A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

British Go Journal No. 67. April 1986. Page 4.

British Championship - Game 1

During the seven years of Matthew Macfadyen's tenure of the British Go Championship, in only one year has Terry Stacey not been his challenger for the title. We present here in full the four championship games which ended in a 3-1 victory for the patient challenger in games 1, 2 and 4. (M) signifies Matthew's comments and (S) those of Terry.

According to Terry, the games were characterised by a fairly consistent level, interspersed with severe mistakes or sequences of mistakes causing the lead to suddenly change hands. The standard of play following the final turning point in each game was typically fairly poor on the part of one or both players because of byoyomi or lack of concentration.

Black: Matthew Macfadyen, 6d
White: Terry Stacey, 5d
The game-file in SGF format.

Figure 1 (1-50)

• White 22 - Black 29: (S) Makes the game unfavourable for White. White 22' at 25 followed by black 24 etc would be better.
• White 26: (M) May be better one line lower. White 28 is too optimistic; of course black won't answer and white is in trouble.

Figure 2 (51-101) 62 at 51; 87 at ; 96 ko at 88; 99 ko at 93.

• White 52: (M) Too heavy. (S) Better at 60.
• White 64: (M) Now white has 3 groups all in bad shape in the same area.
• Black 65: (M) Terrible - I spent a long time analysing various more vigorous moves at the top and none of them works - yet. Therefore Black should play 73 leaving the bad aji at the top until it comes to the boil. Up to 76 white settles himself with territory at the top, and 77 needs to kill to get Black's money back.
• Black 87: (S) Only playable if white 88 does not lead to ko, which it does. (M) Slow, probably 100 making good shape was better. The ko should be White's problem , not Black's.

Figure 3 (102-154) 105 ko at , 108 ko at 102.

• Black 111: (S) Should continue the ko having started it. (M) Not a ko threat, but takes away two good threats white had here. Black is still ahead, though it's getting close.
• White 128: (S) Might have been better at 129, but Black loses the game in the sequence to 139. Black 129' should have been at 131, and B131' has to be at 137. (M) Idiotic, this must be at 137. Up to 139 white gets a gift of 24 points. The rest of the game is just thrashing around.

Figure 4 (155-220) 158 ko at , 161 ko at 61, 164 at , 210 at 181.

White won.

Game 2 is on page 6.