Long before South Korea’s Go master Lee Se-dol was thrust into the limelight for his historic match against Google’s artificial intelligence AlphaGo, many of his predecessors left indelible marks on the history of the Chinese board game.  

Topping the list is inarguably Cho Hun-hyun, the 63-year-old who became the first Korean Go player to be promoted to 9th dan, the highest level assigned to professional players. Throughout his more than 50 years playing the game, Cho amassed 160 titles, more than any other player in the world.

Now the retired grandmaster aims to translate the success he learned from the intuitive and complex board game to a more “sensational” arena: politics. 

Rep. Cho became a lawmaker for the ruling Saenuri Party for the 20th National Assembly through the proportional representation system.

“Doing a public job is something that I have wanted to do for a long time,” said Cho in an interview with The Korea Herald at his new Assembly office.

“Admittedly, people around me have doubts about it. But I was thinking: If you are going to do it, then do it right,” he said.

Professional athletes’ forays into politics are not unheard of around the world. Brazilian soccer legend Pele worked as an extraordinary minister for sport from 1995 to 1998. Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao was elected as a member of senate in June and served in the House of Representatives of the Philippines between 2007 and 2013.

Korea has been no exception. In just the previous Assembly, table tennis champion Lee Elisa and Moon Dae-sung, a taekwondo competitor who won gold at the 2004 Athens Summer Games, served as representatives.

But Go masters have not been granted the same opportunity to assert their interest in the legislative body, said Cho. Despite the popularity of the board game among average citizens, there were zero politicians who had previously been professional players of Go -- or Baduk, as it is called in Korean.

“Other professional sports have politicians representing their interests through politics. Unfortunately, there were no such cases in Baduk. My working as a politician would set a precedent and offer Baduk players a chance to work a public job,” he said.

One of his goals as a first-term lawmaker is to enact a law designed to support Go. The bill is expected to include clauses allowing the government to set up a promotion plan and offer assistance to aspiring or lesser-known Go competitors in the country.

Cho also plans to include a clause in the bill that grants the status of intellectual rights to “gibu,” a game record for a game of Go, as is the case for copyrights and intellectual rights in chess. Past gibu records by grandmasters are widely used by amateur Baduk players to craft their strategies.

Previous parliaments had reviewed similar bills. The Baduk promotion bill was first introduced in 2007 during the 17th Assembly. The 19th Assembly had discussed similar legislation, only for it to be scrapped, having lost momentum and lacked consensus.

“South Korea is a Go powerhouse and boasts a lot of renowned and talented players. In order to keep the title, we should keep fostering and educating them. Now that I have retired (from Go), it is time to take the initiative and spearhead the effort,” Cho said.

“In the world of professional athletes, only top-ranked players become wealthy. Professional players who marked as high as 300th in national ranking make, on average, less than the minimum wage. Those who rank at the top don’t need the support; we need to care for those who don’t,” he said.

Having chosen to work at a parliamentary committee on education, culture, sports and tourism, Cho also set “sports diplomacy” as his legislative priority.

Among his plans is a push to enhance ties with Real Madrid, a professional soccer team based in the capital of Spain. In June, the lawmaker met with the club’s Asia-Pacific director Paco Wu and vowed to promote bilateral ties.

They discussed plans to invite the soccer team to Korea, hold a friendly match with the Korean team and engage with young soccer players through educational programs.

“(Paco Wu) said in the meeting that Real Madrid is willing to promote themselves in Korea and expand cooperation with us. This is indeed a very good opportunity and I’d like to do as much as I can also in sports other than soccer,” he said.

Throughout the interview, Cho applied Go metaphors to politics. The rookie politician said it was his unique way of understanding the political dynamics that he said were as complex and intuitive as the intellectually challenging board game.

But the game of politics still appears beyond the mastery of even the Go grandmaster. When asked about power struggle and factional strife inside the Saenuri Party, Cho said the issue should be left to fellow lawmakers who hold a “9th dan title” in the political arena.

“Baduk is a battle against myself and the one sitting opposite. But politics is a whole different game. It needs the ability to interact with many people like in this interview. It is still awkward for me,” he said.

“There is not much I can do in the political game. I just earned the 1st dan in the game and there are a lot of master players in the party. So if someone accuses me of that, I admit to my lack of capability. I am still learning,” he said.

By Yeo Jun-suk (junsukyeo@heraldcorp.com)