Compiling Go database can sometime be quite tricky. Earlier today I had to work like a detective to find the information I required.
I was working on the score chart of the 4th Chinese Longxing, a tournament held in 2012. Given the time wasn't very far away I was hoping that collecting information online wouldn't be difficult. I was wrong. There was one round 1 game between Liu Xiaoguang and Gu Lingyi. The game record was missing from all major Go sources in China. After reading several news reports, I learned that Gu Lingyi was the winner and I got the know the game date. But I could not find which player took black.
Luckily I found the attached photo using Google image search. I can recognise Liu Xiaoguang and Gu Lingyi playing in the forground. Then from the name tags on the table I knew that playing in the background was Shi Yue and Hu Yuqing - they happened to be in the same tournament according to a kifu I collected elsewhere. So I concluded with high confidence that the photo was indeed taken during that tournament. Then I could see that Gu Lingyi's hand was on white bowl. Another news report did mention that Liu Xiaoguang 'resigned' the game. So mystery solved and I got all required information to generate the missing entry in that score chart.
I find it surprising though that the organization of the tournament doesn't keep both the results and the kifu's: don't players have to sign them off? Certainly when the news value wears off, both results and kifu's should be available, isn't the organization proud of the tournament and the proof of it, just for posterity? And just for the fun of it: wouldn't the players themselves want to keep track of their results, use the kifu's for their own study? Could they be approached?
Again, great work, thank you! I guess there will be still a few gaps to fill, like those of the KBS games.
Kind regards,
Paul
Quite remarkable that the organization of the tournament doesn't have both the results and the kifu's: don't the players have to sign for them, isn't the organization proud enough about their history to keep these documents? And don't the players keep a copy of the kifu, maybe for study purposes?
This information should be made available, maybe after the news value has worn off: like for the KBS tournament.
Again, well done!
Kind regards,
Paul