He is one of a maximum of ten students from European universities to have qualified. Go, also known as Weiqi, is a board game for two players and is regarded as one of the most complex strategy games in the world. The game originally comes from ancient China 4000 years ago, is widespread throughout Asia, but is also popular and well known in the rest of the world.

Amar is rather good at it. He plays online for at least an hour every day and reviews his games afterwards. He also sometimes trains at the Vienna Go Club, the only club in Europe where exclusively Go is played.

At his home university in Ulaanbaatar, Amar studied psychology before deciding to enrol in the Bachelor’s degree programme in International Sustainable Business at the University of Applied Sciences Burgenland in Eisenstadt. He has now completed his second semester and is very happy here. “Sustainability is very important to me. I want to set up my own business later on and can make good use of the skills I have learned.” He particularly values the very interactive and practice-oriented classes. “Back home we had a lot of lectures, but here we work in groups and learn from one another as well.”

Amar discovered Go through his father, who learned the traditional game from a Japanese teacher.

In Shanghai, Amar will face around 150 opponents from all over the world and is already very much looking forward to this unique experience. “I’ve noticed that European players are more creative on the board. That’s very interesting.” In November, he has been invited to a tournament in Korea.

He would very much like to set up a Go Club at Burgenland University of Applied Sciences and teach students, lecturers and staff. If you are interested, please write to 2510900015@hochschule-burgenland.at, personal email: amraakhatnaa(at)gmail.com

And if you would like to find out more about the game: the film The Match on Netflix is based on a true story.