UK Beaten by Sweden

Our team was outplayed by a strong team from Sweden, losing all four games. This leaves the team still in seventh place in the B-League, but only on tie-break. The final match of the season will be on Tuesday 5th May, against Turkey.

Alex Kent wrote: I lost by resignation against Fredrik Blomback. The opening did not go well: I went wrong in a "windmill" joseki in the upper-left. I ended up needing to live small while my opponent got a wall. Definitely one I need to investigate! Early in the middle game I started playing more aggressively to try and catch up, but this backfired dramatically and I barely survived. Later on things got a little exciting and I tried a few tricks but to no avail.

Jon Diamond wrote: Against Charlie Akerblom, for a change I didn’t screw things up in the early middle game, but I nearly did so! Decent exchanges in the fuseki and I created a running weak group... He gained a fair-sized corner, but I retaliated by squeezing his other one, so roughly even I thought but with potential. My weak group had at least one eye, but got out without conceding too much. He then allowed a two-wing formation in the other corner and invaded at 3-3 taking the corner, but giving more thickness to potentially threaten his group on the left a bit, so ensuring he didn’t have any territory there. Instead of defending he took profit on the top, so I cut off his group with ko. I decided that his ko threat against my group wasn’t a real threat, so took the ko. Unfortunately I had misread the fight and died...

Des Cann wrote: I lost to Martin Li by 24.5. I played quite a calm territory game except that I had one weak group. But it wasn't that weak. It was well out into the centre, so I tenukied a bit. I felt from that point I was ahead on territory. He attacked my group, but it was never in trouble. He captured two stones at the top, but at the cost of leaving himself weak at the bottom, just at the time my group could see two eyes. He momentarily started the yose in the bottom right, but I responded confidently and he counter-attacked. In my opinion this was unreasonable, but perhaps he felt he had to. I became thick at the bottom and it wasn't clear his group could live. However I contrived to let it live in sente, except that I didn't realise and tenukied. So he cut off my wall on the right side. There was no way to save it and the compensation wasn't big enough. I suspect he gained a few points in yose to extend his lead.

Toby Manning wrote: I lost to Kim Johansson. I thought I was doing OK, I invaded his moyo and unwisely made two groups - but his group between them did not have two eyes. One of my groups got out, and I turned the other one into ko - I then made a grotesque blunder. I could have finished the ko (and we would have both lived), but I got greedy and continued the ko with a threat that wasn't, and after that there was no return. (I suspect that, if it had been on the board, I would not have made the mistake - I hate playing on a screen.)

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