Virtual ascent to 1 dan

Posted on by

After a rather long struggle to get up to 1 dan on KGS I finally managed the other day. It might seem like a rather small step for mankind, but it felt quite big to me and merited a rather bouncy and ungraceful dance around the livingroom. As a chess coach I always recommend my students to annotate their games and I do – of course – follow my own advice as I try to improve my go skills. Here are two examples that I have tried to make less go-diary-like. The first involves a rather simple but effective tesuji that caught a number of my opponents stones. The second game started out very well, but ended with me being in contest for a possible “the … of the year” price. You will get what the “…” stands for.

The “…” was obviously for “failure”. 🙂

Posted in go

A hole in my preparation

Posted on by

In last months Elite Hotels Open, in Växjö, I played a decent tournament and in the last round I found myself facing the sympathetic Yuri Solodovnichenko, on board 2, with the Black colours. I have lately been working extensively on my repertoire with Black, but with only half an hour to prepare I did, for a moment, lose my confidence and decided to play something that “I know well”, ergo the Modern. I knew that Yuri has a favourite line that I wasn’t afraid of, so it seemed like a good idea. Instead of repeating the this line, my opponent played something that I had previously not even considered as critical. I followed my own recommendation, but after just a few moves my position started to deteriorate, fast, and it became a horrible game for me. It was a hard way to discover a flaw in my views on the Modern, but now I feel obliged to share it with other Modern afficionados:

39:th Kisei titel match, game 1

Posted on by

There have been so many interesting games at the beginning of the year that it has been hard to decide on a single one that stands out. However, in the end, I felt that the game below impressed me more than all the others. It is the first game of the final series of the 39:th Kisei Title Match. Iyama Yuta plays the Black side against Yamashita Keigo:

Lately I have been watching the televised NHK Go tournament on youtube (the latest game can be watched here) and although I don’t understand more than ten words in japanese, I find it very relaxing. The tempo of the games gives you time to think for yourself before the next move is played and the comments are quite understandable even for someone who doesn’t get the language. This is something that worries me with the new DVD culture in chess. If you only use DVD:s as a source of information, there is a risk that you will become passive and instead of learning how to think, will learn not to think.

Posted in go

Carlsen plays the Modern, again

Posted on by

The World Champion has tried out the Modern Defence for the second time within a month and I feel it is my responibility to comment on this game since it follows my main line in “The Modern Tiger” up to move 8.

I am kind of hoping that this initial setback will not make Magnus abandon the Modern. I lost my first three games in this opening and it was only when I returned to it (a year later), that I got it right. Post Script: I now see (after having it pointed out to me by a friendly reader) that it was much more difficult to evaluate 19…Rab8, than I originally thought. It bears witness to how little we sometimes see from the side lines and how easily we… well, hrrm, I, fell into a false narrative. I shall try to do better next time.