GG Lin

Ming Lin ladled soup at a night-market stall in Taipei for forty years, timing each bowl by habit rather than a clock, and brings the same careful repetition to the board. He counts the pips before every move, then counts them again, then a third time, and moves whatever the first count already told him. Asked why he checks twice more after getting the same number each time, he says it settles his nerves rather than the arithmetic, which he trusts well enough already. Opponents have learned to wait out the ritual rather than hurry it, since hurrying him only slows the count down further. He finishes the recount, plays, and starts talking again as though no pause happened at all.