

I'd always encounter Andy Liu.

He was about 8 years old

and had become very strong already.

I would say he's a genius.

He might have some mutation.

[woman] I don't know how his social skills are

but on the Go board he's obviously a monster.

He has 18 wins, zero losses,

so he needs to win another 22 more without losing any

to make it on time.

[boy] Andy, he doesn't train.

He just plays 20 games everyday online.

But doing that, he's now the strongest player

in North America I think.

I think he's stronger than me now

because of his weird style.

You have five minutes.

It all comes down to this [laughs].

Yes!

[cheering]

[Friend] There he goes, 60 bucks in the bag.

I didn't think you were gonna make it.

I've never seen anyone play this much in my entire life.

[upbeat instrumental music]

[sirens wailing]

[soft instrumental music]

[Ben] Once you reach a certain level,

if you live in the United States,

you don't have anyone to play in person.

I mean there's a tiny handful of people

who are really serious about it.

And actually if the bar for being serious about it

means going to Asia and training,

then maybe I'm the only one.

If you win a game you feel great,

you think about staying in Korea, you know how great it

is,

and when you lose you think about you know,

going back to the US, going back home [laughs],

giving it all up, it's just highs, lows.

All day, everyday for years.

I've had these times where it's like,

I'm living my life with these tiny Asian boys and girls

and I'm just like [blubbering] where am I?

I have no choice, given the things I care about,

and given the speed at which I want to improve.

Yeah, I don't have much of a choice.

[soft instrumental music]

[sirens wailing]

[humming]

Where did my wife put the filters?

So we got the coffees here, cake if anybody wants it.

Alright.

In 1975, walking down 57th Street,

I go by a little game store and I noticed

that there are two guys playing Go.

I walk in, I say, hi, you're playing Go.

And they said, "You know that this is Go?"

And I said, yeah sure.

The rules of Go are very simple.

It's played on a grid of lines.

Two players take turns putting stones on the intersections.

Once stones are played on the board they don't move.

But stones can be captured and removed

if all the empty intersections around them

are occupied by their opponent.

[soft instrumental music]

The goal of the game is to surround territory

with your stones.

At the end of the game, whoever controls

more of the board wins.

When you are playing Go, you're often kind of

zoomed in to one corner of the board

and you're thinking about what's gonna happen

locally as a result of making this move.

So I'm gonna go here and black's gonna go here

and then white goes here and black goes there.

Oh I see, what if I go here and there and blah, blah, blah.

So you're really zoomed in and you're focused.

But the thing about Go is that

that's happening all over the board at the same time right.

Those little situations are emerging here and here

and here and each one of them is its own tactical puzzle.

But they're all subtly connected

because the outcome of this tactical situation

is going to exert an influence on this one.

You have these rules and they're simple and in a way,

obvious, and yet they lead to this rich,

ambiguous, complicated, subtle, hard to predict,

and hard to understand set of possibilities.

Go is so complex and so open-ended

that it requires the intuitive and the aesthetic

part of the brain as much as the analytical part

so it rewards creativity and analysis simultaneously.

And it's never boring, every game is different.

Go is by far the toughest strategy game for computers.

In chess there's about 35 legal moves

on the board at any one time.

[man] In Go there's over 200 and so if you want the program

to look four moves ahead, it has to look at 35

and then 35 for each of those,

and 35 for each of those in chess.

In Go it's 200 times 200 times 200 times 200.

There is no brute force search for Go

and there never will be.

The only way to simplify that, to be able to manage it,

is to have a feeling for the game

and that's the right brain side of the game.

Where you go, hmm, I don't know but this feels right.

Go is a game that really fits the human mind very well,

it fits with who we are, it fits with our ability

to take a lot of disparate information

and make patterns out of it.

[soft instrumental music]

[man speaking in foreign language] To become a

professional Go player

you must walk a very arduous path.

You have to give up regular school

leave home when you're about ten years old

and train every day from 8 AM to 10 PM.

They start at the age of five or six.

And then become pro like 13, 14.

From our experience, the younger the better.

[speaking in foreign language] As you can see these tables are

arranged

so you are by yourself.

I only could go back to my hometown

like once a year or twice a year.

And I remember like when I, every time when my parents

called me I cried and I said oh I miss you

and I want to go back and my Dad always said,

"If you want to fulfill your dream you have to stay there,

"you have to study, you have to work harder."

[soft instrumental music]

Most of the people who want to become professionals,

they gave up the education because they don't have

enough time to study both.

Becoming professional is their dream

so they can give up everything.

[soft instrumental music]

[man speaking in foreign language] Only people

who have Go deep in their souls

would walk down this path.

[Terry in English] It's very different when you're trying to

take something

which is not a part of a culture and add it to a

culture.

So here.

These are all the old pictures.

I mean I always liked it and I always played it,

but I couldn't find other people to play with

most of the time, that's just the way it goes.

In the 50s and 60s, I rarely ran into another Go player.

If I met somebody who was Asian I asked

and usually they didn't play either.

