UK Starts New Season with Danish Draw

In the first round of the new season of the Pandanet Go European Team Championship B League, the UK team ended with a draw against Denmark, which was a fine start. The next match will be against Serbia, on 30th October.

Alex Kent wrote: I lost by resignation to Jannik Rasmussen. I got into trouble fairly early on when I played the moves of a joseki in the wrong order. The corner ended up in a tricky fight where I decided to push and cut - I've subsequently done a quick review with Leela Zero and it judged that had I continued along on the second line the game would have been roughly equal (as opposed to a 90% win rate in my opponent's favour!). I tried to complicate the game using some of the remaining corner aji, but my opponent handled the situation well. The position then stabilised a bit and I felt that I had a chance to come back if I could solidify a chunk of my large potential on the lower and right-hand sides. Another fight developed when my opponent invaded and this lead to a desperate sequence of increasingly large kos from move 93 to 147 - the largest of which lead to a trade that didn't give me enough. I flailed to last a bit longer, but the game was essentially over at that point.

Sandy Taylor wrote: The end of my game against Mathis Isaksen was confused as the komi was set wrongly and on inspection the server had scored the game wrongly, given black an extra point at E13 which he would have had to fill in if we continued filling dame. He had let me make one point with my last two dame moves (playing in AGA rules mode!), which he could have blocked; I feel quite lucky to win by 1.5. Overall I think my opponent outplayed me and I fell behind with some bad moves in the middlegame, but the position maybe wasn't as bad as it looked. It became clear in the endgame that things were quite close to even. I think I may even have lost some points by recklessly allowing a large ko for which I spent some points-losing ko threats. I really should have won by 0.5 even without his 1 point dame blunder. I guess the bonus lesson is: yes those server scoring mistakes people talk about really do happen.

Toby Manning wrote: I won against Morten Eske Nielsen by about 7 or 8 (actually resignation, before the dame were filled). I felt I started well, making four corners (I was white) and one of them was big, and all I had to do was stop him making too much territory and not dying anywhere. But I made a number of overplays in trying to trash his territory, none of them catastrophic (including a misclick tht he graciously let me take back). However, all seemed well until he attacked a group of mine in the centre - it had reasonable shape and the opportunity to connect out, but I misplayed the fight and my group died. Looking for a way to resign honourably, I played a few large yose moves, he blundered, let me save my dead group by capturing four stones. After that there was no way back for him. I don't feel good about that game.

Des Cann wrote: I lost by resignation to Ruarir Powell. I was happy with my game up to White's invasion of 38, perhaps I should have answered it at c8. After I made a pillar, white 40 was quite strong. However I don't think white 48 was urgent and I was happy that I got to bend at 49. It felt good cutting at 61, it was territory, it patched up my thinness and made the white position look thin. White 66 to 76 were solid and made territory, but I made territory on the right side with 75; I could still reduce with N2 later and I had sente. I was happy with the sequence up to my ponnuki of 87. White now had two weak groups to look after. However 93 was clearly an overplay, I hadn't settled the top position and my centre was too weak for 93 to be sente. 99 was an hallucination, I clearly need to connect at 100. After 100 I have a large dead group. I had also misread the top and played 105 thinking I had 106 covered; it should have been at k15 instead when it looks tricky for the white group to live. 116 was game over and I resigned soon after.

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