Foreign Tournament Report

In the fourth match of the season, our team (the same players as the previous match) managed a draw against Finland, after a late substitution of a weaker player by them.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Javier-Aleksi Savolainen by 7.5 points. He played even more slowly than me in the opening, so it was a nice sensible game: after some AI-style josekis he shoulder-hit my not-in-the-middle extension and rather than jumping out he cut off my wall below. As it had made some standard kikashi earlier, I managed to get it out in ok shape; we ran for a bit (I think he shouldn't have let me get j12), he capped my group, but then I went for a small local life/connection, which was locally a bit sad but ok given I'd got a big tenuki out of it, and still wasn't dead. He then used his cap to invade my right side, I got some handy kikashi and connected on top and built a wall, but he took all the territory.

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.

The second match in the new league season was against Turkey. The match produced some entertaining games of which the British team won three to take their first win of the season. This left the team in sixth place out of ten.

Bruno Poltronieri was the losing player, by resignation to Emre Polat (5d). He wrote: I lost by resignation. I was relatively happy with the opening, though Leela seems to prefer Black. I then managed to cut off part of my opponent's group and get a fairly large territory on the right side, at which point I’m definitely leading. I guess I was too confident after that because I played a very questionable tenuki which probably made the game even again, if not worse. I actually still thought I was winning at this point, but it seems I was wrong. I probably had one more chance to play a cut in the top right, but I missed it.

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.

Wang Chen of China won the 40th World Amateur Championship in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. Second, with just a loss to the winner, was Lee Jaesung of Korea. The group on six wins was: Hong Kong, USA, Pal Balogh of Hungary, Canada and Dmytro Bogatskyy of Ukraine. The other places went to the best on five: Japan, Singapore and Indonesia.

The UK Rep, Andrew Kay, was 27th out of 59 with four wins. With three wins on the first two days, day three didn't go so well with losses to Pal Balogh of Hungary and Timotej Suc of Slovenia. On the final day he lost to Jan Simara of Czechia, but beat Ioan Grigoriu of Romania.

Noel Mitchell for Ireland also won four in 36th place.

The World Amateur is underway in Japan, in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture. The opening ceremony on 1st June featured a drama of the slaying of the local eight-headed dragon and the city encouraging players to visit the castle and the large local lake. Play got underway the next day with the usual Asian and other strong countries winning two; after two days Korea, China, Japan and Hong Kong were the ones on four.

The UK representative, Andrew Kay, lost as expected to the Korean player, but then won his next three against Lloyd Rubidge of South Africa, Martin Li of Sweden and Stjepan Mestrovic of Croatia. This put him 13th of 59 with two days left to play.

Noel Mitchell for Ireland lost to Pal Balogh of Hungary, Carl Mendez of Chile and Bahadur Tahirbayov of Azerbaijan, but then beat Cristobal Marvan of Mexico.

IGF Ranka Reports Results

In the last match of the season, our team had trouble against a lower-graded team from Turkey. They lost board one and two to draw the match. However the match point scored kept the team above the relegation zone and their final position in the B-League was 7th.

Andrew Simons wrote: Annoying loss for me against Hakki Burak Güner. The opening and early middle game went well. However the h4 “timesuji” blunder should have been at r13. He ignored this and attacked well; I helped him kill me. Then I messed up some more.

Alex Kent wrote: I lost by resignation to Ugur Arikan. My game was a bit disappointing - credit to my opponent as he didn't seem to make any real mistakes! The opening contained three 3-3 joseki (I made a large shimari in the fourth corner) and it seemed pretty balanced. I experimented a bit in the lower-left and destroyed the side rather than taking the corner. I don't think I got a bad result there.

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...

After the troubles caused by the snow at last year’s Irish Go Congress, this year it was played under clear skies and ran extremely well. The Confucius Institute was not supporting the event and so the venue reverted to the tradition one, The Teachers’ Club on Parnell Square. Over the weekend 42 players, including visitors from seven countries, took part in the Go.

This started with the 18-player Irish Rapid on the evening of Friday 22nd March. As usual the rounds speeded up from twenty to twelve minutes and the number and size of handicap gaps reduced as the strong players started to dominate. Tunyang Xie (4d) from Cambridge won all five games to take the title. London’s Xunrui Zhao (3d) and Trondheim’s Juan-Manuel Losada (1d) took the next two places.

The Irish Open got underway two minutes early on the Saturday morning (a record) and ran extremely well for the next two days, if you did not mind the noise of a church service coming from next door on the Sunday.

Our team played very well and got their first win of the season, against Norway. This moved the team up to seventh place and out of the relegation zone. The next match will be on Tuesday 16th April, against Sweden.

Andrew Simons wrote: I won my game against Severin Hanevik after more than three hours of play and 331 moves including passes. I played an AI-style early 3-3 and then was happy he gave me the thick old joseki in bottom left even though he got sente. He surprised me when he resisted my attachment and took the outside ponnuki, and again when he didn't connect up to the corner; LeelaZero says he should have done so immediately and I should have prevented that instead of my solid tiger mouth. Nevertheless I had a ko for later. I then peeped his wall, as is the rage these days and built a reduction group. I used that to start the ko, but did so too early as he correctly ignored my threat.