Win Against Netherlands Moves UK to 5th

In the third match of the season, our team had a great win against a team from the Netherlands, winning three games to one. This meant the team was 5th in the B-League.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Filip Vander Stappen by resignation. I took a look at some of his KGS games and he seemed to play an old pre-AI territorial style, so I quickly played AI style opening similar to my title match against Sam last year but attached on the other (better) side in the lower left. When I tried to surround territory on the 5th line he came in and we had our first fight, but I felt confident with his weak side group to push against and my lower right pressing group in decent shape. He played very territorially and I ended up surrounding his group, and when I wedged in at o4 he shocked me by falling for a double atari; I thought I could probably kill him, but I misread with m4 (missed his m7) and he lived, so it wasn't an early game over, but still I got a nice thick wall and sente. Thus I attacked his other group a bit and then 3-3 invaded, daring him to hane (I planned to cut). He didn't fall for that and he extended a bunch and then played what I thought was an overextension on the top so I invaded to attack his eyeless wall, he made a ko for it and I ended up resolving the ko to let him connect up and get sente to attack on the left again. My corner group wasn't totally safe either and we had another ko for me to avoid living in gote which I won and his groups were safe, but I was plenty ahead, although short of time, so just tried to simplify and closed my territory; he played a 3-3 invasion which I killed but with bad aji which he used to get an endgame reduction. He resigned when I ignored a smaller ko threat for a ko in the endgame.

Bruno Poltronieri wrote: I won by resignation against Herman Hiddema. I started a ko early on to finish a running fight, which I’m not entirely convinced was that good for me. But my opponent’s threat was definitely too small and I think I had a good lead after that. His threat did let him push one of my groups around though, and I didn’t play that well around there so my shape got pretty bad. I think I let my bad shape convince me that I was losing, even though Leela puts me at 90% here, so I decided to fight back which was likely a bad idea. My opponent immediately offered an exchange where he took a very large corner and I got a dumpling/thickness. I then used that thickness to invade both of his three space extensions on the right side. I think the game is pretty even at that point, but he answered the second invasion with the most straightforward sequence which he must have misread because it led to him dying.

Alex Kent wrote: I won by resignation against Gelmer Bouwman. I had a much better opening this time where I formed a moyo at the top and generally made a nuisance of myself in all other locations. Things started getting complicated in the early middle-game, but ultimately went very well for me with all of my groups settling and one of my opponent's corners dying. The game was effectively over at this point and I weathered all attempts to create trouble later on (though it did get more complicated than I would have liked).

Jon Diamond wrote: Lost again, this time to Merijn de Jong. OK to start, but I continued with a typical slight overplay and he cut, so creating weak groups for both of us, more of mine than his of course, so things were a little difficult for a while. Luckily my original weak group had one eye and pretty much of another one in the centre. So I grovelled a bit and then threatened to make a little territory, which he invaded and turned eventually into a ko. As a result I surrounded a large corner and it looked like I was comfortably leading, but my large group in the middle needed to confirm its two eyes and unfortunately I didn’t do this too well. So he tried to survive in my corner. I know I shouldn’t have done, but I let him cut off some of the surrounding bit, and he killed it, so he won...

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