Our Team Wins Against Italy

Congratulations to the British Go Association team who beat Italy by three games to one in the online Pandanet Go European Teams. With just two matches to play, their new sixth position (just behind Italy on third board score tie-break) is enough to keep them in the B-League for next season.

Bruno Poltronieri wrote about his win by resignation against Alessandro Pace:

Not a great game from me, but I somehow managed to pull off a win by a couple of points (if we ignore the part where he accidentally let me live in his territory while we were fighting the last 1 point ko...). My main mistake of the game was not living under his shimari before it was too late, which left him with a pretty huge territory. I was quite certain I was behind at that point, so I reduced as deeply as I could. I think he could have cut off my reduction, but it went unpunished and after that I had a slight lead.

Alex Kent had a long and close game on board 2 against Carlo Metta:

My game was quite exciting. I felt that the opening was fairly calm. The first interesting things started happening around move 40 when a ladder happened. I used my ladder breaker to build some thickness, but I wasn't fully satisfied that it was a good trade for the ponnuki my opponent made. I then attempted to form a large central potential which my opponent tried to reduce aggressively. Some chaotic fighting ensued, and from a local perspective I was happy with the result, but I was worried that my opponent could form his own moyo (with help from the aforementioned ponnuki). Long story short: I destroyed the moyo though it required me to sacrifice a few stones; I then botched a life and death problem which could have won the game for me easily (I was too paranoid). I ultimately won by 1.5 points after a hard-fought endgame. Probably my favourite game of the tournament so far!

Jon Diamond wrote about his loss to Davide Minieri:

Another not very brilliant game. Came out of fuseki "fineish", but slightly miscalculated the invasion and gave up too much. Struggled into the middle game somewhat down and although I had a few attacks, they never really amounted to anything as I had too many weaknesses. Decided to keep on playing till the bitter end, but should have resigned...

Charles Hibbert wrote about his win by resignation, playing black against Tashi Walde:

This was a fun game, though one in which I felt like the work I've been doing on playing simply failed spectacularly, and white was just as aggressive. As always, black made a mess of the opening, but white made a subtle fighting mistake and black was able to kill a small group while settling the weakest group on the board in exchange for some central influence. Black was also rather pleased with himself for spotting the tesuji. White then got a little overzealous in making a central moyo, and black was able to use the extensive aji to live inside; resigning came soon after as black had four corners and white had no centre.

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