UK Lose to Sweden

For the tenth season of the Pandanet Go European Team Championship, the UK team remains in the B-League, the second of four leagues.

The first match was against a strong Swedish team. Jamie Taylor was our only win by resignation against Lova Wåhlin (1d). Bruno Poltronieri lost to Charlie Åkerblom (5d) by 18.5, Alex Kent lost to Martin Li (4d) by Resignation and Des Cann lost to Erik Ouchterlony (4d) on time.

Jamie wrote: I started a very dubious fight in the corner pretty quickly and my opponent misplayed and died. After that she tried to make a huge moyo to compensate, which looked scary for a bit, but she made a very weak group in the process which also died. After that she resigned.

Bruno wrote: Disappointing loss for me. I thought the opening went very well. I pushed around a group and my opponent got decent territory but lost all potential. After that when we switched to the empty upper left, I think it should be easy for me to make enough points. Leela puts me at 80%. But then I start a fight and I played slack so I didn’t get an attack out of it. At that point I think I’m slightly behind, but it’s still a game, until I blunder in the centre and let my opponent capture a bunch of stones. In the end I lost by 18.5, roughly the same amount of points he got from capturing those centre stones...

Alex wrote: Not a great first outing for me: I lost by resignation. The game started peacefully with both of us forming moyos. Unfortunately my moyo was much more squishy and my opponent invaded quite successfully; I ended up with ~20 points of solid territory there and a bit of outer thickness to play with. I managed to make quite a large territory in the upper-right so the game became a bit closer. I couldn't quite make any use of the aji in my opponent's moyo which was vexing. When I had just about given up hope my opponent made a significant mistake and I was able to cut off some stones. I then made a dramatic counter-mistake to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Des wrote: Interesting game: I formed a single large territory at the bottom whilst he had positions elsewhere and a weak group. I failed to solve the strategy problem and just succeeded in forming a dead group whilst solidifying my single territory. I offered to sacrifice it for a ponnuki and he declined letting it live instead. Suddenly my position looked much better. Repeating the mistake I insisted on keeping all of my big territory whilst inadvertently offering up another group. He accepted the challenge, but failed to handle the aji and I lived again. Now all I needed to do was live in his corner. I offered ko but he tried to kill. We both think he was losing this fight which would have won me the game, but unfortunately I lost on time.

League Page with game records

Our friends in Ireland were promoted to the C-League at the end of the last season and continued to do well, winning their first match this season, against Denmark, 3-1. Phillipe Renaut, James Hutchinson and Matei Garcia won, whilst Karl Irwin lost on board 1.

For more information visit Pandanet Go European Team Championship.