UK Beats Oldest Allies

Depite being the UK's oldest ally, the BGA team fought and beat Portugal in the Pandanet C-League on 1st April. However it was not the expected four-nil victory, with one game being lost by half a point.

Switzerland and Spain are now tied with the UK on points, but 3 and 2 board points respectively ahead. As both Switzerland and UK have two easy matches left, it seems unlikely the UK can get into the second place for a promotion play-off, unlikely unless Switzerland suicide one of theirs. Our next match is Cyprus on 6th May.

Andrew Simons on board 1 writes:

My game was fairly easy as my opponent misread a ladder in the opening, which incidentally started the same as my 2nd British Championship game with Andrew Kay. I deviated from that game when I wedged rather than extended in the top side invasion and used an extravagant ladder-breaker that Go Seigen recommends (though I've heard modern pro opinion isn't so favourable, Koreans apparently like the simple extend I played against Andrew). He didn't fall for that ladder, but missed a rather sneaky one soon after and the game was practically over already. He did develop some fighting spirit when he invaded my top left corner but I compromised for an ok result, as also happened on the lower side fighting, though I regret not probing at 3-3 in the lower right before he got strong enough to reasonably kill it. The only scare of the game came when he made a ko in my top left corner which I hadn't seen (I was a bit greedy in trying to prevent a sente move on the outside which gave my bad aji inside) so I had to let him live and run away with my surrounding group, but as he had weak groups around that wasn't too hard and I killed one in the process. I could have actually killed his top group thickness in the endgame but was short on time so just settled for a 60 point win and he resigned.

Des Cann on board 2 writes:

I suffered an initial tactical loss when I let my opponent get a ko I couldn't fight in my side. However when I played tenuki, my opponent played again and again in the same position becoming thick but over concentrated giving me the lead. In the next fight I was allowed to wall off a group from the centre becoming thick myself while he added two more stones to his original thick position! Then he needlessly let me kill the group I had walled off. Finally he started an unreasonable fight in a corner resulting in more of his stones dying and he resigned.

Alex Kent on board 3 writes:

Mine was a very disappointing loss. I think it comes down to a couple of questionable moves early on; after which I had to play catch up and didn't quite make it. My opponent played a Kobayashi style fuseki, and after I made the standard two space low approach we played an odd joseki where I ended up playing too passively and ended in gote with little to show (it seems a bit ridiculous on review). On move 16 I invaded on the bottom - which may have been premature, but has some precedent in my pro game library with similar positions, and I think the result was acceptable. The biggest error I can detect was choosing the wrong joseki in the upper-left. In the position, I should have chosen to create a thick wall and tried to swallow the left side - but instead I again played too passively and created a strong-but-not-very-useful group on the upper side. I ultimately lost by a measly half point.

Sandy Taylor beat a 10 kyu on board 4 by resignation.