There was a time when I think the AGA membership

was in significant danger of just going out of existence.

Terry Benson took over and he served

as President for 10 years.

My belief is that he probably saved the AGA.

The AGA had fallen to 200 members

and nobody was doing anything

and there were checks left in the drawer,

so they immediately drew me into the circle,

I started playing tournament Go and within eight months

I was editing the American Go Journal.

We were sittin' around just talkin' saying,

"We oughta have a big tournament,

"invite everybody from the whole country."

♪ I build a big white group with points by the dozen♪

♪ Right in the center of the board ♪

♪ I can move right here ♪

[cheering]

I wanna see Go become a cultural

normal thing in America.

It's gonna take awhile for that to happen in America

but I think that someday if somebody says,

"Oh yeah and I'm a Go player," they won't have to explain.

I've been dreaming and preaching and arguing

for growth and promotion as the number one priority

for the AGA for many years.

We're 75 years old and to have a membership of 2,100

or 2,200 after 75 years, it's breathtakingly sad honestly.

[clacking]

[Announcer] Bags and other large containers

are subject to random search by the police.

[Andy] What does the normal college grad do?

I mean who wants to work in a corporation?

Like everybody follows rules, there's cubicles,

like you have to work in cubicles,

every morning you receive a memo you know,

that kind of environment and I'm a little bit

afraid of that.

I could try to play Go better but that's not meaningful

in the sense that it could be a career or whatever.

It's just not a career path.

This is every pro who became professional

from one of the three schools,

going back to the very first one which is my teacher.

There, you just don't go.

You don't go to A, you don't breathe the rarefied air of A.

But that's all, that's a professional

study group basically

and this door, I don't know what do you think?

Can I open it, can I go in?

I hear people in there.

[door slamming]

[dramatic instrumental music]

[buzzing]

[clinking]

[speaking in foreign language] We've always referred

to China, Korea and Japan

as the Three Kingdoms of Go.

It has been passed down generation after generation

each stronger than the last.

-[soft instrumental music] -[camera shutters clicking]

[speaking in foreign language] There is chess in the West

but Go is incomparably more subtle.

It is the most difficult game

ever devised by human beings.

[speaking Japanese] Passing down the beauty of Go to many people

is a professional's responsibility.

Handing down this beauty

is as important as winning prize money.

[speaks Japanese] The level of the whole Go world...

...improving the global level of Go is what's most important.

That is the direction everyone

especially professionals

should move towards.

[in English] At the highest levels, what the pros are

thinking about is

several orders of magnitude more

than what any of the amateurs think about.

Everyone starts as a beginner where you know

how to put the stones on the board,

how to capture, how to get to the end of the game.

But every level above that you're learning something.

The ranking system starts at 30 kyu.

As you improve you move up, 20 kyu, 10 kyu, one kyu.

Then you enter the black belt master ranks:

one dan, two dan, to nine dan.

And above that are the professionals:

pro one dan, pro two dan, all the way to pro nine dan.

I'm Gregory Marshall and I'm in 16 kyu.

My name's Rachel Small.

I am playing as a nine kyu.

My name is Larry Morningvey.

I'm theoretically a six kyu.

Somewhere around five kyu, at least in my experience,

it starts getting a little thick,

it gets a little tougher to move up.

Oh lord, I've been a four kyu for so long [laughs].

Among the dan level players, we kyu,

have not yet begun to learn.

You almost definitely play at least

closer to 1,000 games to become a dan player.

After that you're on the road of playing serious Go.

[man] When I was around four kyu, three kyu, in there,

I became convinced I'm gonna have this game down you know.

And then you get to one dan, two dan

and you start realizing, oh crap, I don't know anything.

[Terry] For the top amateur players and all the

professionals,

what they are considering, what they're thinking about

is almost beyond my comprehension.

They will be thinking about 20 and 30 move sequences,

using their knowledge base of shapes and patterns.

At the top level they are in a different world frankly.

[soft instrumental music]

[man] You know in the past 20 years, a lot of AGA organizers,

they put a lot of time and a lot of effort

into youth activities.

We have built up a collection

of awesomely strong kid players.

And we needed to be in a position

to give them some kind of a next step.

[dramatic instrumental music]

[man] My name is Myungwan Kim.

I came from Korea and I'm a Certified Nine-Dan Professional

from Korean Go Association.

[Allan] Myungwan came over as an ambassador

for the Korean Baduk Association.

First thing he said to me was,

we need a pro system in the United States.

You need to have a professional system to have geniuses.

Just one or two people

one or two geniuses can change the picture.

He came back and said, "I found you a sponsor.

"They've agreed to support the qualification tournament."

And I said, oh well, now that might be different.

[Allan] Good evening and welcome to all our

distinguished visitors

as we witness the first qualifying tournament

for the AGA Professional Certification System.

[audience applauding]

[Myungwan] There will be 16 finalists, and they play to

pick 2 professionals.

First time outside of Asia that an organization

is certifying professionals but we will have

our own unique American brand.

