Candidates' Tournament

British Go Journal No. 60. September 1983. Page 16.

by Matthew Macfadyen

Round 1: One of the features of the Candidates Tournament is that it enables a few of the newer, up and coming players to have a crack at the establishment. This year there were two newly promoted shodans, Chris Whitehouse and Terry Barker, and three first kyus, Mike White, Graham Clemow and Dave Artus. Among these, the most impressive starts were made by Terry Barker, who misplayed the "taisha" joseki against Jim Clare but got a very good result from it and won, and by Graham Clemow, who always looked a few points behind against Gary Roberts but was close enough that when Gary played safe in the yose, and miscounted by 3 points, he managed a jigo. Meanwhile the epic hack between John Rickard and Francis Roads ground to a halt (see below) and Andrew Daly escaped from a rusty start by virtue of the newly increased komi.

Round 2: Gary Roberts continued his poor start by resigning a won position against Richard Granville - he had miscounted a semeai - it seems somewhat unjust that the only player in the tournament who was bothering to count anything at all had lost 1.5 games because of it. John Rickard recovered from a spectacular non-joseki, caused by putting a stone on the point next to the one he was aiming at, to kill a large group of Terry Barkers stones. Dave Artus picked up his first win against John Smith, and Chris Whitehouses win against Andrew Grant seemed likely to affect the ordering at the lower end.

Round 3: The winner of the Granville-Rickard game looked likely to qualify for the Challengers league whatever happened in the remaining rounds - both players lived deep in the others moyo but Johns life was slightly clumsier and he lost by 4 points. Andrew Daly maintained his perfect record, and so did Jay Rastall, whose shodan rating was looking unlikely at this stage.

Round 4: Richard Granville established a won position early on against Jay Rastall, but seemed to get greedier every time he killed a group, this offered many chances to get back into the game, but Jay failed to take advantage of them and finished with an outrageous number of dead stones. Chris Whitehouse seemed unconvinced by the traditional wisdom that corners are bigger than the centre, and he forced Ian Meiklejohn to take all the corners - they looked a bit too big until late in the yose when one of them killed itself. Mike White maintained his perfect record, but Andrew Grant spoiled his. Gary Roberts seemed keener to build his opponents territory than his own and allowed Desmond Cann to win comfortably.

Round 5. In a sense, the game on top board between Andrew Daly and Richard Granville was rather unimportant, since both were very likely to qualify; but It didnt feel like that at the time. Both players concentrated on removing the others eyes while ignoring his own, and both were successful enough that it came down to a count of liberties. Richards groups proved to have more, so he won by a large margin. Meanwhile Jay Rastall proved unequal to John Rickards determined wriggling, and Mike White narrowly failed to record his first win against Dave Artus.

Round 6: Richard Granvilles winning streak was at last ended by Francis Roads, who adopted an entertaining strategy which consisted first of letting a very large group die, then cutting off one of the surrounding groups and creating an enormous seki, and only after this producing a sequence to save the original group thus de-sekiing the seki, and killing the other group. Andrew Daly and John Rickard had an epic struggle, featuring an attempt by Andrew to sacrifice an enormous group, while John seemed almost equally determined to allow it to live. Eventually the group did die, and Andrews compensation seemed more than adequate, but he erred in the yose and lost by 6 points. Jay Rastall continued his good result by beating Jim Clare, and all of the first kyus won their games.

Round 7: Gary Roberts at last succeeded in engaging something like top gear, and felled John Rickard in convincing style, Chris Whitehouse let his opponent (Tim Hazelden) take all the corners yet again, but lost by a small margin this time. Desmond Cann, who had lost his first two games, now won his fifth, thus ensuring that he qualified for the league (Granville and Rickard were already sure to qualify by now).

Round 8: Gary completed his final sprint by beating Andrew Daly in fine style. Francis Roads became the fourth 3 dan to beat Jay Rastall, though the position was still unclear when Jay had to resign in order to catch a train in time. Jim Clare and John Smith joined those with five wins, and the tie breaking calculations started. In the end, Jim was 0.5 point behind Francis Roads and Desmond Cann on SOS (Sum of Opponents Scores), and Desmond got into the league by being ahead of Francis last year. There were five qualifiers, not four, since Adam Pirani had already advertised his intention not to compete in the league.

(According to the tie breaking rules, there should have been play-off games between John Rickard and Gary Roberts for fourth place, and between Andrew Daly and Richard Granville for sixth. However Gary expects to be abroad next year, and so he resigned that game without playing it. Andrew and Richard have decided to defer their playoff game unless they are tied for fourth and fifth place on games won and on SOS in next years Candidates tournament (the only case where it matters)).