UK Lose to the Netherlands

The UK lost three games to one in their fourth match of the season. A strong Netherlands team meant this result was likely and only Daniel Hu, on board one, managed a win. As Italy beat Turkey they moved top of the B-League, whilst the UK slipped to third behind Netherlands on board points tie-break.

League Page with game records

Daniel Hu wrote about the longest game of the evening: I won by resignation playing white against Geert Groenen. We started off with a 3-3 MYT flying dagger joseki, that I knew the variations for, knowing I had a severe cut. I think it's meant to be a good result for me. However, my opponent worked hard to attack that cutting group and I prematurely counterattacked seeing my opponent's shape was so bad on the right. I was just unable to capture the cutting stones and so my own group was attacked with Black profiting by capturing most of the lower side. I thought I was in trouble in the lower right corner too, but didn't have time to defend it. My shape remained very flimsy and Black responded with his centre group that I thought was already alive. I settled my main weak group in sente and killed the lower right corner. Black invaded the last corner in the upper left thinking of attacking my central weak group and I made some eye space for it, but gave up my important 4-4 stone for a bad result but sente. I again messed up the lower left life and death in overtime, though perhaps it was difficult for me anyway and I was in trouble with a carpenter's square that I thought was dead, but wasn't sure. Eventually, my opponent started trying to live in the lower right which I thought looked inexplicable - it seemed a move to play when desperate, not when he was ahead. Not only did he die in gote, but he gave me a critical first line hane against his right side group that was needed to make the flying dagger seki in the upper right. I played a nice first line tesuji to start a ko, perhaps he missed it. He still didn't add a move. Technically it was a 1000-year ko, but it only took me one move to start; I take the ko first and it concerned the large upper right seki, so this was a disaster for Black. I won the ko, sacrificing the seki to kill his right side, to be ahead by over 30 points with no endgame left.

Jon Diamond wrote of his game against Alexander Eerbeek: Fairly peaceful opening with me trying to reduce his potential, but exchanging in the bottom right. I should almost certainly have played at M16, to prevent him threatening my group on the right, rather than M10 as this led me to give up 3 stones for a little thickness. After this loss I felt I had to stake everything on using my thickness to make something significant in the centre and left, with perhaps something on the bottom too. Getting into yose being a little behind was the objective. So then I misread the group on the right and it died...

Sandy Taylor wrote about his game against Michiel Eijkhout: Well, I lost quickly and anticlimactically. I'm pretty out of practice on 19x19, so I thought I'd try something new, but it didn't work very well and in any case I forgot to not die.

Des Cann wrote about his game against Herman Hiddema: I played san-ren-sei for this first time for a very long time. I was happy in the early middle game. My opponent failed to invade deeply enough and I had a good chunk of territory on the right side and the better attack. I even reached 80 percent at one point according to Leela on zbaduk. However I let a small group get cut-off and a few moves later failed to jump out with it. He captured it with a move I hadn't seen that I had no answer to. Although I thought I was still in the game I ended up losing by 18.5, so perhaps I wasn't… Damn, just continued on zbaduk and found I could have saved my group when I would have been well ahead, I guess my reading isn't good enough these days.