It's very much a beginning for us because we really don't

know what an American

professional system is going to look like.

[Driver] So what did you get?

Did you get me anything?

Uh, I got Pringles, beef jerky, Doritos, and Naked juice.

[overlapping chatter]

Welcome, we will be playing three rounds today,

two rounds tomorrow.

The winner of this tournament will have the opportunity

to go to North Carolina this summer

to compete to become one of the first two

homegrown and homemade American pros.

At meetings I derided the idea

that this country was ready for a pro system.

That being said, it was an opportunity

that was hard to say no to.

[upbeat instrumental music]

[Ben] Back in the States to play in this Professional

Tournament.

It's not the seriousness of Asia

but I think it's the first time in 10 years

where I've seen some serious stab at it.

[upbeat instrumental music]

Easy work... easy work.

'Cause of the shortage of liberties.

But here he's just not going to.

He didn't turn so now he's just gonna push and play here.

Ready to kill him!

[upbeat instrumental music]

It gets ugly.

I like ugly games.

[Andy] His playing style is hyper-aggressive,

with no regards for his own safety

or those of his opponent.

[upbeat instrumental music]

[announcer] For the AGA Pro Selection Tournament

the winner is Benjamin Lockhart.

[audience applauding]

And first place, undefeated is Liu Zhi Yuan

An invitation to the first AGA Professional

Selection Tournament.

[cheering]

The tournament was great.

I thought the muffins were great,

the chocolate chip cookies, the coffee [laughs].

[upbeat instrumental music]

Alright, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28.

Actually I need a container so I'm just gonna do this.

You wanna help yourself?

[Friend] Sure.

How much is that?

780.

[Curtis] Andy, he's a huge favorite.

What did you say?

You know who I think is the second favorite?

Dude, I think you're number two, that's my opinion.

I think Calvin Sun, no Calvin Sun.

You know where I'm really confident in myself?

I'm confident with my poker skills.

[laughing]

Yeah dude, we're gonna be playing a lot of poker,

we'll be careful about getting enough sleep and stuff.

I mean I'm gonna take it pretty seriously.

Oh you're gonna take it seriously for the Pro

Qualifier?

Yeah, dude, do you understand that I've been training

for a long time in Korea?

-Do you know what I've been-- -Wait, how long, how long?

You're not going to college?

Seriously?

Well not yet, I don't think I'm ever gonna go to college.

I think it'll just be too much time of my life.

I just hope you don't fall into the old way of thinking about

playing Go.

Oh dude, I am.

I mean the most important thing to me is winning period.

I don't care about the beauty of the game anymore.

You have to fight, you always have to fight,

always a resistant fight, I mean that's go.

Oh shit, oh shit, I think Ben is getting the concept now.

[laughing]

[soft instrumental music]

[man speaking Chinese] The origin of Go is very

mysterious.

Chinese history goes back 5000 years

but many ancient records are essentially legend.

About the origin of Go, there is one story.

People who wanted to observe the universe

would use a net to envelop the sky

and record the location of the stars

at the crossing threads.

[soft instrumental music]

[in English] The oldest evidence we do have is sixth

century B.C.

At this time we had the Korea Go game

but still we don't know how big the Go board was that time.

[soft instrumental music]

[man] In China traditionally, Go was one of the four fine arts.

There's music, painting, and calligraphy, and Go.

And when Japan acquired the game in the eighth century,

it was considered as a fine art.

[soft instrumental music]

[Zhou Gang in Chinese] By the Tang dynasty, Go had

reached Japan.

Go advanced so much in Japan

they left China and the other countries far behind.

[speaks Japanese] These are the official Go archives.

This room is used to present the history of Go.

[soft instrumental music]

In the tale of Genji, the game of Go is mentioned

so we know that Go is played by the Buddhist clergy.

It was played at the royal court.

[Zhou Gang in Chinese] In ancient times, Japan was a

very rigid hierarchy.

But Go gave the common man

a way to climb the social ladder.

If a person played Go very well

they could speak with the top government officials!

[man in English] During the 17th and 18th and 19th

centuries,

Japan was the center of the Go playing world

and it was regarded so highly that they decided

to subsidize Go and during the entire Edo shogunate

from 1612 for the next well over 200 years,

the best Go players enjoyed a stipend from the government

and it just produced a whole string of tremendous players.

[soft instrumental music]

Go Seigen was a Chinese Go player who was discovered

when some Japanese players visited China

and brought over to Japan.

Even before he was 20 years old,

he was one of the top players in Japan

and they organized a series of 10 game matches

between him and other leading Japanese players

and he won almost all of these matches.

Over time, he defeated all of the other

strongest Japanese players.

He sort of changed the flow of the game.

[speaking Japanese] When I was a child

I had a chance to see one of Go Seigen's games.

This was in the old days.

when it was not easy to get close to the players.

I was looking at Go Seigen's back

and I saw an aura, a glowing aura.

I don't know if anyone else saw it

but I felt it that way.

To us Go Seigen was not human

but something way above.

A whole different level.

