Chen Yihang, 15, becomes first Singaporean professional weiqi player

TOKYO – A cool spring breeze was blowing through Sotobori Park, fluttering the pastel pink cherry blossoms along the canal on a tranquil Tuesday morning.

Just a five-minute walk away at the Nihon Ki-in (Japan Go Association), the mood indoors was sombre although anticipation was thick in the air, with its main hall packed with dozens in dark-coloured suits.

Sitting in a corner of the hall on March 31 was the 15-year-old Chen Yihang, who waited nervously alongside six others, while he prepared to deliver his conferment speech as Singapore’s first professional weiqi player.

He earned the opportunity to turn pro after he was crowned champion of the Winter Professional Qualification League in November 2025, gaining the 1-dan status; 9 dan is the highest rank for a pro player.

He said: “I feel really happy and I was really grateful to be able to achieve this. It was a really tough journey and many people helped me with it.

“I want to promote weiqi to more people in the future and I hope that my experience can make Singaporeans believe that maybe they can do it too.”

James Lee, president of the Singapore Weiqi Association (SWA), believes that Yihang’s achievement will help promote the game back home.

“To be champion at that qualification competition as a foreign player is unheard of in Japan and that really impressed the Japanese community,” he said.

“That was a significant win, and quite a historic one, which proves against the general stereotype that only top Chinese, Korean or Japanese players could excel in the weiqi world.

“His story has inspired a lot of people in the weiqi community in Singapore. Many of our younger players in the national team and the youth team aspire to achieve something similar and they look up to Yihang as a source of inspiration.”

Weiqi, also known as Go, is a strategy board game that originated in China over 2,500 years ago. Two players take turns placing black and white stones on a 19x19 grid with the goal of controlling more territory than the other.

It is especially popular in East Asia but has a growing international community, with an estimated 20 to 40 million people playing worldwide.

At the age of six, Yihang picked up weiqi at the Go Academy in Ulu Pandan, after his parents decided that he needed an activity to work on his concentration.

His breakthrough came at the inaugural South-east Asia Go Congress, at the Asian Civilisations Museum in 2019, when he was nine.

Yihang then defeated top Singaporean players to finish fourth and caught the eye of Taiwanese 8-dan grandmaster Li Yi-hsiu, who quickly took him under his wing.

On his first impression of the youngster, Li said: “When I saw Yihang’s performance, I realised that he was a talent.

“It is common to see talent in places like China, South Korea and Japan where the sport thrives, but to see a South-east Asian with such raw talent left a great impression on me.”

That same year, Yihang and his parents decided to go to South Korea so that he could pursue weiqi as an Insei (apprentice) and work towards turning pro. But their plans were scuppered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was not till the end of 2022 that Yihang rediscovered his desire to turn pro and his parents sought the help of SWA and Li to facilitate a move to Japan.

Li, who has been a weiqi professional and coach in Japan for over two decades, helped with the transition, providing one-on-one lessons and helping Yihang to pick up the language.

His parents also had to rotate shuttling between both countries to care for him and his younger brother in Singapore.

His mother Zhang Bei said: “Our biggest concern was that he was still quite young when he went to Japan.

“Living and studying in another country requires a lot of independence and we wondered how he would adapt to a new environment, language and culture.

“Fortunately, he adapted well and was able to complete his middle-school education in Japan while continuing his weiqi training. Supporting a child pursuing a specialised path like professional weiqi naturally requires time, effort and resources from the whole family.

“However, we tend not to think of it as a sacrifice. It has been a journey that the family has experienced together and we are grateful for the opportunities and experiences it has brought him.”

After a year, Li decided that the Singaporean needed a training environment where he could face peers of a similar standard, so he sent Yihang to the Tengen Go Salon in Ichikawa to learn from 9-dan sensei Tomohiro Mimura.

Mimura said that when Yihang first arrived at his dojo he observed that the teenager “did not talk much” and assumed that he was introverted.

But he soon realised that it was a language barrier, with Yihang’s Japanese improving, he could even argue with his peers on different strategies.

The life of a weiqi pro consists of training and competitions arranged by the Nihon Ki-in, with some players taking up roles as coaches to earn extra income.

While an exciting career awaits Yihang, he is putting it on hold for four years.

He will return to Singapore to complete the final two years of his International Baccalaureate programme at Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), and fulfil his national service obligations.

A big future awaits the youngster after that. Nihon Ki-in director Takemiya Yoko noted that the association has players from other South-east Asian countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, but said Yihang’s achievement is “impressive”.

He added: “He became a professional player after coming first in the qualification tournament, so we have high expectations for him in the future and perhaps he might win some titles along the way.”