I have been busy since the beginning of the semester--the end of August. Given this, I thought the weekend after mid-term exams would be as sweet as dark chocolate ice cream after a long diet effort. With exams were right before the corner, however, I received a phone call from Mr. Seo of the Korea Amateur Baduk Association (KABA). He officially invited me to come to the Korea Prime Minister’s Cup International Amateur Baduk Championship (KPMC) as a guest professional player. This tournament was scheduled in the very weekend I was eagerly anticipating. Although the majority of my mind shouted “Nooooo!”, just like in any other mental politics, the minority, but powerful governing body, of my brain made the decision. I should go no matter what.


Thinking about it afterwards, I know I made the right decision. Though I didn’t have the couple days’ break I wanted, it was wonderful to meet players and association officers from 70 different countries, including some old friends and colleagues. Besides, the work wasn’t so demanding. Basically, all I did was walk around, talk to people, and play VIP games with the Executive Vice President of POSCO and the president of Pohang Baduk Association (Pohang was the host city of KPMC). These were things I could do well and enjoy myself at the same time.


As you may assume, I have been to myriad tournaments--professional, amateur, domestic or international--throughout my career. Consequently, when I go to a tournament I usually have certain expectations of the tournament, and very often see what I expected to see, from the opening ceremony to the tournament setting and so on. This year’s KPMC wasn’t an exception, but my experience was different this time. I was unwittingly paying attention to the things I overlooked or didn’t care about before, and was trying to see the big picture of the whole event. What is the purpose of this tournament? What will make this tournament successful? Intentionally or unintentionally, I suppose I am becoming a business major.


Anyway, after observing and talking with the players, organizers, part-time workers, sponsors, locals and my professional colleagues, I learned each party had different angles and expectations for the tournament. Then one question arose in my mind. What is a good tournament? In the current system, almost every tournament is identical. If we change anything from the status quo, what that would be?  


Let me take the KPMC as an example. At the superficial level, everything seemed well organized. The tournament venue, called POSCO Gymnasium, was a newly built complex building designed by top architects. It was clean, spacious and functional. The hotel we stayed was the best in the city, and meals and snacks the organizers provided were decent. Numerous honorary guests such as politicians, governors and dignitaries of the sponsors, paid visits for the grand opening ceremony. Organizers and part-timers, mostly from KABA or Myoung-ji University, were proficient and caring. Participants seemed to be enjoying such a world-level baduk event. Nevertheless, what people said in private or in person wasn’t all bright. What were the problems and what questions needed to be addressed?  

  • Players

In KPMC, 70 players played 3 games a day, over 2 consecutive days, under the Swiss-system. This method is reasonable for most amateur tournaments, especially if you consider most participants are either workers or students. KPMC, however, is an international tournament which makes many players fly for a dozen hours to come. It may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many of them, and they definitely do not want to cram all the games into one weekend. The competition is very serious for a few Asian players, but for the rest of the players the experience of traveling and experiencing the baduk community may be more important than their final result. Therefore, we should look for a fine balance between experience and competition.
  • Organizers

Having a smooth, trouble-free event is very important, but spending too much money on preventing potential problems is equally troublesome. One staff member of KABA told me that they too would like to have more rounds and fewer games in a day, but the problems were limited resources, and the difficulty of finding more sponsors. Extreme cost-control was inevitable to keep the quality of the event. They shortened the tournament period, and even restricted additional food and drinks at the dinner banquet. But then, the hotel was oppulent, there were so many  VIP guests for the opening ceremony, a lot of professional players during the tournament, and luxurious stage performances for the closing ceremony. Although I was one of the guests myself, I couldn’t  help questioning what the priorities were. What should be sacrificed and what should be kept?
  • Sponsors

The media and the public are inured to reports of a tournament victory by Korean or Chinese players. This makes it hard for a baduk tournament to get more than passing notice from the public. Therefore, it may be rational for sponsors to question the advertising effect or the return on investment. In fact, this is why baduk tournaments are vulnerable. Most sponsors are sponsoring either because the top person likes baduk, or their predecessors made the tournament and they do not want to upset anyone. I am not saying there is no return in sponsoring baduk tournaments. It’s just not attractive enough to get non-baduk player sponsors. Thus, the question would be, how will you expose it more to the media and the public and thereby make it more attractive to the prospective sponsors?
  • Professional Players

There were about 10 professional players in the tournament place. They were all willing to help or talk to the participants, but the connection between the two parties was almost invisible. Language barrier was one barrier, and the culture was the other. In Korea, professional players are rarely proactive, meaning he or she wouldn’t offer a review or a teaching game unless you ask first. A similar problem is on the foreign players’ side. For them, professional players are intimidating, and they do not know how to ask for a review appropriately. We may call it ‘the burden of initiation.’  Anyway, what can be the bridge? What will facilitate the interaction between them?

  • Part-time workers

Many of the part time workers were there primarily to record games. Yet, recording games is so easy that almost all baduk players can do it themselves. On the other hand, the Myoung-ji University students that the organizers hired were strong baduk players themselves who were getting professional education in Baduk Studies. It’s a pity that such skilled workers had to stay bored and unengaged most of the time. Isn’t there a way to give them more challenging and meaningful tasks?        

  • Local people

The president of Pohang Baduk Association proudly told me that they managed to hang banners of the KPMC all over the city for about a month before the tournament. Also the female members of the association all came in full Han-bok (Korean traditional clothes), and served many kinds of snacks and tea. Yet, despite the local people’s hospitality and willingness to be engaged, I couldn’t see the clear interface between the international players, organizers, and the local people. How can the organizers facilitate the engagement of themselves, the players, the local people more meaningfully? After all, relationship building is one of the motivations for having this tournament in the first place.

I don’t want to pretend to have the answers. As an outsider, I don’t know what kind of  budget the event had, what the difficulties were, or what kind of choices the organizers had to make. What I can tell is there is a room for improvement, despite the fine job done by all the organizers. There is room to approach tournaments in new ways. After countless experiences, organizers become susceptible to patterns and traditions. I hope organizers, especially KABA and KBA, will work to make every year’s tournaments better than the year before.

You would..