I Really Didn’t Mean to Play Go!
Chapter 176: The Unbearable Weight of Humanity

"My first match as a professional… is over."

Back at home, Yu Shao stepped into his room and let out a slow, relieved breath.

With this game, he had officially entered the world of professional Go.

Although this wasn’t his first time stepping into this world, he still felt a sense of anticipation.

This time, with a completely different playstyle from his past life, he had no idea how far he could go on this new path.

After a brief moment of contemplation, he pulled out his four-legged Go table, carefully picked up the stones, and began replaying the match move by move.

As he examined the board, he couldn't help but reflect—some of his moves today, even to himself, felt… excessive.

"Playing like this is already risky against lower-ranked professionals. If I were up against high-dan players, it would be even more dangerous."

Yu Shao was well aware of the perilous path he had chosen.

It wasn’t something that could be mitigated by his experience in the AI era.

In fact, it was precisely because he had lived through that era that he understood just how dangerous this playstyle could be.

Switching his Go philosophy meant that, overall, his current skill level was weaker than his past life.

Yet ironically, the moves he now played had a higher win rate compared to before—because these were the very same moves AI considered optimal.

But here lay the paradox—

Some of AI’s top-choice moves, even when professional players knew they had higher win rates, were still avoided.

In fact, many actively steered clear of them.

Why?

Because these moves, these strategies—this entire way of thinking—existed in a realm beyond human comprehension.

AI’s top moves often overestimated the value of attacking and underestimated the life potential of groups.

At the same time, human players tended to overvalue capturing stones and undervalue the residual influence of dead groups.

As a result—

AI’s Go often looked absurdly reckless—ignoring local fights, sacrificing stones left and right.

It was only because AI could always find a way to revive a dead group or extract maximum value from sacrificed stones that these moves were viable.

But humans couldn’t do that.

A human player might take a living group and accidentally kill it.

Or they might fail to extract value from sacrificed stones, letting them die in vain.

Thus, in his past life, professionals had often deliberately chosen "inferior" moves, even at the cost of a lower win rate.

It was a trade-off—though some individual moves had lower AI-evaluated win rates, their overall win percentage as a player actually increased.

"Sometimes, playing the 'best' move actually makes it harder to win."

It was an ironic yet undeniable truth.

Take Tengen (the center point) for example—

At first glance, it looked like a disastrous opening move, a massive early-game loss.

Yet AI determined that playing Tengen only reduced win probability by 6%, meaning it was still viable.

But if a human played it?

It would be far worse.

Given the choice, most professionals would rather play a standard opening that loses 10-15% win rate than touch Tengen.

"And now, I’m walking this very same path—one that is both the most correct… and the most difficult."

"To pursue the strongest move, I must bear the weight that humans cannot endure."

Yu Shao gazed at the board, then reached into the Go bowl and picked up a white stone.

"If the day comes when I can truly shoulder this weight—"

"That will be the moment my Go reaches its ultimate peak."

Click!

A single, crisp stone landed on the board.

But this time, he didn’t replay Wu Shuheng’s move.

Instead, he placed it at a position that was completely unimaginable—one that would leave any professional player utterly speechless.

Small Knight’s Shoulder Hit, Column 8, Row 15.

A shoulder hit (肩冲) was a move played diagonally above an opponent’s stone, commonly used to limit central expansion or as an alternative to direct invasion.

Traditionally, shoulder hits were played on the fourth line against a third-line stone.

This followed conventional wisdom—third-line moves focus on securing territory, while fourth-line moves emphasize influence, maintaining a natural balance.

But a fifth-line shoulder hit—directly challenging a fourth-line stone?

That was unheard of.

Because it broke the fundamental balance of Go.

A third-line stone gained territory, while a fourth-line stone gained influence.

But in a fourth vs. fifth-line matchup, the territory gain outweighed the influence gain—making the trade uneven.

And yet…

This move sacrificed territory in exchange for supreme control of the center.

It was a move that challenged the ancient Go proverb:

"Gold in the corners, silver along the edges, grass in the center."

It rewrote the fundamental rule of Go.

Yu Shao looked at the move, his gaze filled with nostalgia.

A flicker of past memories surfaced.

This was his move.

A move he had first played in his previous life.

Back then, AI hadn’t even existed yet.

When he had placed this 5th-line shoulder hit, he had only been sixteen years old—just like in this life.

And when he had won that game, his opponent, a veteran 9-dan professional, had told him:

"It won’t be long before you shake the entire Go world."

And he had.

Later, when AI emerged, this very 5th-line shoulder hit had been validated by AI.

It had even evolved into multiple variations, becoming a commonly accepted strategy.

Because it was a move that had arrived before its time.

People had called it:

"A move that crossed through time itself."

A move that should not have existed before AI… yet had appeared ahead of schedule.

But Yu Shao exhaled softly.

"That was the only time."

He slowly gathered the stones and returned them to the Go bowl.

"The path of Go stretches endlessly before me."

