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“Twitch Plays Go” broadcast introduces the game to thousands

Streaming giant Twitch.tv’s all-day livestream about go attracted nearly 20,000 viewers last Saturday. “Being able to introduce so many people to the game in such a unique way was a thrill,” said Hajin Lee, the former professional player and popular commentator. The broadcast was hosted by Lee, Twitch streamer Stephen Hu, and directors of the “Surrounding Game” documentary Will Lockhart and Cole Pruitt, and featured a variety of go content for beginners as well as more experienced players.

Lockhart and Pruitt kicked off the broadcast with a segment on the rules of go (left). Next viewers enjoyed a special showing of The Surrounding Game, during which the twitch chat-room was abuzz with comments. “It was so much fun to follow the chat as the movie played” says Lockhart. “Part-way through, we were elevated to the featured video on Twitch’s front page, and all of a sudden the number of live viewers jumped to over 15 thousand!” Viewership hit a high of 17,500 during the livestream. After the film, Lockhart hosted an interactive 9x9 game between the Twitch audience and Hajin Lee 4p (Haylee), in which viewers could vote between move options. With just a 2-stone handicap, the audience fought valiantly, but in the end the pro prevailed. “Although most of the audience was new to go, the chat consistently chose better options,” said Lee. “I think this interactive group play format has a great potential as a beginner class tool.”

The broadcast continued with live commentary on back-to-back high-level tournament games.  Stephen Hu 6d joined Haylee to cast the semi-finals of the 2018 Creator’s Invitational Tournament between Justin Teng 6d (USA) and Peter Marko (Hungary). In the end Marko eked out a 0.5-point win, advancing to face winner Norman Tsaiand Stephen Hu himself in the CIT finals next week. Pruitt returned to host the final segment: the Collegiate Go League Championship. The strength of the West Coast was in full display, with UCLA and UC Irvine competing in the finals. In an exciting and dramatic result, with boards 2 and 3 split, the championship was decided by the board 1 result with another 0.5-point game. Shengjie Zhou 6d of UC Irvine escaped with the narrowest of victories over UCLA’s Cheng-Yi Huang 3p to notch Irvine’s first CGL championship. “This was a tremendous opportunity to promote go,” said Hu. “Thanks to everyone who participated, and to BattsGo, the National Go Center, CatsPlayGo, and many more for providing entertaining promos for their channels.” If you missed the livestream, an archived version of the “learn to play” segment is here and the rest of the stream is here.