UK Lose to Germany

The UK team lost to Germany 0-4 in the Pandanet Go European Team Championship on 3rd May. The cemented Germany in second place in the B League behind Austria. The UK stayed bottom behind South Africa in 9th and Croatia in 8th, the opponents in the last match on 24th May.

League Page with game records

Bruno Poltronieri wrote of his game: I lost against Benjamin Teuber. The opening went smoothly but at the first fight I mishandled a ko and fell behind. After that I tried too hard to resist a peep and started a pretty hopeless ko, and things collapsed not long after.

Jon Diamond wrote: Again, not quite as quiet a start as I’d liked against Arved Pittner. A misclick on the left made only a one point extension, when I intended two - but not such a big thing. Another mistake in the next fighting gave him my corner, but with a heavy group in the middle and some thickness on the lower right, so maybe that was almost enough compensation. Nevertheless I made some missteps in the fighting (why oh why to I do this?) and lost it all… Really poor.

Des Cann wrote: I managed to throw a won game away against Niels Schomberg. In the words of my opponent it probably wasn’t close. But I needlessly started a ko to kill a group on the left when he was seriously short of time (and I had plenty) and blundered away a group on the right. I think most of the game I was at least even and possibly ahead. Then he tried to kill a group at the bottom. I let him have the tail of it whilst I lived by capturing two stones and stealing his corner. That should have been my game from there. Ho hum.

Tim Hunt wrote: I lost too to David Ulbricht. It was a big clash of playing styles, which was immediately apparent when in the first corner he went straight into a very tricky pincer joseki line (which I thought at the time was probably a trick play, but turns out to be legit). Anyway, it was a fight I had not seen for years, and got a slightly bad result. Then we had a fight next to that with both sides having a weak group, and I played OK for a while, until I made a fatally flawed shape which he immediately exploited. (It turns out that the one-point jump is sometimes wrong.) So, then I was a long way behind. I played on, and caught up a bit, bit resigned in the late endgame while still a good 15 points behind.