Interview with Andrii Kravets, 1p 🇺🇦

In the middle of the Corona pandemic, Andrii Kravets decided to move in August 2021 to Germany. Perhaps not everyone has noticed it. Therefore, here is an interview with Andrii Kravets, 1p.

Manja: Why did you come to Germany?
Andrii: I wanted to move from Ukraine to Central Europe for a long time to be able to participate in the various tournaments more easily. In addition, I was afraid that the war might come soon.

Manja: But why did you decide to move to Germany?
Andrii: Because in Germany there is the Jena International Go School (JIGS), which didn’t have a teacher at that time, because Youngsam moved back to Korea.

Manja: Do you earn your living exclusively with Go?
Andrii: Besides a basic salary from JIGS, I make my living with various Go activities: additional private lessons, Go tournament participation and Twitch streaming.

Manja: Do you still have the capacity to teach more students privately?
Andrii: Yes, a few places are still available.

Manja: Do you teach only children or also adults?
Andrii: It is not so important to me. What is important for me is to work with people who are motivated to become stronger and who love the game. I like to share this joy with my students. Like in our camps.

Questions from kids

As I am doing this interview with Andrii we have running one of five JIGS Go Camps per year. This time it is a pure kids camp. 10 kids between 10 and 15 years have come this time. Other camps are parent-child camps or camps for kindergarten kids or for adults only or for Dan players only. This time we asked all our kids what they would like to know from Andrii. Here is a recording:

Larissa: What is your favorite animal?
Andrii: A dragon.

Lukas: How did you become so strong?
Andrii: I have trained a lot: especially Tsumegos and many games on the Internet

Leopold: Why does it take so long — sometimes even a year! — from the 1d to 2d?
Andrii: between 1d and 2d you need much more knowledge than between e.g. 20k and 19k
Leopold: Really? Uh.

Adam: Who did you play against the most?
Andrii: Against Artem Kachanovskyi

Ferdinand: What was the most memorable moment in your Go career?
Andrii: When I lost the professional qualification. I asked myself very intensively whether I should do something else and whether it makes sense to continue with go.

Hannah: What was the greatest moment in your Go career?
Andrii: When I didn’t manage to qualify as a professional, shortly after there was the final team go tournament shortly after. I played against Alexander Dinerstein, 3p. It was about which team would be the European champion. I won and thought it was really great, even though I didn’t get the professional title to have won against Alexander Dinerstein.

Ole: How did you feel when you turned pro?
Andrii: Relieved. I trained so much and finally reached my goal.

Corvin: How old were you when you started playing go?
Andrii: I was 6 years old when I persuaded my parents to enroll me in a chess club. There I became quite strong and I was able to beat many adults. My teacher said: “This game seems to be too easy for you, I’ll show you a more complicated one.” And after that, I forgot about chess and only played Go.

Ferdinand: What was the most embarrassing move you played?
Andrii: I was about 6d and played against a 5d. Thereby I played a Self-Atari to 20 stones. Unfortunately, my opponent saw that.

Felicia: What was the funniest moment in your Go career?
Andrii: See the previous question 🙂

Ole: What is your favorite kind of ice cream?
Andrii: Chocolate ice cream.

Personal take from Manja

Here is a personal add-on from Manja (Andrii doesn’t know about it :P):

Thanks, Andrii, for the great lessons and the glimpse into myself! What most people don’t know: Andrii has been teaching me for about 1.5 years and he said at the very beginning: “I have seen your games and what you need is not technique, josekis, fighting techniques or opening. You already do that pretty well. But you seem to be in your own way and you are not getting stronger because of it.” Since then our classes have consisted mainly of psychoanalysis — occasionally combined with tears of my own — but mostly with an incredible amount of fun. And indeed — now that I know Andrii better — psychoanalysis seems to be Andrii’s unbeatable strength. In his own games as well as in teaching with so many students. A kind of teaching that you only get from Andrii! Really cool and recommended to everyone.

Interview with Andrii Kravets, 1p 🇺🇦

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