Alejo's Tenuki

Yesterday I played the third game of the Ibero-American Tournament in KGS. My opponent was of unknown strenght, as his rank is hidden and his profile graphic ranges from 2d to 3k.

Before the game he had reviewed my previous games in order to find some weaknesses which he could exploit. Though this is not exactly illegal, punishing this mistakes doesn’t prove to have a better understanding of the game if you have just learnt them in your preparation for that concrete game. But if we add this to his suspiciously unexpected disconnection in the middle of a L&D situation… well…

Move 45: the hane at R5 isn’t good for black. See the game in order to find out how to punish black for it.

Move 53: white leaves the server. He got disconnected for a couple of minutes. Suspiciously, it is exactly in the middle of this silly life-and-death problem where black can’t do anything but die.

Move 65: not exactly this move, but after the lost of the corner, I’m forced to turn the game into a moyo based one if I want to retain some remote possibilities of winning.

Move 79: The intention of this stones is to split white into two and let white decide which side to save. Unfourtunatelly, I end up in bad shape and this allows white to exploit that weakness later on with move 102.

Move 93: Who reads better?

Move 115: a nice sample of dual purpose move. It attempts to capture the white group from N7 while constructing a barrier for my moyo. In the end, white finds a gap with move 128 and my moyo is severely reduced.

Move 162: Black’s bottom group can be killed and white plays tenuki.

Move 175: Black attempts to create a threat for a snapback and, just after realising that it doesn’t work because white can capture at H8, white fails to see it and defends.

Move 249: Black removes one point from white’s territory after he has passed.

All in all, the strenght of my opponent still remains unkown. How would the game have been if he hadn’t reviewed mine? What would have happened if he hadn’t left the server? Would he have lost on time? Would I have won? Would he have killed the bottom group?

On monday I played the second game of the TIG 2008 tournament, against a 1k, the highest rank in my group; therefore this is the toughest opponent I’m to face during this tournament.

Before the game, my opponent told me he had seen this blog. Once warned, I decided not to make the Kobayashi openning, a few seconds before skamus announced that I was playing as white according to the tournament directors. In the real game, black tried to make a sort of Kobayashi openning, which I answered with a short pincer: complicating the game only makes it worse for the weakest player.

We both made some good moves and I made some good blunders all over the board, but managed to get a big moyo on the left side. During the middle game you’ll see one of my groups struggling to survive and in the end, a nice ko upper left (though I knew the sequence to survive, I didn’t expect him to go for the ko).

All in all, I lost by “only” 13.5 points.

Last week I was forced to play against the Kobayashi fuseki, which is some sort of the mini chinese openning. Here you have the traditional sequence:

In fact, I liked the way the game developed for my opponent after Kobayashi’s, so I decided to give it a try on my next game.

Today I played my first game in the Ibero-American Tournament 2008, against Hugo Scolnik. He was listed as a 1k in the registration process, but his currently unstable KGS level placed him near myself, at 5k.

After Black 5, white can answer at A, B for deffensive moves, make a low pincer at C, or ignore the threat and play D in order to avoid black finishing the sequence. What Black really desires is to get lots of influence at the bottom of the board, so moves which make him strong here (most attach-josekis) are welcomed as well as an approach at E.

In the actual game, white made a single-space jump and I made the proper extension to K4. Then he made an invasion exactly in the middle of the right side and I didn’t know how to answer it properly, but I managed to get a decent result.

All in all, it was a very interesting game, involving an almost-seki where I finally decided to play safely and avoid the ko, one too-late invasion on a corner, and a huge yose blunder. Even then, after these mistakes I managed to retain some of the advantatge I had won in the middlegame and finally won by 0.5 points (lucky man).

The 10th Ibero-american Tournament starts this week. I expected there to be just a few dozens of players, but the final list of participants consist of 138 players, whose strengths range from Fernando Aguilar to low double-digit kyus. The tournament will be held in KGS and IGS and the inscription is already closed, in fact, if you speak Spanish you’d already be aware of this tournament through the famous Go-Prat, and if you don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese, you won’t be allowed to participate in this championship.

In order to make the pairings possible and somewhat decent there are 3 vars which create for different groups: stronger than 1d, between 1k and 6k, from 7k to 14k and weaker than 14k (according to KGS level). The tournament will consist in 8 rounds, played once a week, and the time settings will be faster than I usually play: 10 minutes and byo-yomi of 15 minutes per 25 moves.

Despite my last defeats in KGS, my rank has been stablished at 6k and, therefore, I will possibly suffer the consequences of being the weakest player of a group where I shouldn’t be. On the other hand, this is a great opportunity to improve my level and learn from the ones who are stronger than me.

I’ll keep you informed as the tournament goes by.

For some reason, and without realising it, my level has increased a little bit. On one game this weekend I lost by 0.5 points against a 6k, though I could have won if I had realised I was winning before yose. Improving my “counting ability” is one of the few things I really need to work hard on.

On the other hand, I’ve realised that I enjoy more and more watching others’ games. Above all, the one where high dan players make nice unexpected moves, such as the game I’m posting today.

It was played on Monday evening between two 5d players. It has some cool life and death problems all over the game, right from the beginning there is a very basic one, and, in the latest stage of the game, a very nice and complicated one.

According to the American Go Association, and confirmed by some Senior KGS admins, today Tartrate will play against Gentlerain. Here you have the published text just in case you don’t know them:

THIS JUST IN (3/4/2008): “LEGENDARY” TARTRATE TO PLAY JANG BI ON KGS WEDNESDAY: Tartrate will return to online go this Wednesday when he plays Jang Bi on KGS. The legendary – but mysterious – online player known as Tartrate blazed a virtually unbeaten path across KGS in 2003, defeating Alexandre Dinerchtein 1P, Svetlana Shikshina 1P and Kim Myung Wan 6P before vanishing without a trace. Tartrate’s fabled invincibility was only broken once, when he took White with no komi against Charm, and the ease with which he dismissed tough opponents led many to people believe he was a strong professional. Amicable and somewhat chatty, Tartrate insisted on anonymity, however, refusing to answer personal questions. His impressive performance in 2003 was followed by a long silence; during a short comeback in January 2004, his winning streak continued and his game against Weems 9d attracted over 400 observers. “Tartrate has a message for the online go world,” a reliable source tells the E-Journal, “he strongly suggests that while he is playing games, all the dans — especially higher dans — comment on his game for the community, and is disappointed when they don’t.” Jang Bi is the Korean insei who’s been living and playing in the United States since last year. The tartrate-gentlerain game will be played Wednesday, March 5 at 6:30pm EST (3:30pm PST) in the English Game Room.

In fact, news have risen a lot of expectancy in the GoDiscussions forum, so we expect there to be some hundreds of observers, and lots of dans comments. I’ll see you tonight at 23.30 GMT!!!