Results of the 5th Rioplatense Tournament

The 5th Rioplatense Tournament, which took place on KGS between iberoamerican go players, finished last wednesday. There were 35 players, whose levels ranged from 7d (Fernando Aguilar) to players near 20k.

To make the tournament a little bit more interesting, the games were played with proper handicap according to KGS rating. Fernando Aguilar couldn't play the first game for personal reasons, so the result was quite unpredictable right from the beginning.

In the end, Kireta (11k) went undefeated the whole tournament and, obviously, would have won the price if there was one . My performance wasn't bad either on this tournament: I ended up being the 6th with 4 victories and two defeats.

At the "continue reading section" there is a large recopilation of the games, some hints in case you want to watch them and I comment on the feelings I had while playing. Just in case you want to know "how a 8k manages to win a 2d", or "how is it possible that such an 8k makes THAT mistake".

The first one, both of us being 8k, was the only one I played without handicap, and happened to be a very interesting game from both sides. In fact, this game is the one from "Aggressiveman I vs Aggressiveman II".

On the second game I had to give 5 stones to a 13k. Unfortunatelly, the only way to recover from such a difference is to get into complicated situations for both and exploit the opponent's mistakes. In this game I realised how valuable sente was and got to play move 105, which was very big for both. There are a couple of easy tsumegos too: one with the C9 stones (solved at move 137) and on the lower right (solved at move 140).

The third one was my first defeat, I had to face a 12k with four stones. In this game I forced my opponent to invade my moyo and struggle for life. Unfortunately, I had been advised to hold myself and stop playing so aggressivelly after the first game, so I after forcing my opponent to invade my moyo, I tried to get some influence while he struggled for life. I got some but it wasn't enough to win the game. In fact, if I had played a little bit more aggressivelly, I would have killed the invasion and won the game.

This was an extraordinary game, where this 2 dan happens to play three times a sequence which I thought was a "testing move". It seems that, after some research, it is a common move and not a tricky one... even played at the meijin title this year.

On the lower right corner, white gets everything after a horrible sequence where I lose a few stones and he makes a strong group. On the lower left corner, he makes a weird invasion and I block it correctly. But the most amazing sequence of this game (from my point of view, of course) was the result of cutting at C15. Awesome sequence. I still think that these moves won me the game. As a compensation, I made a terrible blunder with move 116.

The next one was a 7k which I had to play without handicap but 0.5 komi. In this game I realised how important handicap stones are in comparison with the komi points. I realised, too, that I like forcing my opponents into my moyo and then pressing them (or killing if possible). I was leading the game till greed fell on me and I made a bad sequence around moves 160; if you make an estimation of the score before that sequence, you can find black winning by 30 points. In the end, I lost by 3.5 points, the smallest difference I have ever found.

We had some KGS connection problems, so the last game was played on IGS (with obvious rating system). I was given 4 handicap stones in order to face Tengensan, a 4k. Obviously, his first move was tengen, another move I had never encountered before. Result: another struggling group in the middle of the board which I could press to increase my moyo. In the middle of the game, I found myself with some chances of victory if I didn't make any major mistakes. Fortunatelly (for me), I didn't make any of those and happened to win by 26 points.