European Youth Go Congress, Kiev, Part 3

Day 2 (of 3) of Kiev Tournament (continued from part 2)

In the morning, we played Round 3 of six. The spoils went to our five U20 (under age 20) players, as four won, and the loser was playing against one of our own! So we have nobody now on 100%, meaning of course that virtually all our players are correctly graded.

It is important to play in tournaments frequently enough to stay 'well-calibrated', and inter-country games help countries' grades align around a common European 'norm'. We also have five players in the U20 group (but none this year in the U12).

The U16s had a round of - shall we say - 'learning opportunities'! These were capitalised on over lunch back at the Team HQ in our nearby hotel, with the usual game-reviews by stronger UK Go-players.

In Round 4, the girls did well, with three winning, leaving Megan and Amy happy, on 3 wins out of 4. The lads won 2.5/5, with Zaki also now on 3/4. It snowed all afternoon - a nice backdrop.
So, after two days' play, the UK had a satisfying 15.5 wins, to 13.5 defeats.

Full results

Some mums went via the metro on a morning reccie to the funicular, checking out possible restaurants for evening meals. In the evening we took the metro four stops. This gave us a good view of the Dnieper River - very wide at this point - as it flows through Kiev, on its way down from Russia, south to the Black Sea. Then we all went round the Aquarium, seeing lots of weird, wonderful and colourful fish - even an alligator! We ended the evening with a group meal out. A nice meal except that the chef needed two attempts to get the Chicken Kiev cooked throughout !