A short spoil-summary for the readers: Lukas Podpera 7d is a very famous European top-player. He was representing Czechia in the 46th World Amateur Go Championship, which took place this year in Mungyeong, South Korea, from September 6-13. After 8 tough rounds, Lukas finished 3rd, just behind China (Fu Yu 8d) and Japan (Ka Hyo 7d). 
We took the opportunity to abuse of Lukas’ exhaustion and kindness after the event to extirpate from him answers to our many questions.

Group photo of the 46th WAGC

Hello dear Lukas! Congratulation on your incredible achievement!

How does it feel to be on the 3rd step of the podium of such an event? I recall you had very nice results in international events in the past already.

It’s a great feeling because I put a lot of effort into this tournament. I felt in a good shape recently but 3rd place is definitely above my expectations. I finished in 4th place in the past but that was mostly thanks to a very lucky draw. This time I felt like I really deserved it because I had to beat plenty of strong opponents. And as far as I learnt I’m only the third European to achieve 3rd place? It’s really an honor to be marked next to legendary names of Ronald Schlemper and Artem Kachanovskyi.

After careful consideration by an independent jury, AI image analysis and profiling, it was concluded that there is a smile on Lukas’ face.

Would you tell us more about your “journey” in this tournament? It’s not that we want to collect your personal sleeping data, but we would appreciate a vague description of how it was up there in your mind in the night before the toughest matches.

It was a long and tough journey because all of my opponents starting from round 2 were 6-8d ranked. The round 4 game against Cornel Burzo from Romania was very tough, I had to be very careful in the endgame to win by 2.5 points. It was even more serious in round 6 against Wu Qiyou from Canada (soon to be certified North American pro). I was behind almost the whole game. Fortunately for me he was too greedy in the endgame and I managed to kill his dragon at the very last minute while myself suffering in the last byoyomi period for half of the game…

However, of course the most difficult opponent to beat was the Taiwanese representative Chen Yen-ju. The evening before the game I spent going through his games, so I had a pretty good idea what to expect. I slept surprisingly well that night and in the morning I felt ready to give everything on the board. I think I played one of the best games in my life and I didn’t give almost any chance to my opponent during the whole game.

I think I played very decent games also against Fu Yu 8d from China and Ka Hyo 7d from Japan, but even a tiny mistake matters on this level and they always showed their power in the second half of the game, which I wasn’t able to match yet. However, I believe I was a good opponent for them.

This event is a major world event, very important for the entire community. This is also where we most often meet players from the rest of the world. How is the multicultural atmosphere? Are there a few foreign players you start to see frequently and look forward to playing or discussing with, perhaps?

Since I’m an introvert guy (yes, really!), it’s not easy for me to socialize with new people, so usually I’m hanging out with people I know well. For example the day before the official arrival day, I met Cezary from Poland in Seoul and we walked like 25 km around the city.
However, I still get to listen to some interesting stuff during the event and I’m always amazed how many languages (often unexpected ones) the WAGC participants speak! So, for example I often heard conversations in Portuguese (not only by the Portuguese and Brazilian) or in Japanese (not only by the Japanese and Rob van Zeijst). At least I was able to review games in Chinese with some of my opponents.
Speaking about my opponents, I always prefer not to play the Europeans, so fortunately this time I played only 3 of them. But when I played the KPMC last time in 2023 it was a full European tour in all of my games… Otherwise I don’t have a preference, but playing against the USA, Canada or Taiwan are always very interesting match-ups.
I didn’t participate in any of the side Go events, usually I was very tired in the evening and still often had to do preparations on my opponents. For me the WAGC is not a fun trip but more like a Champions League or the so called “Olympics of Go”.

With the boss. If you don’t recognize the player on the left, you’re probably too young in the Go community and need to dive urgently into classics! If you don’t recognize the player on the right, that’s another type of issue.

What I really enjoyed though was the last day of sightseeing. We were brought to nearby nature places, so I could just do some hiking there and Korean mountains are always a good option for that. That brought me all of my energy back and cleaned my mind before the long journey home.

“A long journey…”

How was your time there in general? As you have participated in many editions already, I guess you had a good idea what to expect!

Apart from really enjoying my play in this tournament and the last sightseeing day I was actually kind of suffering (and I was not the only one). This was my 7th WAGC and it had by far the lowest standard.

First of all, it was held in a random city called Mungyeong which had not much to offer and we had to travel there for a few hours by bus from Seoul. Since all of the city tours were mandatory for us, the city probably just needed some promotion… 

A view. No distraction is the secret to a clear mind for the games, says the wise.

Second of all, the playing venue was literally a gym hall in a sports center  which reminded me of the terrible venue of EGC 2022 in Vatra Dornei…

Third of all, I think it’s a really big blunder to stay 25 minutes far away by bus. It always kills a lot of time of the day and it complicates every day’s schedule. The accommodation in the university research center was actually very fine so I wonder why we didn’t play directly there…

Fourth of all, food is a very important aspect for me and that was unfortunately very low-cost here. Breakfast and dinner in a university canteen, lunch-boxes between games… I mean this is not how WAGC should look like. It was at least better when the organizers took us to a restaurant for dinner. In general the young volunteers and interpreters tried to always be cheerful and keep us happy.

