I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 85

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Too Much Talent Worth Money — Episode 85
Korea Baduk Association.
The hushed atmosphere peculiar to a Go TV studio.
A space devoid of sound.
Yet within it hung an unusually palpable tension.
The revived National Go Championship finals. Game One.
First match of the Best-of-3 format.
And across from me sat today’s opponent, Tzu Hao, 9-dan Professional.
Cameras converging on us.
The warmth of cascading lights.
Through it all, he smiled and extended his hand first.
“Let’s both play well.”
An offer of a handshake.
Sudden, but not awkward.
The problem was his tone.
‘Interesting thing to say.’
Let’s both play well—that phrase.
It meant: I’ll play well, so you try to as well.
Beneath that courteous exterior lay self-assurance and confidence.
Polite on the surface, but at its core—a warning and a declaration.
A will to win.
I met his hand.
Then answered in fluent Mandarin.
“Indeed. May the better player win.”
Our eyes met.
A brief, sharp exchange of glances.
A subtle flicker crossed his eyes.
Surprise, perhaps. Interest. Or mere calculation.
We released our grip almost in unison.
A brief, incisive psychological skirmish before the match—like a trailer for the battle to come.
Now, on the Go board, it was time to settle the outcome not with words, but with stones.
The arbiter’s signal to begin sounded, and we drew for color.
Click.
‘Black.’
Not bad.
Tzu Hao’s Go style—that of a gambler who favored sensory, intuitive play.
His supreme Opening sense and his middlegame intuition, which even artificial intelligence could not match, were unparalleled.
Against such Go, holding Black was advantageous.
Though I conceded the handicap, I could seize the initiative a move earlier.
Tap.
I played first at the 4-4 point.
Traditional, yet stable—my opening move.
Tzu Hao responded with the 4-4 point as well.
Small Point Opening in the lower right.
Followed by both corners secured at the 4-4.
I felt it then.
The fact that his Go could never pursue ‘stability.’
‘…I should avoid AI-based Opening theory.’
Tzu Hao had studied artificial intelligence longer than I had.
And his Opening sense, layered atop that research, was rated among the world’s elite.
From the start, I played with caution.
Not a 3-3 invasion, but a press against the 4-4 point.
Then extended along the edge, playing low.
A variant of old Chinese Opening theory—rarely seen these days as AI research progressed.
Tzu Hao countered with a splitting move.
Again, a rare play in current times.
I leaned against it with a shoulder strike.
Even surrendering territory, I intended to build influence above.
I had to read the momentum first, then make him move.
But.
‘It’s not easy, is it.’
On the surface, his moves looked textbook orthodox.
But the way those moves connected was creative and fluid.
Orthodox technique wielded without being trapped by it.
A sense of laying new texture over classical Opening Strategy.
Not leaning on AI, yet containing AI within himself.
This wasn’t the Go of someone who had studied — it was the Go of someone who had made it flesh.
I had seized the early advantage in Board State, but beyond that, the entire flow belonged to him.
The spacing between stones.
A vision that pierced through the Board State.
Even the arrangement of moves that consumed my opponent’s time.
The Opening had started at my initiative, but somehow I was already spending far more time than I’d planned.
‘……He’s strong.’
From the Opening itself, a pressure that felt suffocating.
And yet I held my ground.
Once the structure of the Opening was complete, I was certain my position would shine.
Then.
Tap!
Tzu Hao pushed a White Stone into the heart of my territory.
A profound move.
A dangerous move.
Despite my right-side position being solid, he infiltrated without hesitation.
As if to say: kill it if you can.
A provocative move.
‘……No middle ground in this one.’
Strong enough to be infuriating.
I had no option to let this White Stone live comfortably.
If I couldn’t capture this stone, my position would lose its value.
Tap.
A move defending the corner while demanding White’s response.
Tzu Hao responded without hesitation, leaning in at a slant.
Now came the moment of choice.
Accept or refuse.
Compromise or resist.
I chose the latter.
Empty Triangle.
Then I crouched and cut through.
Tzu Hao responded with seasoned precision.
A forcing move followed by extension, creating a secure shape.
But I didn’t give up.
Tap.
That vital point — I wedged it.
It was a point I’d have to concede anyway.
Instead, I used that point to clump my stones together like grapes, making them heavy and solid.
And then the pressure began.
“…….”
Both of us took long consideration.
Neither hesitated to spend time.
Instinctively, I was certain.
This moment, right now, was the turning point of today’s match.
‘This game won’t go on much longer.’
Unfinished groups collided with each other.
Cutting, advancing, struggling to squeeze out one more move.
Along the bottom, four Black Stones lined up quietly.
Key Stones.
Four incomplete large groups hung on these four stones.
Both my stones and his bore the fragility of collapse if a single move came too late.
A race.
Forcing move, response, forcing move, connection.
Moves tumbling out moment by moment—
They seized and released control of the board state in turn.
In the center, incomplete clusters of stones fought simultaneously for rescue and survival.
‘There’s nowhere to retreat.’
Everything was unresolved.
No one surrendered, and no one held back.
A position where anyone’s death would be unremarkable.
Go where neither side could save nor be saved.
A battle of ruthlessly precise Move Reading and raw instinct.
I steadied my breathing.
The tension was suffocating.
For the first time, I felt the real possibility of losing.
And yet.
It thrilled me like madness.
This one game—the certainty that I was pouring every shred of my talent into it.
‘The disadvantage is mine.’
It looked balanced, but my board state was imperceptibly more precarious.
But it didn’t matter.
Just one move.
I could turn even that razor-thin margin into my chance.
The single reversal move that existed somewhere on this board.
The move that hadn’t come yet.
I waited for it in silence, hardly breathing.

