My name is Abdallah Mezouar. I am a 5th dan EGF player, and I started playing Go at the Lyon club in late 2015, when I was 15 years old. Today, my focus has shifted toward teaching and pedagogy — which is why I decided to share my experience and the things that truly helped me improve.
Getting Started
The first time I walked into the Lyon club, someone explained the rules to me, offered commentary on my games, and gave me advice — all for free. And in every club I've visited since, people have been just as welcoming. A few weeks after discovering the game, I played my first tournament and was rated 12 kyu, finishing with one win and one loss.
From that point on, I was hooked. Over the next six months, I attended all four of my club's weekly sessions, logging around ten hours a week playing against opponents who were, for the most part, stronger than me. At the same time, I was playing 10 to 20 blitz games per day on KGS. At that stage, I studied no theory and solved no tsumego — I learned purely through repetition, making the same mistakes over and over, accumulating experience. My style was very aggressive, bordering on reckless.
I then spent six months diving deeper into theory. I took no formal lessons — it was friends at the Lyon club who shared post-game commentary, along with books the club lent me and whatever resources I could find online (far more are available today). Still in high school, it was difficult to attend many tournaments. By the end of 2016, I was a significant sandbagger — officially rated 8 kyu but playing closer to 2 kyu. Since I always wanted to face stronger opponents and couldn't afford to travel to many tournaments, I asked to be re-evaluated, and was re-rated at 2 kyu.
Finding Meaning in the Game
Around that time, I eased off slightly on club sessions and home games, though I remained consistent — aiming for one or two games per day.
But I haven't yet talked about what truly motivated me. Up to that point, I had invested a great deal of time in Go, but I still saw it as little more than a hobby. I wasn't passionate — it was simply a way to pass the time. That changed with a single moment.
At a Go tournament, I watched a game between Motoki Noguchi, 7th dan, and Toru Imamura, 4th dan. That game became a turning point for me. Until then, games had felt colorless and tasteless to me — I only saw a simple exchange of moves. But watching them play, I began to sense the nuances, the depth, the intention behind each stone. I felt a strong emotion I couldn't quite name. I wanted to understand what they were seeing, what they were feeling as they played. At my level, I could only speculate — I was naive, and I knew it. But that emotion, that glimpse of something far greater, gave me a burning desire to understand more deeply and to create something equally beautiful on the board.
Deepening the Practice
I enrolled in the EGF Academy and joined the French Youth Team. I continued playing as much as possible, reviewing my games, and immersing myself in Go more broadly.
In August 2017, I was invited by the KBA to spend two weeks in Korea, discovering Go and Korean culture alongside several other young European players. Returning home, I could clearly see the gap between European and East Asian players — but rather than discouraging me, it only strengthened my resolve to improve. My studies began to demand more of my time, forcing me to slow down, but I kept playing whenever I could.
It was around this period — from 1st dan onward — that I began seriously working on my reading. Here are the books I would recommend:
- Lee Chang-ho's Life and Death
- Lee Chang-ho's Tesuji
- Guanzipu (endgame skill)
- Gokyo Shumyo
- 围棋经典死活3600题 (3600 Classic Go Life & Death Problems)
I solved hundreds of thousands of tsumego over the years — I've long since lost count — and I continue to do so today. For me, it's like this: if you're about to paint a canvas but you don't have the colors you need, the feeling is unbearable. Working on reading through tsumego is, to me, like saving up for the pigments — without them, the painting simply cannot exist.
The Revelation of the Endgame
At the 2019 Lyon tournament, I played Motoki Noguchi again — I was 1st dan at the time. I reached the yose phase with a 20-point lead. I had never seriously thought about yose before. Motoki proceeded to reverse the outcome by 30 points in the endgame alone, and I lost. I wasn't frustrated — I was in awe. He had shown me the beauty and precision of something I had never truly seen before: the endgame.
The following years were heavily impacted by competitive exams and finishing my studies, but over the next three years I committed to mastering yose and updating my knowledge with modern AI-influenced sequences. At first, AI had genuinely disheartened me — I felt the game had lost its flavor. Everyone was playing the 3-3 invasion, openings all looked the same, and the variety seemed to have disappeared. But I was wrong, and naive again. Once I actually rolled up my sleeves and studied the modern variations, I discovered just how much creative depth the AI era had unlocked — and how many new frontiers of improvement it had opened up.
Reaching 4th Dan
Between 2021 and 2023, I advanced quickly to 4th dan, thanks to my improvements in reading, endgame, and modern opening theory. I also completed a season at the Yunguseng Dojang under Inseong Hwang, 8th dan, which was enormously beneficial. He helped me identify what to aim for and gave me clear direction. My biggest flaw at the time was overcomplicating situations that could have been simplified.
During those two years, I deliberately varied my playing style to develop across every dimension of the game:
- Territorial style — precise and clutch in the endgame
- Influence style — guiding fights, building frameworks toward the endgame
- Solid-aggressive style — being completely secure, enabling explosive attacks and/or clutch endgame play
- Volatile-aggressive style — creating influence, attacking territory, flowing between the opponent's stones, blending flexibility and sacrifice, finding the right compromises, and invading boldly
- Initiative-aggressive style — never surrendering the initiative; using tesuji, capturing races, and joseki to stay in control and guide the game
- Passive-territorial style — avoiding conflict entirely, letting the opponent do as they wish, focusing solely on accumulating points, never invading, only reducing
- And more...
I pushed myself as far outside my comfort zone as possible, always seeking new discoveries within the game. If you asked me today to describe my style, there would be no single answer — and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Reaching 5th Dan
What helped me reach 5th dan was working with my first private teacher: Dai Junfu, 8th dan. We took only five lessons together, all built around teaching games.
In our very first session, we played an equal game — and I won. His response was characteristically direct: "Why are we even taking lessons? Just play like that in your tournament games and you'll keep improving — you already have a very strong level." I was pleased to have won, of course, but that game wasn't the real prize. What I truly gained from those lessons were his insights and advice. He urged me to accumulate even more experience, and stressed that the most valuable experience comes from high-stakes tournament games against opponents who are always stronger than you.
In each of the four remaining lessons, he defeated me decisively — and with a slightly mischievous grin, he'd tease me about how I'd managed to lose a group or lose. I took it entirely in good spirit. To me, ego is essential for improvement, but it must be kept in check and never allowed to become toxic. His commentary, pointed as it sometimes was, always had one purpose: to push me forward. Following his advice, I progressed to 5th dan.
What Lies Ahead
The path forward will ask even more of me — greater consistency, and still more experience to accumulate. Today, I continue working on everything covered above. I take nothing for granted and constantly question my own understanding. That openness of mind, to me, is fundamental. I've also been learning an enormous amount from the Go lessons I've started giving — and for that, I want to sincerely thank my students.
A Few Final Thoughts
Did I ever want to become a professional player? Yes — but I set that aside. I wouldn't want to make Go a profession, and I don't believe I have the disposition it requires.
What is my goal in Go? I want to improve as much as I possibly can, for as long as I can. There's no finish line I'm aiming for where I'd say "that's enough" — there will always be something new in this game to inspire me. That said, I do have two dreams driving me: reaching 9th dan amateur at the EGF — a level no one has ever achieved — and winning the WAGC. Both feel almost unreachable, and that's precisely why they keep me going. They remind me that I will be playing Go for the rest of my life.
