More than 130 players are estimated to have taken part in this year's wildly popular Crazy Go Night, filling the playing hall with nonstop action, experimentation, and laughter.
At its peak, about 85 people were playing simultaneously, but over the course of the four-hour event—from roughly 7 to 11 p.m.—well over 130 participants cycled through dozens of games.
More than 40 different Go variants were available, from familiar favorites to brand-new creations. Among them were Quantum Go, played on two slightly offset 9x9 boards with "entangled" stones; Battleship Go (also known as XY Go); Three-Color Go; LegoGo; Gess, a hybrid of chess and Go; and Big Brother Go, in which a stronger player serves as an advisor and can spend three stones to change a move.
Another highlight was five simultaneous games of Rengo Kriegspiel, each requiring multiple referees to keep the hidden-information variant running smoothly.
As always, the defining soundtrack of Crazy Go Night wasn't the clatter of stones—it was the constant laughter and delighted bursts of surprise as players discovered new twists on the game they love.
- Report by Terry Benson, Crazy Go TD. Photos by Peter Leung , Paul Barchilon and Pandu.