London Open

The 2008 London Open was a great way to end my first year playing Go. In all there were seven games, although I had to pull out of the last one due to health issues. I won three out of six, so I was quite happy. I'm now 8 kyu on KGS but I think these rankings are weaker than EGF ones so I put myself in very conservatively at 12k. From Jerry the book man I bought the 2001 Almanac which is a wonderful assortment of information about Go, the fundamental series Tesuji book and In The Beginning. The Tesuji book is amazing - I have worked through the 200 Tesuji Problems book before, but somehow it doesn't teach you the tesujis - I think you need these classified and discussed for them to really "sink into the sawdust".

There was also a lightning and pair go tournament but I didn't take part in those.

Guo Juan was there to give us moral support and game reviews. Her analysis is brilliant - easy to understand and extremely incisive. In the review of one of my games she was highly critical of my opponent's moves (marked by a triangle):





The reason she was so critical of the move is that it doesn't cover either of the two cutting points in white's group (marked by red dots). The move should have covered one or the other by being played one space to the right or the left. Playing in between doesn't cover either! This acutally reminded her of a famous game played recently by Cho Chikun and Yamashita as part of the 32nd Kisei title (4th game), so she used this move of my opponent in her lecture before she went through the famous game. The position that is similar is the following:





Apparently Cho Chikun was very unhappy with himself for making this move - later in the game the three stones get taken, all because the cutting point wasn't covered. Guo Juan's basic message was: "Take note of how many cutting points you make in your shapes and don't make too many of them".

Here is Guo lecturing:




Matthew Cocke (5 dan) gave us a couple of entertaining problems to work out. The first one is a comparatively easy under the stones problem. Black to live:





The second one is rock hard and comes from Shutai Chang. Black to kill: