Weiping Nie, We call him "Jyoeihei" in Japanese. He became Chinese champion of "Go" in 1975 and reached the highest professional degree.


=his article from Daily News=
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World Bridge Championships
August 21 - September 4, 1998
Daily News
Issue 8, Saturday, August 29, 1998
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Lets Go!
by Max Rebattu, The Netherlands

Many of you will have seen Max and fellow Dutchman Anton Maas playing Go during the quiet moments of major championships. Max is strictly an amateur player, but has reached the 5th Dan - and there are only nine in all!

Before clocks were introduced there was no time limit for the making of moves and the record of one master game states that `On the morning of the third day only two moves were made!'

For some years we have seen former backgammon, poker, chess and checker-champions playing in the World Bridge Championships. But did you know we now have one of the world's strongest professional Go players among us?

It is the Chinese player Weiping Nie.

As most of you might know, Go is an oriental mind sport which is more than 4000 years of age. It is the most popular mind sport in countries like China, Japan and Korea.

A big difference with for instance chess and checkers is that the two players, black and white, are beginning with an empty 19x19 board and put their stones alternatively on one of the 361 crosspoints, where they stay until the end of the game, unless captured. The game is won by the player who surrounds the most empty crosspoints added to the number of stones or strings of stones captured by complete surrounding.

Weiping Nie, now 46 years old, learned go at the age of 8. He became Chinese champion in 1975 and reached the highest professional degree, 9th Dan, in 1982. In the early 80's he was very successful internationally when he defeated the top three Japanese players in a row during the yearly China/Japan Go-encounter.

He learned bridge from his Go teacher at the age of 14 and has won numerous Chinese titles since. This is the first time he has played championship bridge outside Asia. Tomorrow he will leave for Korea to play in the World Cup Go, as Go is his living. He is the coach of the professional Chinese Go team, which was very successful in international events in the Far East.

Comparing Bridge and Go, he thinks that Go is more difficult to master, but he thinks he himself is much better in Go than Bridge. He plays Bridge with different partners and he uses Precision as well as Standard American.
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The following hand was played in China this year and he was very proud of the bidding. Weiping Nie was in the South seat.

S 9 8 6 5 WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH
H A Q 10 8 7 4 1D 1H 2D 2S
D 5 3 Dbl 3D Pass 3H
C A Pass 4S 5D 6S
All pass
S A Q 7 4 3
H J 9
D --
C J 10 9 8 6 2


West leads the CK taken by CA. The spade finesse worked but West showed out on the SA. South continued with HJ and with HK well placed there proved to be no further problem.