A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

British Go Journal No. 61. March 1984. Page 6.

Terry Stacey had a number of good tournament results in 1983, starting with a clean sweep of the London New Year Tournament and including first place in a very strong Paris Easter event and second place in the European Championship. It was no surprise to see him become Challenger for the British Championship, but the match turned out to be rather one sided. The second game was the closest, and is annotated in some detail by Toby Manning. Brief comments on the other two games are by Matthew Macfadyen.

Black: Matthew Macfadyen, 6d
White: Terry Stacey, 5d
Time: 3 hours. Komi:5½
The game-file in SGF format.

Figure 1 (1-65)

• Black 31 was felt by Mr Hosokawa, whose comments on all of the games added much to the enjoyment of the spectators, to be the worst move of the match. He felt that the correct idea was to play at 34 instead, and then crosscut. I had planned to play 35' at A, which might have been reasonable, but for some reason I forget, I changed my mind and played the joseki up to 36, whose effect is to spoil my large scale formation - with this strong white group in the way it is very difficult to preserve my positions aganst deep invasions.
• Black 49 might be a bit of an overplay. I was trying to keep the white group on this side weak so that Terry could not afford to invade on the other side.

Figure 2 (66-114) 103 at .

• White 76 is a difficult point - it is tempting to play 86 and kill Black's four stones on the lower side, but then black would cut to the right of 74 and destroy white's upper side position in the ensuing fight.
• White 84-88 virtually lost the game for Terry. There is no chance to kill the black group since it escapes easily up to 107, separating white into two groups neither of which has perfect eye shape. 84' at 101 would force black to make eyes and leave the game close.

Figure 3 (115-159)

• Black 115-125 may look vulgar, but this sequence disappears if White plays 121. I needed to be absolutely sure about my centre group's connection before playing 129, which can easily become a weak group running out through a narrow gap between 34 and 76.
• 143-159: Terry obviously misread something in this sequence. The rest of the game just gets worse for him.

Figure 4a (160-200) BGJ had Fig 4a and 4b as one diagram, Fig 4.

Figure 4b (201-239) BGJ had Fig 4a and 4b as one diagram, Fig 4. 204 ko at , 207 ko at 201, 210 at , 213 at 201, 216 at , 219 at 201, 226 at , 229 at 201, 232 at .

White resigned.

Game 2 of the championship is on page 8.