UK Secures Third League Win

The third round of the B-League on 14th November saw the UK playing Turkey. Unfortunately the captain forget the time difference and so there was a panic to gather the players in time for a 19:00 start. In the end Bruno Poltronieri was not back in time to play, so the team shuffled up and Jon Diamond played board 4.

The match was bagged with wins on all four boards, leaving them with 12 straight board wins for the season so far.

Daniel Hu wrote: I won by 6.5 against Denis Karadaban. I played pretty slow, somewhat tired. I started with an AlphaGo Master opening, influenced by Deepzengo vs Fujisawa Rina, and my result seemed good. The game was pretty much endgame very early, and we probably both made large mistakes simply because there were so many options (at least I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing). I thought for a while to check if his upper right group was killable, but decided it probably wasn’t. I probably wasn’t concentrating enough for my endgame to have been up to normal standard, but nothing much happened with no fighting.

Sam Aitken wrote: I won my game against Birand Adal by resignation.

He opened with a star point and large shimari, followed by two-space low pincer after I approached inside. I was happy with the joseki that followed, especially when he took gote to finish the position. However, I regret making a low Chinese formation as it led to a moyo game which I don't really enjoy. I think his invasion of the lower right was probably a bit early and, when I got to play the cap at F7, I felt like I was developing nicely.

After he gave me a ponnuki in the centre, I decided to enter his framework and took the corner. I wasn't particularly satisfied with the result, as it left a lot of room for complication in the middle game.

My K12 may have been a mistake, but I think my opponent played too softly by allowing me to connect back peacefully. After I secured the lower side and centre territory with K4, I felt as though the game was in my favour.

The game ended after my opponent played an unreasonable cut at Q15, which compromised his top territory and left his right side group owing a move.

Chris Bryant wrote: I won my game against Altan Kuntay by resignation. In a reversal of fortune to how my games usually go, I ended up with all four corners while my opponent took the outside (with the help of an early 3-3 invasion, which I'm determined to figure out how to get a decent result out of one way or another...)

I played a shoulder hit to reduce his moyo, had a bit of a fight and sacrificed two stones to give him a shape I felt was a bit over concentrated and not 100% alive, and in the process he let me live quite nicely with my corner group. Next he tried to reduce one of my corners, but just ended up giving me quite a bit more solid territory and sente to finally attack that wall of his left over from the 3-3 invasion I played at the start of the game. We had another fight, and he made a choice to create a weak group out of one of his cutting stones rather than sacrificing it - arguably correct since he was probably already behind so needed to make something happen, but it meant he had three weak groups in close proximity to each other, and that never ends well. He tried to cut off one of my groups, but in the process sacrificed half his wall, and then ended up just letting my group connect anyway. During the endgame I played a squeeze and reduced one of his groups to a ko; he chose to resign instead of playing on.

My game felt pretty clean overall other than an annoying misread where I realised I'd messed up and lost a couple of stones about a tenth of a second after playing my move - always the case... But thankfully it only cost a few points.

Jon Diamond wrote: Well, that was quick!

Against Hakki Burak Güner (1k), I played for a bit of thickness in the first contested corner and, although he countered, I felt I’d neutralised most of his potential and was slightly better after the exchange on the left after move 44. I got a safe position on the right and after 73 his wall seemed to be going nowhere and I had potential against the bottom right; however the probe was perhaps a bit early. Certainly allowing him to make the big point in the middle at 77 felt bad and, because I was annoyed that he’d played there, I cut it off too soon - I should have prepared some more on the bottom right to get some more thickness.

However, he miscalculated after 92 and just gave me 15 points plus total security, so I was confident of winning the game (barring the usual mistakes of course). After 117 all I had to do was reduce his middle group to a few points, but he managed to secure the right at 123.

Was extending 128 a mistake? I though he’d just allow me to capture the stone and live with his group, albeit in gote, but he challenged me and I got a ko (perhaps there was some alternative that was better?) which I thought I’d have an unconditional win with (doh). Nevertheless he resigned after my first ko threat! I guess he figured he didn’t have any large enough - I hadn’t worked it out that far, as I was just playing naturally almost without thinking.

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