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5 MINUTES WITH: T Mark Hall, UK

T Mark Hall (left, with correspondent None Redmond), the U.K.’s WAGC rep, lives in London, where he works with John Fairbairn to produce the encyclopedic 
Games of Go on Disk, better-known as GoGod. We interviewed Hall right after his second-round loss to Canada’s Yongfei Ge 7d and he was planning to use GoGod – “a large database of professional go games supported by an extensive fund of programs, data and articles to help existing players enjoy and benefit from these games” – to analyze his game. Hall is a retiree from the British Foreign Office; his first assignment was in Tokyo, where he learned go and spent three years playing whenever he could. His travels have taken him to places around the world, including Milan, Nigeria, Greece, Burma and a 1992 stint in Seoul. Hall plans to take advantage of his WAGC trip to China to explore the country through mid-June. Through the EJ’s extensive network of sources, we have learned that T is Hall’s legal first name, adopted after an employer insisted on using Hall’s first name even though he preferred Mark. - None Redmond, special correspondent for the E-Journal; photo by John Pinkerton