[soft instrumental music]

[speaking Chinese] This board is signed by master

Go Seigen.

It's from 70 years ago, I believe.

[Ben] Alright, everybody in?

Now, what we have to do is let each other show off

by laying down something really simple

for the other person to show off so like.

[beatboxing]

Andy on the track.

Is Andy on the track?

♪ Is Andy on the track ♪

[beatboxing]

And is Andy on the track?

[laughing]

[upbeat instrumental music]

[man] The Go Congress is the national gathering

for 400 dedicated Go players.

If you play Go it's the place to be for a week.

This is a Go board in the shape of the United States.

This is blind Go and the white pieces are flat

so the players who are blindfolded

can tell what they're doing.

This is spiral Go, this is the 3,4,6,4 tessellation.

Oh, somebody just got captured.

Two gold stones just got captured by red,

green, and blue.

This is my 26th Congress in a row.

Go had to take the place of sex for me for a year

and it's kind of scary how well it did.

Well I have Go tattooed on my back.

Even though the stones don't move

once they're on the board, they kind of develop

sort of cloud shapes forming and reforming.

It's an iconic Congress because someone goes Pro,

first US Pro, that's amazing.

Outside of Asia we're the first

Western country to do this.

We're going to find our Bobby Fischer

who's gonna energize the whole country,

and we will become internationally competitive.

[cheering]

[paper rustling]

So the main thing about the tournament is

that we have a couple of constraints.

One is we only have a week to do it in,

but two, we need to be sure that we've selected

the strongest people.

So one of the best ways to do that

is a double elimination tournament.

So people come in, they start playing here,

and as they win they go through this bracket,

if you lose you drop through here,

and if you manage to beat everybody else,

you can still manage to turn up as one of the pros.

[soft instrumental music]

I need everybody to come up here and initial by it

indicating that you agree to the rankings shown.

[man] I really want to thank you all for coming here.

When we decided to try this difficult experiment,

we put American Go on a new heading

and we don't know exactly where it's going to wind up.

We're trying to make an American Go community

where when someone decides to put as much time

and as much effort and as much passion into the game

as you guys have, they can go as far

as hard work and talent will take them.

[audience applauding]

Alright, it's the official start.

[soft instrumental music]

How did I manage to lose that game?

Unbelievable.

So you lost, Dillon lost, Ben lost.

He threw it away, you got your ass kicked.

I am so fucking pissed right now.

[sighing]

I know, but I really threw it,

really whooping his ass all game.

I thought I was like, I had the entire game,

like I thought I was just controlling the entire game

and eventually I end up losing that much.

How much?

7.5.

[Ben] Shit.

Dude, that was biggest upset in Go history I think.

[Andy] You're arrogant, you both are arrogant.

This game was way too huge.

You can't lose the first game dude.

[Ben] Dude, you really can't.

[man] One of the striking things is time just disappears.

You're so absorbed in the game

and it's just the most refreshing thing.

Instead of having all this clutter in your head

and worry about things you're just absorbed

in this ideal world of the Go board.

But it's a long process and somewhere in the middle

of the game one has to encounter,

or one comes to terms with one's own imperfections,

a certain kind of impatience or fear or greed

and it's like some of the beautiful elements of the Go

suddenly become clouded with all these other emotions.

[laughing]

[Frank] At the heart of Go is a concept called emergence.

How do you go from something that's obvious

to something that's non-obvious right?

How do you go from something that's simple

to something that's complex.

So stone's empty neighbors are called its liberties

and I can capture a group by filling in

all of its liberties.

When there's one liberty left,

we say that that group is in atari.

Then with one more move I can capture that group.

Now this group is harder to capture

'cause if I try to put a white stone in the middle,

it actually gets captured first.

So instead I have to surround the outside first

putting black in atari.

Only then can I play in the middle and capture them.

Now, what about this group?

Even after I surround the outside,

wherever white plays next, white would be captured first.

So actually, black can never be captured

because it has these two internal liberties

which we call eyes.

And any group with two eyes can never be captured.

A fundamental strategic concept in Go is to make two eyes

when your groups come under attack.

Now there's no rule in Go that says

you can't capture a group with two eyes.

It just follows necessarily from the existing rules,

and this is a very simple example

of what we mean by emergence.

So there are lots of examples of this in the world.

How do we get from atoms interacting

according to the rules of physics, to thinking?

How do we get from the material stuff

of the gray matter inside your head

to the sensation of being alive, to consciousness?

And it's hard to see how it's even possible

that they could arise from the operation

of simple, deterministic rules.

And yet, here's Go to show us that it's all of a piece.

That those things can exist, that the mysterious

and the obvious can exist in the same square.

So I'm playing against Justin Tang, nice key name.

Nice, who's?

Dude, I'm gonna be playing Matthew Burrall.

Which means they're gonna be covering me

in an unofficial white man championship.

[man] I think he's the strongest white guy in America.

But that's not saying anything.

We'll bet on that game.

I'll bet on Matthew.

