Stop Ciovo

Saturday afternoon we went to visit a Kim Sung Rae's friend school: he is Yang Jae Ho (양재호), 9 dan professional. The school (도장, dojang in korean) is situated near Yeoksam Station (역삼역 in korean), in the South area of Seoul. His students are kids from 6-7 years old to little bit more than 10, and they are very strong, of course. The school is very cosy and well arranged, and it has a big library and rooms for lessons and games.

Friday evening we were invited by Hahn Sang Dae to have a meeting with his class in a bar near Sadang (사당역) Station's subway in Seoul: this room is the meeting place for after-school activities for Myongji University's students in Seoul that take part to the english baduk class. The goal of this class is to train official "Internation Baduk Instructor" figures. Professor Hahn Sang Dae, together with his wife Park Hwa Seo, is really outstanding. Besides his go abilities, he is a big baduk promoter in South Korea and abroad: he is indeed co-founder of the Korean Amateur Baduk Association (KABA), professor on the faculty of Baduk Science, a part of the Faculty of Culture and Arts of Myongji University, and he is also a coordinator for organizing Korean Ambassador’s Cup tournaments in many foreign countries to select players that will be invited to the International Prime Minister Cup tournament that takes place every year in South Korea. His wife, instead, doesn't play go but she's supporting his activities: she's a also a professor at Myongji University, but in Migration Studies. They are both really cordial and genial and they both speak english perfectly.

The key event of this weekend was the visit at Hankuk Kiwon, where there was the preliminary phase of the 14th LG Cup (LG배 세계기왕전): it's one of the most important international go tournament, and the final phase there are 32 players, 16 coming from the preliminary and 16 by invitation. The winner's pursue is 50.000.000₩, or about 150.000€ or 190.000$.

Thursday morning we went to Seoul to spend the weekend: the main event was to follow the preliminaries of the LG Cup. As we used to do every time we go to Seoul, we stopped over Lee Ki-Bong's school, the International Baduk Academy (IBA). From our last visit there's a new student, Mark from Germany, and we also got the chance to meet and spend the night with Diána Kőszegi (디아나 코세기 in korean), hungarian 1 dan professional player in South Korea.