British Championship

British Go Journal No. 64. March 1985. Page 5.

Game 2

Matthew Macfadyen

Black: Terry Stacey, 5d
White: Matthew Macfadyen, 6d
Time: 3 hours each. Komi 5.5
The game-file in SGF format.

The article is continued from game 1 on page 4.

The second game was played at Terry's house. Since there was no clock available, Andrew Grant, the referee, kept time by the traditional Japanese method of counting each move separately and debiting the players only with the number of whole minutes used. This proved to be incredibly arduous; it was like counting byo-yomi for seven hours, but it did leave us with a full list of the times taken for each move.

For the record, the moves taking more than five minutes were:
Black 19 (7 minutes); black 21 (6); white 38 (8); black 45 (8); black 73 (8); black 85 (6); white 92 (7); black 119 (7); white 122 (13); white 138 (11); white 148 (17).
Black went into byoyomi 169.

Figure 1 (1-50)

• White 20: A difficult move to decide on. It would be possible to play around 27, aiming for territory on the side, but Black could then threaten this territory from both sides, securing his own groups. I wanted to encourage Black to invade, so that I would have a group to aim at, and could myself prepare invasions of Black's two side positions while attacking it.
• Black 21-25: It seems strange to allow White to strengthen himself with 22 when Black intends to invade the side. there may well have been a chance to play 22 himself if this exchange had been omitted.
• White 34: Very important. It might have been better for Black to play 36 before invading at 27.
• White 44 leaves weaknesses on the side, but it is essential to play lightly so as not to lose control of the centre. After 44 Black can connect along the side by wedging a stone in immediately above 38 and then sacrificing it.

Diagram 1

• White 52: (Below.) Bad. I had planned to followup with Dia 1, but changed my mind when I hallucinated that Black 8 could cut me off. However White 9 aims at both A and B, and Black cannot play this way. After 59 Black's weak group suddenly secures a lot of territory and the game looks good for him.

Figure 2 (51-118)

• Black 69 would be better one point to the left, or at 70. After 69 White is able to settle the groups on both sides. It should never have been possible to make all that territory on the right while running away with a weak group.
• White 88: I had been thinking about this move ever since white 34 - there seems to be no really good answer for Black, though some of the variations are quite tricky.
• Black 101-109: Necessary to make an eye for his group.
• White 118: I thought the game was almost over, but I completely overlooked 121 (readers may note that 122 took me 13 minutes). This stone cuts the weak white group into two weak groups. I expected one of them to die.

Figure 3 (119-174)

• White 148: The slowest move of the game at 17 minutes. The move played is nothing special, but I spent a long time seeking ways to rescue the big group at the top after playing 148' at 156.
• White 166: Terry had overlooked this, but in any case there seems to be no way to kill white after 156.

Black resigns after 174.

The article continues with game 3 on page 7.