[suspenseful music]

[speaking Chinese] We create these things

because we've seen the treasure concealed in Go.

This wood is in the process of drying.

They have to dry in the shade

for up to ten years

because they're quite thick.

This is my second older brother.

He's the craftsman.

Forty-nine years!

I've been making Go boards since I was 13 years old.

First I put this on the board.

And then with a drafting machine.

Up and down, up and down.

I draw all these lines by hand.

[in English] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,

nine.

[in Chinese] These are shells for making stones.

A clam has to die and be submerged underwater

for decades before you can get this.

This board is made of Gingko tree.

The tree is 500 years old.

Everything is made with purpose.

The baby turtles hold the stones.

Why do we make the board out of trees?

We use wood because it represents the Earth

to express what happens in this world on the board.

As we protect our territory

we build upon what came before.

We position ourselves more firmly

on the path we have chosen.

Yeah, he just made a call in Calvin's corner

so Calvin's still struggling but he's probably done.

I kind of wanted to go further

but I mean these people are too strong.

[Computer] 60 seconds.

You have 60 seconds.

That is one whitey down.

[Friend] Last place standing.

The White Castle is helping.

I'm just happy that I don't, I'm not fuckin' out.

[sighing]

You can see the competition sparking among them,

and you can see how the games seem to be inspiring them

and driving them that much further.

And that's everything you can hope for

and so right now it's been a dream.

In America, yeah it might be very difficult

to push a kid to study more than 10 hours,

they don't study that much, not like Asia,

but still I think it's possible to be

a very good professional.

There are always pros and cons,

if you want to gain something

you have to sacrifice the other one.

[soft instrumental music]

[Ben] I grew up doing little math puzzles and games.

I was thinking you take me, I take you,

then that, I would go there or there.

I guess.

From the ages of nine to 15, Go is just the thing

I was always by far the best at and most talented at.

There was this time where it's like, I'm 16,

I spend my time studying Go, walking in the park.

But my priority was always just getting outside of school

and outside of having to be somewhere.

Andy and I would just stay there all night

playing online or against each other for six or seven hours

and get fast food or whatever food was open at 4:00 AM.

You know, both skip school the next day [laughs].

You develop too much of a relationship with something

and then especially if you don't suck at it,

it becomes impossible to pull away.

[soft instrumental music]

[Zhou Gang in Chinese] There's a saying in China:

one wrong move and the world crumbles.

The first time Japan sent a Go delegation to China

was in 1960.

But they had no chance against the Japanese players.

They were way behind.

[man in English] For a long time, China was trying to catch

up

with Japan and Korea too, and eventually they did.

And for historical reasons, in China and especially Korea,

beating Japan is very big.

[Zhou Gang in Chinese] In the 1960s we entered the New

China era.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China

came the greatest development of Go

because the government gave it unprecedented importance.

[man in English] They started producing some strong players.

In the 1970s China had Nie Weiping

and he could beat most of the Japanese pros

and he did it repeatedly and this of course,

caused a sensation in China.

[in Chinese] My happiest memory was the

China-Japan Super Go tournament.

which I won three times in a row. It was miraculous!

And afterwards I got a call from Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping

congratulating me.

[man in English] As for Korea, one of their strongest players

was Cho Hunhyun who made pro at the age of nine.

Then when they started playing international games

professionally, he won the first Ing Cup.

[speaking Chinese]

[in Korean] After winning the match...

...they told me to get in a convertible

Since I was the winner I had to get in.

And we were riding in a parade from Gimpo airport.

before I even knew what was happening.

[Nie Weiping in Chinese] After Cho Hunhyun won

the Ing Cup

the media began covering the game extensively.

[speaking Chinese]

The attitude towards Go was changing totally.

We became thinking like Go is not a philosophy

but a game or a sport.

[man speaking Chinese] The starting age became lower

and lower.

These days we start

as young as kindergarten.

[woman in English] If you become pro at the age of 13,

then you can have a good chance

to become World's Best Player,

but if you are already 15 you won't have any chance.

At that time it was not considered as late

but these days, too late.

[Woman in Chinese] When I was learning we

studied the Japanese style.

which focused on being aesthetically pleasing.

Today it's impossible to win with that style.

Because now winning is everything.

[soft instrumental music]

I won.

Ben is black.

[Curtis] Black doesn't witness too many liberties.

There's seven, yeah there's one, yeah.

Black I don't think.

[soft instrumental music]

Oh my goodness dude, like he's not clutch.

What do you mean, he died?

I said Ben is not clutch.

Ben's gonna be pretty mad.

He's gonna be so pissed.

So, he resigned?

He resigned.

It went so fast.

[speaking Chinese] Threw it away.

No, I don't think you're bad. I just think that.

Why did you connect? You wanted to kill more?

I dunno. I hallucinated.

I thought either way I lived.

But why is Andy, wait. [Ben] Of course Andy's.

[Curtis] Dude, no why do you play so fast?

You have so much time left.

When he went down why don't you take 30 minutes

and figure out almost all the variations?

