UK Draw with South Africa

Following the abandonment of a game in the match against Switzerland in December causing the team to lose the match, the team was hoping to do better against South Africa. Indeed when Bruno Poltronieri played the first board on the Saturday before and beat the very strong Victor Chow, a win looked possible. On the match Tuesday, in the other games, Des Cann won his game, but Jon Diamond and Alison Bexfield lost making the match drawn; the team stayed in eighth place, just above the relegation zone.

League Page with game records

Bruno Poltronieri wrote of his game against Victor Guang Chow: I won my game by 14.5! It was a pretty peaceful game where I gained an early lead by getting some nice influence in exchange for a bit of 3rd and 2nd line territory. After that I didn’t quite know how to use the influence, but I did convert it into a decent amount of territory. I think the game was pretty even at that point. Then I spent a move settling my last unsettled group, giving my opponent time to add a move to the bottom side, his largest territory. I then needed to invade and live to win. I’m not sure if my invasion was the best, but I ended up living relatively easily, destroying enough of the bottom side to get a 10+ point lead.

Jon Diamond wrote of his game played against Chris Welsh: Well, I might as well not have started at all. Misplayed accidentally in a joseki, then miscalculated a cut (again) when I wasn’t doing too badly. Same old, same old… Sorry!

Des Cann wrote of his game against Andrew Davies: My game was quite interesting. He went for three corners but left himself thin on the outside. I was able to reduce his one expandable corner, but at the cost of getting thin myself. When he cut through me I connected, but at the cost of sacrificing two stones and suddenly he was thick in the centre, and making some territory there. However I think I played more accurately in the large yose and got ahead. I Believe I lost a few points in the small yose but still won by 3.5.

Alison Bexfield wrote about her game against Andre Connell: My game was reasonably uneventful. We both played for big moyos and on my counting I was always slightly behind and could not see how to make it up. At the end when we had started filling in the dame I waited for some to be filled and then started an invasion sequence which my opponent had not considered carefully (but which needed surrounding dame to be filled). I was sure there was something there, but misplayed it and I gained nothing and lost overall by 10.5 points. On review the A1 suggested my invasion could have given me the game by 3.5 points if I had played out more of the moves correctly.