* * *
‘I’m winning.’
Tzu Hao 9-dan was certain.
Eighteen moves later, he’d completed his reading perfectly.
Black had no other choice.
Three torn groups struggling in Black’s position.
There was no way to save all those stones.
‘A double axis.’
An axis is a one-way corridor from which the opponent cannot escape.
If my stones already block the passage, then a stone that flees along that path gets captured instead.
Like erasing the end of the rope for an acrobat walking the wire.
And not just one.
Two directions had simultaneously become axes.
Kim In-ha had to choose between them.
Save one, and the other dies. Save the other, and this one vanishes.
A tightly woven web of design.
Tzu Hao 9-dan was certain of victory.
Black had no choice left.
Even if he managed to salvage things somehow, the moment those key stones died, the territory gap would open to more than thirteen points.
Against a world-class player like Tzu Hao 9-dan, even AI couldn’t overturn such a margin.
‘More anticlimactic than I expected.’
He’d hoped for a longer match.
Like that day when Lu Queran beat Tzu Hao 9-dan even after allowing him to cheat.
Tzu Hao 9-dan already had his post-game interview remarks forming in his mind.
‘……I’ll give back what I was given.’
The Ciel Bank Championship title that Kim In-ha had won.
If he hadn’t been suspended, he wouldn’t be here now.
A line about coming for it next year and asking him to hold it in safekeeping until then would sound good.
Tzu Hao 9-dan was already pleased.
True to his reputation as a player who inspired both devoted fans and fierce critics throughout China with his eccentric style,
interviews were for him both self-expression and an extension of his pride.
Then it happened.
Tap.
A black stone placed quietly on the board.
A point that lay within Tzu Hao’s read.
‘A last desperate struggle?’
A narrow path.
Moves flowing in their natural sequence.
Stones crossing the board at rapid pace.
No need to think anymore.
This was the inevitable current toward the Double-Axis Head Defense.
And then.
Click.
A black stone landed on an unfamiliar point.
‘……What?’
That move did not exist within any of Tzu Hao’s countless lines of calculation.
At first, he couldn’t even grasp its meaning.
He furrowed his brow and stared for a long time.
A single black stone.
It looked like any ordinary move.
But that one stone was negating every line of Move Reading he had built up until now.
‘……Could it be?’
He rubbed his eyes.
He couldn’t believe it.
He ran through Move Reading dozens of times—no, scores of times.
And yet that move was one he had never found.
The Double-Axis Head Defense.
A single move defending two axes simultaneously—a brilliant maneuver that defied all reason.
The kind of maneuver that appears once in decades, if at all.
And that move had just been placed on this Go Board.
‘Ah.’
His mind reeled. Without thinking, he clenched his teeth.
Caught off guard by the opponent’s brilliant move?
No.
He understood that.
Go was always like that.
His rage came from somewhere else.
The fact that he had not seen that move.
An unbearable fury directed at himself.
Crack!
Impulsively, he slapped his own face.
Whether people were watching or not.
Whether the camera caught it or not.
A breach of conduct that should never happen during a match.
But he didn’t care.
Crack!
He struck his cheek again.
‘Why didn’t I see it! Idiot!’
His outburst had begun anew.
A sigh he could no longer suppress tore from his throat.
“Damn.”
If not for that one move, the match would already be over.
But.
A single move had reversed victor and vanquished.

* * *
“Wow…… What is this? What is this? Everyone, what on earth did In-ha just play?!”
Park Ji-man tore at his hair.
Literally.
His fingers gripped the disheveled strands as his eyes bored into the monitor with an expression of disbelief.
The balance of the Go Board had crumbled long ago.
The AI’s win rate had fallen below seven percent.
The board state was so lopsided that even DeepStone’s analysis had stopped appearing.
Instead, he had begun focusing the conversation on In-ha’s second game tomorrow.
His first official match loss.
But he’d recover quickly, he’d been saying.
It was just that Tzu Hao’s condition happened to be exceptional today.
Tomorrow, in Game 2, let’s cheer for In-ha.
But then.
With a single move, In-ha flipped the entire board.
“Wait—no, hold on. Hold on. This works? No, it does work. It does. I’m losing my mind. The black stones caught on both axes…… they’re alive!”
Park Ji-man shifted in his chair, unable to contain his excitement.
DeepStone’s win rate climbed to 98.2%.
With a single move.
“The Double-Axis Head Defense—the Zhengshen Tou! That’s what it is!”
Since he’d begun commentating, he’d never lost control of his emotions like this.
A brilliant move defending both axes with just one stone.
It surpassed even the reversal move he’d witnessed in Game 2 of the Ciel Bank Championship finals.
It was a move that transcended admiration—it drew pure astonishment.
Then.
As the broadcast shifted.
The camera cut to Tzu Hao slapping his own face hard—broadcast live for all to see.
The commentator was taken aback. The viewers were taken aback.
Ordinarily, they would have seized the moment to condemn his poor sportsmanship.
But not today. Not this time.
“I…… I can’t criticize Tzu Hao for this one. I’d do the same. If I had that kind of pride, and my opponent saw a move I didn’t—I’d go mad.”
The wall of talent he’d felt, back when he was still a professional.
The despair that comes when you can’t read what your opponent reads.
Not a blunder. Skill.
And if even that…
The pride of Tzu Hao, the world’s best active player, had just taken a deep scratch.
“Game 2 will unfold in a completely different way now. Tzu Hao threw away a win. His mental state won’t hold up easily.”
Park Ji-man drew a deep breath.
A moment to collect himself.
He took in In-ha’s image on the screen, then spoke as though he’d made a decision.
“I say without hesitation: among all currently active professionals in Korea, China, and Japan…”
He finished quietly.
“There may be no one who can stop In-ha.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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