View of a round under preparation.

But still on every single WAGC edition I participated before the standard was multiple levels higher in all of the aspects mentioned above. Surprisingly, it includes Korea in 2014! Which was the last time, when the WAGC happened in this country and it was one of the best editions in my opinion. I wonder why it wasn’t nearly the same this year, it’s a pity…

Last of all, there is one thing, which is an absolute scandal and I hope the KBA and KBF are reading this. Probably the Korean organizers need a beginners referee course on how to perform a Swiss system because they adopted the nonsense from the Korea Prime Minister Cup (KPMC). The system is based on pairing players with the same amount of wins together. Let’s give an example, there are 8 players in a group: First thing that is necessary to do is to cut the half! And then there are a few methods of how to do it: You can fold it (1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5), you can slide it (1-5, 2-6, 3-7, 4-8), or you can do a random draw between seeded and unseeded players. But using a “slip” method (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8) is a huge NO! It severely damages players with high SOS and gives a big advantage for players with bad SOS.
Two examples from this tournament:
Bruno Poltronieri 4d from the UK won 6 games out of 8 and finished in 7th place without playing anyone stronger than 5d. At least it was a nice guy, Bruno from Europe, who took advantage of this broken system. After all, Great Britain has always historically had a powerful navy, so performing a successful submarine is not that surprising. 🙂
Then we have a scary player Kim Hyeonseok 7d who got to play all of China, Japan and Taiwan. This simply can’t happen to anybody else except the winner! The Korean player somehow lost all of these 3 games, which can easily happen. So, it was the first time ever when South Korea lost 3 games and their player dropped to 8th place. The organizers successfully destroyed their own player… If this doesn’t wake them up, I don’t know what else…

Speaking of organization skills… There was a very strong rumor at some point that the WAGC could be held in Czechia, your home country, in 2027. Eventually, it will happen in Korea again and Europe will have to wait impatiently to host it.

What do you think it would bring to the world community to have it in Europe and, how would you prepare in Czechia for such a high-standards event?

It was not only a rumor but a very realistic plan. The International Go Federation (IGF) planned to give the WAGC 2027 organization to the EGF. Czechia was ready to offer a great bid that I believe the EGF wouldn’t refuse. We had very concrete plans in Prague and I believe we would do really great. We have great leaders and organizers, very dedicated players in the organization teams and finally very generous sponsors, who could possibly help as well.
Unfortunately the KBA took their organization back, which was very sad news for us and our dream was over.

When we arrived at this year’s WAGC venue for the first time I was in deep shock. Almost every single Czech local tournament can do better than this! For example, we are not used to playing on plastic chairs. It’s just really unfortunate that we will not get the chance next year. I hope to be part of the WAGC organization one day and present the city of Prague and Czech Go community to the world.
Actually, some people outside Europe heard about these “rumors” as well and they asked me about it. For example I had a conversation with the Southeast Asian representatives and their impression was very clear: “We don’t have to go every time to China, Korea or Japan, we would absolutely love to come to Europe and Prague itself!”…
I hope we will get another chance as soon as possible and hopefully EGF will approve that as well, because everyone in Europe knows that Czechia is hosting one of the best tournaments on our continent and we are absolutely ready to go even higher for the WAGC.

There is a pro qualification coming-up early 2027, so we strongly hope for you that it was your last participation in the WAGC… Is Czechia preparing well the successors to maintain a top-3 spot in the next years?

Haha, a classic question. Of course I would still love to become a pro. However, after passing the age of 30 I started to take things a bit more lightly. If I don’t succeed in the upcoming Pro Qualification I will just keep playing the WAGCs. It’s not a tragedy. And it seems like that even as a top amateur player I can still push my limits even higher. Even though I’m often doubting myself, in general I believe I’m living a great life.

In case I will not be available for the top amateur tournaments anymore, we have more than enough strong players to take over the representation spots. Besides our very well-known bunch of 6-dan players we also have two very promising youngsters growing up! Our 5-dan level teenagers Bartik Dach and Jan Komin have already been often playing for our National team, so participating at WAGC or KPMC adult division would be a natural next step. They are probably not yet ready to compete for the top3, but they are absolutely strong enough contenders for the top10!

The future of Czech Go is very bright.

Speaking of the Pro qualification, are you ready? How do you prepare?

I’m ready to be a tough opponent for everybody as always. But it will not be easy to win, because I’m expecting a few new young newcomers to participate. I will do my usual preparation, no need to change anything. But I think the most important thing will be to stay calm and stable in my mind. Because I have been the main favourite in some previous editions and I believe my emotions were a problem, not my level of play. Let’s see how it goes in Vienna in a few months!

Thank you, we wish you to get always stronger and achieve your dreams!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was all for this interview. 

If you’re interested in exploring the WAGC games and results, you can scroll on this page, kindly built by players from Poland (thank you!)

Special thanks to Lukas Podpera, Nikola Tsarigradski and the KBA for the photos used in this article.