Round 9 was yet another disappointment for me, but this time I just did not play well. I was not comfortable with how the game developed early on, and when I got my chances I did not take them:

My last move is a big mistake, which allowed Black to get good shape by playing atari at the marked point. Of course – I should play this 9 times out of 10 – I ought to play the marked point myself, making miai of connecting with stones to the left, playing 72 on the next move, or – if Black plays the ugly shape one step below 72 – I can close Black in from the outside.

Another piece of bad aji that I did not take advantage of was this:

I could atari Black’s stone by playing the triangled point furthest to the right, then – when Black connects – continue with the neighbouring triangle, thus forcing Black to save the two marked stoness to the right. Then I will continue with the marked point on the third line, putting pressure on Black’s stones, and destroying Black’s mayo in the mean time. In such a situation the game would be better for me.

In the game I played A, which is another mistake, and from there it went downhill. I played this game without any confidence, and it was a well deserved loss.

The last round was played on the Saturday, and I played against a 1k from France. He had clearly played well earlier in the tournament, and I managed to pull myself together:

My opponent attached on my stone and after my hane on the outside, he played 27. I did not know what to do, thought for a few minutes and connected at A. Instead I should have played an atari on the inside, and then stretched out with ”x”. Black would be able to live with very few points on the side, but I would end the sequence in sente, and be able to play another big move elsewhere.

In the end I played a decent game, and slowly the position became better for me. In the end I managed to kill Black’s lower left corner, and my opponent resigned.

Recap.

All in all it was a good congress for me, in that I learnt a lot. All those analyzed games are slowly turning around in my mind. My intuition is a bit groggy; still unable to align my new insights with the older ones.

The result, 8/15, was not good, and I lost four really bad games, and two that should – at least – have continued along a better path. Still, I won a rating point. For the first time since I started playing my ranking is a good reflection of how good I am with these time settings.

I use too much time in the beginning of the game, and I find it hard to handle the middle game (move 70-150) without a lot of time. I need to work on this. Playing too many fast games have made me a bit sloppy in some tactical melees, and I need to solve more tsumego-s. Sometimes I make over-optimistic evaluations, and loose some of my focus (and miss simple tactics that I would not normally miss). On the good side, I am starting to get a grip on my hoshi-oriented openings. It was only in round 9 of the main that I really ended up in a place where I did not know what to do.

Next years congress will be held in Anakara, in the middle of the summer, and I am hesitating to play there. If the temperatures become too high, it will not be an ideal situation for me to play. Perhaps I will find some other tournament(s).

The congress has finished, and I am back home. My last week was spent hanging out with great people, analyzing go games, and then analyzing some more; just as the first week. I had some problems with my net-provider for my phone, and was not able to update the blog as I would have wanted, and in the mean time my game-files grew out of proportion. I will save you from those.

I had hoped to play better during the last week, but I continued to find it hard to adapt to the new time control. In round 6 I met a young 2d from Finland:

I am Black, and here I ought to play the triangled point, making my moyo safer. Instead I connected at A, which is more solid, and Ilkka – correctly played the point just below the triangle. The game was very slightly favourable for me, but I had a good feeling about it, and overestimated my lead. Eventually I managed to invade the left side, and live there, and we got to a very critical moment in the game:

Here I ought to have connected at A, when the game would be slightly favourable for me (White’s last move was a mistake, and it would otherwise have been more even). But, I was already low on time, and continued to keep up the tempo in a position where I really needed more time. I answered in the wrong way, and Ilkka found a nice way to catch some of my stones:

After the netting move (2), my marked stones are lost. If only I had exchanged A for x earlier, then it would not have worked. (Something for the ambitious reader to find out on their own.) Now I was behind with about then points. The things got worse before they got better. In the end I lost the game with only 4.5. Immediately after the game I was quite unhappy about how it had played out. It irked me to have collapsed in the center, and I had the feeling that I had been much better earlier in the game. However, it seems my judgement was off, and my lead was at the best only about five points. It was a loss that I deserved.

Next day I played a Polish 2d. The game was good for me for as long as I remember the moves, but he played very fast, and at some stage I collapsed. Still, before that it was a rather good game:

I have a clear lead here, and have had since quite early on. Now I have a few very big ko-threats in the lower left, if I connect at A; in that case Black will be forced to spend four moves to take my stones in the corner so as not to lose the marked stones. I will probably win the ko, and it will lose Black a lot of points.

In the game I played the triangled point on the right side, and directly after the game I was unhappy about it, feeling it had been too soft. Lo and behold, the AI evaluates it as the best move. What I had failed to understand is that there is another ko looming at the horizon, which just as dangerous for Black:

As above, I can play the marked stone, and if Black answers at the key point, then 3 kills his group. What I had failed to grasp is that after…

…if Black answers with (2), I did not see that I can start a ko with (3). The reason why it is best to play like in the first picture, is that it would make my stones on the outside stronger. In these lines I would lead the game with about ten points. In the end I lost with 3.5.

