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.