Oza Round Three: Death and Destruction

Board 42, on which I played three out of my six tournament games. I am sure there is some cosmic significance in that, even if I haven't found it yet.



Game three was my worst game of the tournament. I don't know what I was doing, but it wasn't very good. Minue reviewed the game and talked a lot about what is thickness and what is not thickness. Which, frankly stated, was more interesting than my game.



The game was too many mistakes, resulting in many dead groups all over the board. The end count was almost like a 25 kyu game, half the board was black, half the board was white. Luckily , my white half of the board was about 30 points bigger. It felt more like a swindle than like an earned win though, I killed a group that should have lived easily.



About thickness. How to know whether a group is thick or not? Basically, it needs to have at least two of

• many eyes
• strong connection
• plus, many liberties

If a group has two, or all of these properties, you can think of it as a thick group.

Next requirement, it needs to be outwards facing with room for development. If it is inwards facing, it is just solid, not thick. Also, thickness implies efficiency. A local position can be thickness on one board, but overconcentrated on another board, when there is another group too close by. Minue's review has many examples.



It had been a long day, so we didn't want to spend too much time getting dinner. The best solution seemed to be to go to Ruby Tuesday. Sounded like fast and reasonable food. Turns out I was wrong on both counts, it took us ages, and my veggie burger was more awful than I have ever tasted. On the other hand, we had fun eating together, and the salad bar was good. Not to mention the fact that the Vermont Go Club managed to find a geocache while waiting for our seating.