In round 8 I played a 2d from Germany:

This was my best game from the last week, and in the position above I have allowed White to build a solid territory on the left side, but the prize is that White now have some weak stones (marked), and also needs to reduce my moyo at the bottom.

My last move was a rather grave mistake, and I wanted to play at A. I deccided against it, as I felt that the move in the game is less complicated, and ”good enough”. With less time, this kind of judgment becomes important in go.

In the end I won the game convincingly.

In the last chapter of my adventures in Warsaw, i will show a game that I learnt a lot from (and lost), and a game that I won.

During the weekend I participated in the ”China Town” Weiqi Cup. The games were slightly shorter than in the main tournament, with 45 minutes basic time (instead of 80), and with 15 seconds increment.

I was quite worried about getting into time trouble, so I started by playing very fast in the first round, and after fifty moves I had almost all my basic time left while my opponent was down to increments. My position was bad, and there is no kind way to describe my play in this game, but in the end my opponent’s time trouble took its toll, and he blundered. It was possibly my least deserved win in a tournament game. Afterwards I was happy to have survived the time pressure, but I asked myself if I really want to play games like this one, and realized that the answer is ”no”. I am here to think, to analyze, and to try to play good games.

So, in the second game I allowed myself to think a bit more and played a decent game:

Both sides have ended up with a lot of dead stones (marked with ”x”), and if I just play the marked point at the bottom, I have a solid lead. Instead, because of time pressure, I played ”A”, and a few moves later, my opponent was back in the lead (although I was completely unaware of that). But then I laid a trap:

Because of my stone at A, I was able to play 9, which threates to live in the corner. My opponent – who was in time trouble too – went for the kill with 10, and then I played the triangled point, killing White’s stones (although I misplayed the next move and only lived in the corner). Making the corner alive made me win by a safe margin. A very sharp and entertaining game for me.

In the third round I played an elderly gentleman, and the game started out well for me. However, my opponent played very, very fast, and well. I was ahead around move 100, but not with much, and the shapes were strange and unfamiliar to me. At a critical moment I played it wrong:

Black is trying to make a live group at the bottom, and I decided to put maximum pressure on it by invading… which is a very bad idea. I should just have played te marked point furthers to the left and then closed the center on Black’s stones. I blame the time for this, but it is a good example of how my intuition is rather slow, and how I make moves that go against my better judgement if I just take half a minute to consider the position. After this exchange the game slowly turned into his favour, and the game ended rather abruptly when he killed one of my groups:

Connecting at 22 was quite a horrible move, but I wanted to protect against ”A”. However, it is very ugly shape, and soon he cut at the triangled point in the center, which eventually lead to all my marked stones dying.

My position might seem quite awful here, but I am only behind with a little if I start the ko in the upper left corner (playing the top triangle – threatening to live in the corner, and when Black answers, play the other triangle, thus starting a ko).

Saturday evening ended with even more go and a few beers.

Round 4, Sunday morning, against Mikko Nevala ( who runs a very instructive go channel together with Jeff Su: https://youtube.com/@mikkgo9526?si=62xVdCvZ7jVF6tkr ) was my most ambitious game so far:

(A lot of comments there. Just to show how I normally analyze my games)

It was our third game, and hopefully not our last. Later that evening we went through the game together with some other players, and many of my comments are built upon what we discussed.

In the fifth round I played another Finn, and it was another long and tense struggle. The game looked good for me for a long time, but at the end I messed up a bit, and it was only when I got in a rather devilish tesuji, just before the end, that my lead became clear.

So, 3/2 in the weekend tournament. Considering the time limit, I am quite happy with the result.

As I mentioned before, the time in the open has been severely reduced in the last few years. It is speculated that it has to do with that they want people to have time to play both main and rapid. This might be the case, but it is still not a good decision. The games are even shorter than a game in an international chess open, and it is basically impossible to go to the toilets during the games. I wish they will take a decision in the future that reverse this… situation.

In round four I lost deservedly. My opponent knew what he was doing in the opening stages, but I did not. I tried to emulate the style of Fredrik Blomback (playing seemlingly slow, poking at every weak shape, and then attack ferociously). My attemt at playing ”seemlingly slow”, turned out to be just slow. After spending the first part of the game on my back foot, I finally pressed the chaos button around move 125, and the game became very messy. He was always in the lead, but it was tense and quite possible (in a low-odds sense) that I would turn it around:

In round five I finally managed to win a game with White. At the end I got my eyes on a big group, and finally managed to kill it. Very exciting game:

Sadly, for me, neither Fredrik Blomback, nor Ben 0 made it to the semifinals in the Championship.

Today the weekend tournament starts, with 45 minutes base time. It is a bit fast for my liking, but I am playing anyway. Three games today, and two tomorrow. Perhaps there is one person reading this, or – optimistically – two, and that you will wish me good luck. I will need some.