Sloppy dude.

I got sloppy.

[soft instrumental music]

I won.

Andy won?

I spent several hours in front of the Go board

everyday for the past two years.

I mean the first time I didn't sit in front of a Go board

for 24 hours was my plane ride

back from Korea a week and a half ago.

And then the first thing I did when I landed

in New York was go upstairs.

I've never, I mean it's the only thing

where I've ever just given 100% you know.

[water splashing]

[soft instrumental music]

[sighing]

My ideas about life all, the only consistent pattern

is that the way you should spend your life

is by playing around with your brain.

What else are you gonna do?

You gonna run around like try to get super rich

and just kind of engage in all sorts of [sighs]

like carnal pleasures and that's what

you're gonna spend your life trying to do?

I don't even know if that's, well that's pretty gross to me.

I'm just saying it's not easy to feel,

it's not easy for me to feel okay with things in this world.

-[thunder rumbling] -[water splashing]

[Ben] I wanna spend all my time in the world of Go

and I don't really wanna spend much time

dealing with the real world.

He won.

[muttering]

On a scale of one to 10 right now, I'm like 7.5 pissed.

Dude, I think I should quit Go with you.

Like before I thought I stood a chance to beat Andy,

right now I can't even beat them.

I was lucky that game. I did not play well.

I did not play well.

[Curtis] I just want Andy to lose a game.

[Ben] That can't happen.

Andy can't lose unless he wants to.

Dude no, that's definitely not true.

Gansheng.

[Andy] Gansheng please win so I can play you.

I know your style.

-Oh shit, oh shit. -Is that a challenge?

[Curtis] If you beat Andy two to zero,

I'll finally admit.

[soft instrumental music]

I'm gonna be in the finals playing Andy Liu

and you know, he's a strong opponent.

I just think he has a different mindset

and he doesn't play the normal moves

and I think I just gotta play solid with him,

you know not make too many mistakes

and try as hard as I can.

[Computer] Nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two, one.

[dramatic instrumental music]

I'm sort of like a perfectionist so I think

our brainpower is not nearly enough.

I mean multiply our brainpower by a million

and our imaginations will still not be rich enough.

Take every possible configuration of

matter in the universe,

arrange the universe into all possible configurations

and you can come up with some pretty intelligent beings.

Hyperintelligent beings who just look at the world

and then the ability to predict everything

that will happen afterwards.

My lifetime goal would just be to be reincarnated

in a far higher being.

Imagine an intelligent being that does not have an ego.

It won't have emotions, all it would be able to do

is just perform endless calculation.

And yeah, that would be a computer I guess.

[dramatic instrumental music]

[overlapping chatter]

[soft instrumental music] [soft instrumental music]

I win by 10.

[Curtis] Andy and I, we've been friends since 2000 maybe.

We've known each other for 12 years

and we've been like rivals, like you know

he went back to China sometimes to learn Go.

I went back to China and we just kept on doing that.

Andy doesn't care about the prize money.

Andy cares about his theories and his thoughts

and that's like me too.

[laughing]

The more I think about it, he's just not a normal person.

[Ben] No, you need to be like that dude.

To be good at Go.

Study the game and be a normal person.

I'm actually, I think I'm quite normal.

You know who's just a normal like--

Do you think I'm normal?

Gansheng's pretty normal, he tries to hit on girls,

he likes girls whereas Andy, Andy you know what,

I don't think Andy likes girls.

I think he, maybe he does, I don't know.

When you really ask him he's like "No, I don't care."

But Gansheng and I, we're clearly

like almost exactly the same.

We do a lot of shit the same.

Our thoughts are the same like play Go,

try our best, if we can't we lose, we go back to college,

you know have some fun with some girls,

and then you know study, get a degree,

and then you know start working, have a good life.

That's our thought but I don't know about Ben

but Andy's thoughts doesn't, it's all messed up,

he doesn't know what he wants.

[man] Andy has managed to go undefeated

in all of his games all the way through.

And so he is in the final, best out of three,

and he is up one game so if he is to win this game

then he would be our first certified professional.

One minute to settle down and find your places.

One minute please.

[Gansheng] How much time did you use?

-Fifty. -Oh shit.

I made Andy use more than 30 minutes.

[soft instrumental music]

I think Gansheng Shi played much better this game.

Andy, on the other hand

played fast in the beginning

so he made a few mistakes.

Maybe he was too confident?

It looks certainly like he's confident

about what he's doing, he's playing so fast.

This thing in the lower left corner blew my mind.

He's just putting stones in everywhere.

Isn't it Andy's normal MO though to just play fast

and super confidently?

[soft instrumental music]

[man speaking Chinese] The last thing I was able to

see was Go.

So Go is my last memory and final image.

Not being able to see has made me concentrate more

and read more thoroughly.

[soft instrumental music]

[man speaking Chinese] The game is endless.

I don't think human beings can ever master it.

[soft instrumental music]

Andy appears to be irritated,

he appears to have not foreseen what has begun to happen.

[Curtis] If he connects those two stones.

