Norway Beaten Four-Nil

Our team played very well and got their first win of the season, against Norway. This moved the team up to seventh place and out of the relegation zone. The next match will be on Tuesday 16th April, against Sweden.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Severin Hanevik after more than three hours of play and 331 moves including passes. I played an AI-style early 3-3 and then was happy he gave me the thick old joseki in bottom left even though he got sente. He surprised me when he resisted my attachment and took the outside ponnuki, and again when he didn't connect up to the corner; LeelaZero says he should have done so immediately and I should have prevented that instead of my solid tiger mouth. Nevertheless I had a ko for later. I then peeped his wall, as is the rage these days and built a reduction group. I used that to start the ko, but did so too early as he correctly ignored my threat. He settled his now separated top left group so I got sente to invade the right side and built a small live group which he kindly gave me in sente. So I started the large endgame, poking at his not quite alive groups and dared him to start the ko at the top as I could win it in style but he chickened out. My 112 was an overplay, he can ignore it and cut, but luckily he didn't so the endgame played out without too much drama. There was one amusing shape at the end, reminiscent of a rule dispute involving Go Seigen, in which I had a multi-approach ko inside his territory and I didn't know if he was required to take the stones off, but it didn't matter as I won by 9.5 even though he did not.

Alex Kent wrote: I won my game against Heming Hanevik on time. The opening was rather fun with lots of early 3-3 invading and computer-ish joseki. I would say that the position we reached in the middle game was fairly even - the key difference was that I still had half of my main time left, while my opponent was in overtime! I went on the attack with a nice-looking invasion (aggressing one of those weak walls) and the game got rather a bit complicated. I probably overplayed at some point, but ultimately my opponent went wrong in time trouble and died.

Sandy Taylor wrote: I also won on time, against Tomas Hjartnes. I'm pretty sure I was leading for most of the game, after trying to play toughly during fighting and quite successfully pushing my opponent around. Things got a bit tricky towards the end, and I might have been about to blunder away a few stones, but fortunately my opponent chose that moment to run out of overtime.

Des Cann wrote: I won by resignation against Kjetil Hjartnes. I felt the game was even until he chose to pincer my kakari at the top. I happily invaded his corner as I felt the weakness of his original kakari stone at the top right made it difficult for him to find a reinforcing move at the top. Instead he tenukied and I moved out from my kakari stone. When I bent around his stones in the centre I believe I was ahead as these stones now felt comfortable, I had gained territory on the left, and he still had an unsettled group at the top. At this point instead of defending at the top which I expected he invaded deeply into my right side. This was the beginning of the end for him. I killed this group without taking any risks. I soon grabbed more territory at the top. He tried to fight at the bottom, but this was never going to work as he had multiple weak groups. I continued to play without taking any risks and when a few more stones fell off he resigned.

League Page with game records