24 April 2004

I participated in the Melbourne Go Tournament in 2004. It was also known as the NEC Cup Go Tournament due to it being sponsored by NEC. It was my first ever tournament and I was absolutely excited.

There was also a professional player from Japan that hosted the tournament.

It was really exciting to see the large number of local players from all over Australia participating in the tournament.

The tournament was over 2 days. I didn’t qualify into the second round and ended up walking around watching the other games.

By some stroke of luck, the organisers saw me wandering around and invited me to play a game with the visiting professional player. I was ecstatic! He gave me and the other player (in the photo above) 9 stones handicap and he still beat us easily! I was just so happy to get the chance to play an actual professional.