-You're talkin' about here at Q12?

-[Curtis] Yeah.

Then that would be one big eye

and why he would need to find another eye.

I actually beat Andy in New Jersey Open

when he was four down so I actually have a win against him

so it will be kind of cool if he becomes the first pro.

Then I can say, well I'm one and oh against him myself.

[laughing]

He was very young [laughs].

[soft instrumental music]

[Friend] Is that group in a tie?

Is that group, yeah, I mean I think he's.

[soft instrumental music]

Good game.

It's over, he resigned! It's over.

Andy resigned.

He's dead?

He's dead, it's a false eye.

Ooh, those guys got cut off.

Those guys are dead.

He was late, he had a chance to connect.

Yup, yeah those guys were always a target.

Well it's, I would say 50-50 now right?

Whichever one takes the next game is the first pro.

-Andy, what happened? -I dunno.

You're so territorial.

Like territorial.

Yes, yes!

See, I told you, Andy's not that much stronger than us.

[laughing]

Let's go.

[soft instrumental music]

[Andy] The average human lifespan is a bit short,

I would prefer to be living for like maybe 3,000 years or so

like that would be enough to learn a lot of things

that I would want to learn.

I would prefer not to put myself in the thick of things

but just watch our evolution from or like,

ideally I would like to be blessed with a prodigious

imagination and just create my own worlds in my mind.

You would be the ruler of your own imaginary universe

without actually subjecting other people to your whims.

As long as you don't feel stupid just living

in your own imaginary world it's pretty enticing.

[man speaking Chinese] The game is so difficult

only part of it has been conquered.

When I sit in front of the board

I fall completely into the game.

When I am lost in my passion

I have endless dreams...

dreams of unbelievable moves

that never occurred to me before.

But once I reached a certain level

the more I played

the more I felt its difficulty.

Even the best players in history

their level is low

in light of the game's sheer complexity.

[woman in Chinese] Many of the famous top players...

they will sometimes sit at the board

through the whole night.

[Woman 2 in Chinese] Just the empty board?

[Woman in Chinese] Yes.

They won't play,

they won't read books,

they just sit there and think.

[man in Japanese] Ever since I was young

I've been studying Go Seigen's games.

It changes the way you play.

After every move lies a world unknown.

[speaks Korean] You are not Picasso or Monet

just because you imitate their paintings.

Art is formed by putting your own color into something.

A legendary player isn't just remembered for winning.

They change the paradigms of the game.

That's what I am striving to do too

but I have a long way to go.

[speaks Japanese] More than forty years ago

as computers were getting bigger

a computer expert told me

that computers would become more and more powerful.

But considering the amount of space on a 19x19 board

wide as the universe

if a computer manages to win

many things will be different...

the age we live in will have changed.

Anyway, today's about you.

Today's about you and how you're gonna lose to Gansheng

and make a bunch of excuses about it.

I mean he played well against me,

but can he repeat that every game?

I don't know.

It's in the bag.

[laughing]

[soft instrumental music]

[Interviewer] What are you guys thinking about the game?

-No idea. -I encourage Gansheng...

Beat him!

He's got to get that group out anyways,

it's just a question of whether his other group

is strong enough to get any type of a double attack going

between the two white groups right?

Yeah, that's what this is about,

the last 10 moves have been all about.

Here he's blocking.

This white group doesn't have much territory

so I would say in this exchange

Andy has scored a minor victory.

[soft instrumental music]

I'm gettin' scared Andy's gonna over attack again

and it's gonna bite him.

I have no basis for this opinion on him.

He's gonna what?

He's gonna over attack again

and lose something like he did last, yesterday.

Oh boy.

They're jostling for position in the middle

so now it's kind of like an arm wrestling match

in the middle if whoever pushes the other guy away

is going to have a big advantage.

[soft instrumental music]

[Curtis] White has won the arm wrestling competition,

he's kind of got black surrounded now.

It seems like white scored, Gansheng scored

a very major victory in this fight.

He's obviously completely closed down

but if he can survive the game is great for white.

[man] Black was quite prepared for that,

threatening the double atari on one side

and the tomb of capture on the other.

Now Andy's thinking.

[soft instrumental music]

There's been like three times

when Andy's been most confident,

and the other guy's managed to throw a wrench in the works.

I think he's still okay.

[Computer] 30 seconds.

[soft instrumental music]

Of course, Gansheng tries to kill the entire group.

This is extremely exciting.

Now black has no way to live, he has not enough eyes.

Now the only thing he can do is he can push

and cut off the middle white group against,

and the corner white group,

neither of which are alive either.

[soft instrumental music]

This is a nasty race.

[soft instrumental music]

[Curtis] So right now, Andy's definitely winning

because Gansheng's middle group is dead.

Oh man, this is terrible.

I think Gansheng probably made a mistake in reading.

That's the end of the universe.

[soft instrumental music]

If you're still playing a game,

please pause your thoughts for a moment.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present

the first US Certified Go Professional, Andy Liu.

