Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Don't Run With Scissors

Haha, so much for my go playing. Much life is happening, much of it is good, but somehow it takes up a lot of time! I have been trying to get ASR games in the little bit of time I have left, but have not been very successful in meeting up with others in my group. I'd better get some more games in or I will go right back to gamma next month. Oh well.

Because I can't get ASR games I have been playing relaxed and reasonably fast games on wbaduk. Which would be wonderful if I didn't manage to keep getting killed in positions where I thought I would be fine.

Interesting playing style they have, tons of cutting and fighting. When I try to do it right back at them, I either get killed or I lose an arm or a leg or even more often, an eye.

If anything I am even more convinced of the value of studying capturing races more seriously. The easy ones are , well, easy but the more complicated ones mostly give me a head ache and a desire to take up chess.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Go for Broke

Yesterday we drove through the Green Mountains of Vermont to the 'Go for Broke' tournament in Middlebury. It is a small tournament, but always an excellent atmosphere.

 


My first game I had to give 4 handicap stones to a 4k. Hmmmm. At the end of middle game I still was too much behind so decided on a shobute invasion in his 'too big and maybe too open' territory. It was a bloody and complicated fight and in the end we got into a complicated capturing race. I won by luck. Did I mention I am in the process of studying capturing races more thoroughly?

 


Second game was an even game in which all kinds of stuff went wrong early on and featured yet another capturing race. There was blood all over the place but in the end I won by a small margin. Just for the record. I HATE the ING talking clocks but they are more bearable if you put them in Chinese since it's easier to tune out a language I don't understand.

 


The last game was another even game against another player who had gone 2-0 so far. Ugly stuff happened and at the end of the middle game I was too far behind and no aji to explore so I resigned.

End result: 2-1 which was enough to get my into second place and a beautiful Japanese print poster. Thanks to Pete Schumer for organizing an always fun tourney.

 


It was a good tournament and I am looking forward to sitting down and reviewing my games. Not today though, today is cleaning day in which I try to uncover my kitchen table. Fancy that. There must be a table somewhere under that stack of dishes!
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