UK Beat Old Friends Ireland

The eighth match of the B-League season, on 14th April, was against our old friends and league rivals Ireland. Gavin Rooney was expected to play board three for Ireland, but in the end James Hutchinson had to move up a board with John Courtney playing board 4, Karl Irwin and Philippe Renaut on boards 1 and 2. The UK team fielded its strongest team to try and cement our second place; this tactic worked as Damon Woo, Michael Cheung, Bruno Poltronieri and Jake Game all won by resignation. As Sweden drew, the team moved one point clear of them in third place, but still behind leaders Netherlands who are uncatchable. The last round will be on 12th May against Finland.

League Page with game records

Damon Woo wrote about his game against Karl Irwin: The opening favoured me. In the middle game, Karl tried hard to separate my groups and attack them. However, the black stones around the group were not strong enough to challenge my weakish white group. As such, I won by resignation.

Michael Cheung wrote: I played against Philippe Renaut as black. I had a successful opening as my opponent was too greedy to get a corner early in the opening. In the middle game, I held the advantage and my opponent tried to get a comeback by getting more territories and ignoring his weak group. Although I did not calculate everything clearly, I felt like its alright to kill, and went for it. I was lucky that the killing turned out to be fine despite of some risk.

Bruno Poltronieri wrote: I won against James Hutchinson by resignation. He played an interesting attachment on the right side which I thought might be good, but he followed it up with a hane that was definitely too much. I got a lot of thickness in exchange for him cutting off my earlier approach stone, but it left a lot of aji in his corner which I used to start and win a ko. After that my lead is very comfortable. He tried to cause trouble for my lower left group, but resigned when it didn't work.

Jake Game wrote about his game against John Courtney: It seemed I was extremely lucky with my opponent blundering in time trouble. Possibly I was better in the opening but unclear.