-[audience applauding] -[soft instrumental music]

[All] Andy!

-Next time you should play teaching games!

-[laughing]

Please pause your thoughts for one moment.

I would like to present the second

US Certified Go Professional, Gansheng Shi.

[audience applauding]

These two emerged as the top of the heap

and are achieving the first AGA certificates as professionals.

And they deserve all our honor and respect.

We have high hopes for their futures.

Green tea, five different kinds of green tea.

And when you make these teas and drink these teas

you can remember this experience.

[laughing]

So the AGA will send you to the five biggest tournaments in

Korea.

You are not just individual Go players anymore.

You are representing the American Go Association as well

and the American Go community as a whole.

So if you become strong and hero

and make a lot of money

there will be thousands of kids

who'd like to learn Go because of you.

They want to be like you.

It may seem like the same as it was a few days ago,

everything's changed.

Apparently we get our own business cards.

[Friend] Oh, well then.

Where's Gansheng?

Oh, right here [laughs].

Is that weed?

No.

[Andy] BC card, LG card, Samsung card.

There's two more.

Are invited?

Like you don't even have to play or pre-qualify?

It's our precondition.

A main tournament?

Out of 32 people there's going to be two American players?

Yeah, they invite our association.

And we get our own business card.

[laughing]

With the AGA.

Oh my goodness.

I don't know what to say.

What was your question?

[Gansheng] Like when do you think we might go to Korea

to play in these tournaments?

I'm not sure.

[laughing]

I'm actually... my attention

is being taken away by this game.

[clattering]

[soft instrumental music]

[Ben] I'm not going to leave a good thing in Korea.

When I say it's a good thing, it's as opposed to what?

You get your one adventure while you're still alive.

Like what else am I gonna do?

This is the thing that I'm best at,

take your talent to its full potential

and see where that goes.

Factoring in all that, I just don't even care,

like okay whatever, better, worse,

I have to live in a studio apartment for

the rest of my life

like that's not changing anything about the fact that

everything's what you make it and like

treated my brain the way it wanted to be treated,

did it what it was asking for and made myself happy

as opposed to lying to myself and

living in a suit that doesn't fit.

I don't know, I'm a little bit scared for him.

I don't know, he's not gonna thrive,

he's not gonna survive in a corporate setting, I know that.

Will he be okay if he just spent the rest of his life

not as an outcast but just an unusual member of society,

just like a [sighs].

Neither of you fit into society very well.

Neither of us?

[Curtis] I think I have the ability to fit in.

You do?

Okay.

I'll try to watch my stuttering, for example.

The only reason I do that is because I look for...

more precise words to describe myself.

But that's not how most people speak.

If you don't wanna work, what are you gonna do?

[Andy] What do you mean?

Well if you're not gonna go and do some random job.

I am going to, just in time.

[Curtis] Oh, so you are?

Yeah.

[Curtis] Okay.

A job is important.

[Andy] I agree.

[Ben] Hi.

So we have to find, I think if we go downstairs,

there's gonna be more stores and you can get a cake.

Yeah, I'd love to get a cake with a 99 on it.

I was expecting rolling green hills,

like he lives on top of a mountain or something like that.

[laughing]

Hope he likes the cake.

[speaking Japanese] We will bring him in.

It is close to your birthday

on the old calendar.

So we will have a birthday party.

♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy Birthday Go Seigen ♪

♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪

[speaking Japanese] Everyone together!

One, two, three!

[in Japanese] This is strong.

An amateur might cut here

but this is the vital point.

[Michael] Better hit the key point.

[speaking Japanese] Even if you capture two stones

it's no good!

This is big.

It's big.

-[Ben in English] What year? -[Michael] 1942.

It was his first game of Jubango.

[in Japanese] I often played with Kitani sensei overnight.

I would get tired when it was late

but then I'd be more awake in the morning

and catch up.

We used to play pool

near the Go center.

Kitani would be taking off his glasses

and it would take him

five minutes

to hit the ball.

[Michael in English] He's talking about the time when he

was young.

They didn't have time limits sometimes,

sometimes the time limit was a lot,

and so games would go on throughout the night.

[Go Seigen in Japanese] He was a good-hearted person.

Once when I went to a temple in Kyoto

I played an exceptionally good game.

But with one move

an atari

the game was spoiled.

Master Segoe and the priests

were all disappointed.

It was so close to perfect

but that one atari...

[soft instrumental music]

[in Japanese] Go can bring happiness

to people around the world.

That is the best thing.

I'm glad that I have played Go.

[Michael in English] He's tired.

[soft instrumental music]

[Curtis] What are you thinking Andy?

Wasting too much time on Go?

-[Andy] Me? -[Curtis] Yeah.

[Andy] Probably, yes.

I'm mean, I've envisioned myself

doing other things instead of Go.

Having not learned Go and...

[Curtis] I think you can still do all of these things

cause you're still very young.

[Andy] That's not true, I mean...

The problem is that once you make the commitment

you're kind of, you're kind of

You're committed?

Kind of committed.