"Out of a hundred truths, I have only grasped ten."

"There is still a long road ahead."

The National Master Tournament Preliminaries weren’t held daily—there was always a break between rounds.

There were still three days until the next match, and the Yingjiao Cup Preliminaries wouldn’t begin for another week.

Once both tournaments were in full swing, his schedule would become hectic—he could end up playing three to four matches per week.

But this wasn’t a bad thing—it was actually great.

After all, every match—win or lose—came with an appearance fee.

Winning just meant a bigger payout; losing still put money in his pocket.

As for promotion tournaments, according to Jiang Xiahua, although competing in them sped up promotion, they didn’t offer any match fees, so participation was always low.

Most players preferred entering regular tournaments instead.

The Go Association was well aware of this issue, which was why, every year after the Professional Qualification Tournament, they would strongly recommend that newly ranked professionals participate in promotion matches.

Otherwise, without any incentive, the promotion tournaments would barely be able to continue.

---

After resting at home for two days, Yu Shao received an email from the Southern Go Association.

It contained the match schedule for his next National Master Preliminary round.

Since the tournament followed a round-robin points system, there was no drawing of lots—opponents were assigned randomly by the system.

His next opponent: Wang Yao, 1-dan.

However, what surprised Yu Shao was that along with the match schedule, the email also included a job assignment.

“Fifteen days from now, the first match of the Go Sage Title Challenge will be held in the Southern Region… and I’ve been assigned as a game recorder?”

Yu Shao frowned slightly.

It was common for low-dan professionals to be assigned as recorders, especially 1-dans.

However, in most cases, the Go Association preferred to assign female professionals as recorders—especially attractive ones.

Take Wu Zhixuan, for example—he knew that she often worked as a recorder for various tournaments.

Male players were sometimes assigned the role, but it was less frequent.

Of course, being a game recorder wasn’t unpaid work—it came with a salary, and the pay was actually decent.

After all, recording games might be easier than playing, but it was still exhausting—some matches could last an entire day.

"No wonder Zhang Dongchen, a player from the Western Region, is here in the South."

The moment Yu Shao saw this email, he immediately understood.

That explained why he had seen Zhang Dongchen at the Southern Go Academy two days ago.

Title matches were determined by either best-of-three or best-of-five series.

The Go Sage title was decided through a best-of-five format—first to three wins.

Recording games wasn’t mandatory—if a player didn’t want to do it or had other obligations, they could decline, and the Go Association would assign someone else.

After considering it for a moment, Yu Shao decided not to refuse.

After all, it was a title match.

Since he didn’t have any matches scheduled that day anyway, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to go and observe.

"But… who is the challenger?"

Yu Shao closed the email and opened a search engine, quickly looking up information on the Go Sage title match.

The results flooded in instantly.

Clearly, the Go Sage title match was a hot topic online.

[Jiang Changdong, National Master, defeats Li You (7-dan) to earn the Go Sage Title Challenge. Li You falls short once again—this was his closest chance yet!]

[Who will claim this year’s Go Sage title? Jiang Changdong is in top form—can Zhang Dongchen defend his title?]

[Jiang Changdong secures Go Sage challenge—will he claim both the National Master and Go Sage titles?]

Yu Shao was slightly surprised.

"Jiang Changdong?"

Since he was competing in the National Master Tournament, Yu Shao was already familiar with the name.

After all, Jiang Changdong was the current National Master titleholder.

However, Yu Shao had never seen him play before.

Jiang Changdong belonged to the same generation as Zhuang Weisheng—they were similar in age and had been rivals since their youth.

Though their battles had been evenly matched over the years, the general consensus was that Zhuang Weisheng was the stronger player.

Of course, that was just public opinion.

According to rumors, Jiang Changdong himself refused to accept this claim.

There was even one year where Jiang Changdong’s record against Zhuang Weisheng had been positive—winning more than he lost.

That year, however, all of Jiang Changdong’s losses to Zhuang Weisheng had occurred in the Ten-Dan Title Challenge.

That was also the year when the phrase “Eternal Ten-Dan” started circulating online.

"If I take this recorder job, then the only titleholder I haven’t seen yet will be Zhu Huai’an, the Chess Sage."

Yu Shao had heard of Zhu Huai’an—he was a Central Region player who had turned professional at sixteen and had just turned twenty-one this year.

Because of his young age, Zhu Huai’an’s rank was only 7-dan.

This was why, when he shocked the Go world by winning the Chess Sage title, it had caused an online uproar.

For weeks afterward, Yu Shao had kept seeing news about him on short-video platforms.

But whether Zhu Huai’an could hold onto the title for long was still uncertain.

Aside from the Ten-Dan title, which had a long-standing holder, most other titles changed hands every one to two years.

"That said, out of the current seven titleholders, only two are young players. The rest are all over thirty."

Yu Shao frowned slightly.

Something felt off.

"But this world has players like Su Yiming—absolute prodigies. Why does it feel like there’s a talent gap?"