In round three I played against a young woman representing China. The game was going my way for most of the time, but neither of us had a great lead until things fell apart for her, just at the end.

Today I played better, but blundered in a hugely advantageous position.

They have changed the time settings for the main tournament compared to earlier years, and it will probably make me struggle a bit. I am not fast, and there is a stage in the games, when the opening stages have passed, when I find that I do not know wjat to do. A lot of time helps a lot then, but today I had only twenty minutes left of my ”main” time when that stage was reached.

The games started out well for me, and eventually we ended up with a fight on my right side. At this stage I spent almost twenty minutes trying to find the best sequence, and while reading some pretty deep lines, I was unable to find a really good one.

After the game Fredrik Blomback – Sweden’s star player who is in a realm of his own – invited me to show my game. I showed this position and said that I expected that a + 5 dan would immediately know what to do in this position, and ideed; Fredrik showed me the right sequence:

The marked points are miai, and White will at least be able to get a good squeeze on the outside. The game would be balanced, but very slightly in my favour.

Some moves later my sympathetic opponent played 77, and I fell back into a bad mind-set, ”protecting” the corner instead of either leaning on the stone, or just jumping out in the center, making Black’s three floating stones weaker. Still the game was ok for me.

The critical moment came here:

I was short on time here, and did not have the time to read out the important stuff. Black’s marked stones in the center are close to dead if I get to play the marked points are at the left, but I was worried about ”A”, and played a bad forcing move at the top. Still, after this bad exchange I was ahead by almost 20 points. Any sensible move should win the game. Instead I mishandled Black’s peep at ”A” in the worst possible manner and lost all my stones at the top. (I missed a tricky move that my opponent had not missed…)

I was not too happy with myself after the game. I do not mind losing games that are hard fought and balanced, but yet another loss of a game where I had such a huge lead made me feel stupid.

Going through the game afterwards, in the company of players like Fredrik Blomback, and Ben-0, made my mood change once again, from rather annoyed at myself, to feeling absolutely priviledged. ”I learnt a lot” sometimes feels like an excuse, but today I make it my finishing words without bending the truth.

I managed to win my first game, although not exactly convincingly:

One is allowed to bring a phone, and at one stage during the game I decided to get up, and I felt it was wrong to bring the phone with me, so i placed it next to the board and walked away. Later on one of the arbiters came by and stopped our clock, and told me not to place the phone on the table. It should stay in the pocket. I will of course comply, but it is a bit confusing when my two fav games come with two completely different rule-sets in this area.

At the shrine, ready to worship. Perhaps it sounds like I am making it bigger and better than it really is, but for me, no. I have not played another go tournament since last years congress in Toulouse, and this is my time. I get to play a game I love, and spend time with people who feel the same, or something like it.

I am here to play fifteen games in fourteen days, and the schedule is packed:

The main attractions are the Professional Eu Championship, the Open, and the weekend tournament, but there are also numerous other events and tournaments.

We play at the Double Tree by Hilton, just east of the Wisla, and the playing halls look amazing.

There is a moment just before the games start, when everyone is trying to find their place, and people greet their opponents, when some have already started their games (in the go world it is not as strict as in the chess world), and I sit by the board, loving the moment. The moment my game starts I am no longer there; not thinking about what I love or not, only vaguely aware of the sound of stones hitting the boards; I go to a place where only the board, and what is on it, exists.

I once played a chess tournament where a guy got a heart attack next to me. Everyone stopped playing but me. I was possibly calculating some complicated line. When I made my move the ambulance personnel were giving him CPR on the floor, just behind me. In many situations my behavior would have been frowned upon, but in the chess world it was not. I retold the story for almost twenty years before it dawned on me that it could be construed as heartless and cold. I only told it as a story about how focused I could become.

And that focused place is a good place for me. It is a place where time slows down and where the mind is free from distractions. It is the anti-reality, and simultaneously the anti-tiktok. To illustrate what I mean I bring you proof in the form of a youtube video:

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxb-ieETqOm8_92JwXztUL98sqiETpONii?si=eE34ARjjhDRcT2z2

I am not able to read the japanese text, and it is quite possible that they are having a moment of silence, but this stillness at the beginning of broadcasts from Japan, is not uncommon, and I believe our time needs more of this.