Foreign Tournament Report

WAGC Under Way

World Amateur
Japan
Sun, 2 - Wed, 5 Jun 2019

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

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK Draw with Turkey Avoids Relegation

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 7 May 2019

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.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK Beaten by Sweden

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 16 Apr 2019

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...

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Irish Open Runs Smoothly

Irish Go Congress
Dublin
Fri, 22 - Sun, 24 Mar 2019

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.

Last updated Mon Apr 08 2019.
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Norway Beaten Four-Nil

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 19 Mar 2019

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.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK Draws with the Swiss

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Sat, 16 - Tue, 19 Feb 2019

Our team fought hard and managed a draw against Switzerland. The next match will be on Tuesday 19th March, against Norway.

Andrew Simons wrote: I played my game against John Walch on the evening of Saturday 16th. I won on time, but was fairly confident of winning anyway. The game started with a diagonal opening and me 3-3 invading (as I did against Sam in the second championship game); he took the gote wall so I took its extension and then peeped at it. He resisted, connecting on dame, so we had a fight and I was happy to build centre strength, and then, as he haned at q11, I got to make the dame cut in sente. His group was hard to attack directly though, so we played some more opening stuff. I made a makeshift defence against h17 invasion with l18 hane and got to cap his c9 stone (if he runs it out then I get a splitting attack on lower group) and he made a fun second line invasion on top.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Joanne Wins Debut in League Against Austria

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 22 Jan 2019

Our team lost again by three games to one, this time against Austria. The only win was by Joanne Leung, making her debut in the League on board 4. The next match will be on Tuesday 19th February, against Switzerland.

Andrew Simons wrote: I lost on time against Viktor Lin, from a good position that had just turned bad in an overtime panic. We had a nice opening fight when he allowed my powerful cut at p3: we both had weakish groups running out to the centre, but I got to cover the head at m11 and he didn't make much territory on his half of the board in the process. A fight on the lower side ended with an exchange, capturing a load of cutting stones for good profit to settle my groups. I think c4 was a mistake though (e3 or h2 better), as although I got a ponnuki and sente I lost chances to attack his group which didn't actually have eyes yet; he was obviously going to steal the base of my ponnuki next and pretend to attack it.

Last updated Wed Jan 23 2019.
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UK Team Slump to Bottom of B-League

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 11 Dec 2018

Our team lost three games to one against a strong team from the Netherlands. This put our team down to bottom place in the Pandanet B division, behind Denmark. After four rounds, in the B League out of A-D, four teams have three wins: Serbia, Sweden, Austria and Belgium. This win left Netherlands in fifth place. The next match will be on Tuesday 22nd January, against Austria.

Alex Kent wrote: I lost by resignation against Geert Groenen, but I feel I played a lot better this game (at least in the opening) so I'm not too regretful! Probably the hardest choice I faced early on was how to handle my opponent's 3-3 invasion on move 28. I ultimately played the double-hane variation, but it was a bit of a toss up between that and the keima-and-try-to-retain-sente one.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Jamie Taylor Only Winner Against Belgium

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 20 Nov 2018

Jamie Taylor was the only one of our team to win a game in the third round match against Belgium. He wrote: I won my game against Lucman Bounoider, despite my best efforts. I think we were both a bit tired, as my opponent died big quite early on, then I made a colossal mistake to allow it to live instead. After that I think we both just started playing worse and worse, donating points to each other all over the board. Eventually he resigned, after I got out of several narrow scrapes, none of which I had any business being in in the first place. I can't complain though, a win's a win.

Alex Kent wrote about his board one game against Lucas Neirynck: I lost by resignation. As black I opened with a Kobayashi style fuseki, and instead of playing the "normal" two-space approach my opponent played the 3-3 invasion in the upper-right.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK Lose to Strong Serbian Team

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 30 Oct 2018

Our team lost all four games against Serbia. The result was not a surprise, as Serbia has an extremely strong team, quite likely the strongest in this league. They went top, just ahead of Sweden, after this match. Our team had fallen to eighth position after this round, round two. The next match will be on Tuesday 20th November, against Belgium.

Alex Kent wrote: I lost my game against Nikola Mitic by 17.5 points. I made an effort to play a slightly calmer/simpler opening than I normally do, which gave me a playable position early in the middle game. I may have made a few moves which were too meek - in particular my pincer on move 20 probably would have been more effective if it was closer to the action. I think I should have tenukied in a couple of places where I didn't. My opponent launched an effective splitting attack which built up his large potential on the left side - things came to a head soon after when a large ko developed on the lower side.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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