Rocky Mountain Winter Tournament 2008

The tournament took place last weekend and I had a blast.

Four rounds, all even games (unless you are below around 15k, all games are even).

First Game

First I played someone who is a weak 3k on KGS and entered as a 1.0 dan--no previous tournament experience. He took the center and I took the edges/corners. In the middle game I had invaded one of sides, created a ko for life, and then ignored a fairly large threat so that it would live. I think I turned out slightly better from the threat, but only slightly.

I was beginning to work my way into the center, and hooked two stones into a ladder to give me access. The ladder was broken, then I fired a peep across the board threatening to split two of his groups which worked as a ladder breaker. He ignored it to secure the ladder, and I split his group into two separate groups. I then managed to kill both groups (one of them cleanly, the other because he played tenuki).

Second Game

I do not know who this was. He had no previous tournament experience, was very intense, and had entered as a 1.5 dan. He was there with some friends. His play was... weird. He played the "Go Seigen" style three star points on a diagonal, and then proceeded to duke it out with me for territory. Color me confused. There was a large group of his that would collapse to three liberties, and I had a tesuji to give me three liberties against it, but couldn't see a way to get 4 or to get those 3 with sente, so I left the position alone.

He was extremely confident in the position, since while I read it out he seemed to get bored. He played very very quickly, and I got the impression that he probably plays faster games online and wasn't used to dealing with the 45 minutes (longer than most Korean professional tournament games) of thinking time afforded us in the tournament.

Then we hit endgame. I basically won by luck. He played endgame with the large group and then didn't secure it, so I could now collapse it to two liberties vs. my three. When I began to collapse it, he didn't sacrifice any stones. Then I pulled my tesuji and captured his large group, and basically swung the game in my favor. If he had abandoned a few stones at any point during that sequence, I would have probably lost. Instead, he just passively let me collapse it to 2 liberties and then pull my tesuji to give me 3. Whoops.

Game Three

Game three was against the tournament organizer, an AGA 3.2 dan. This is the only game I took black in, and I lost by about a stone or two worth of points. I felt like I played well, and managed to keep the game fairly close. His comment was that I should work on not responding to moves--basically endgame/macroendgame--and that was the main portion of the difference in our strengths.

The game itself was a lot of fun for me. I managed to take the center without giving up too much on the sides.

Game Four

For this game I played a Korean 1.8 dan with a low sigma (uncertainty). He was so far 3-0 in the tournament. I made an early mistake and lost a side, but managed to take the center in exchange. He worked his way into my center, and for a while it really looked like I was going to lose the game--then I managed to start cutting off the edges of his invasions. There were a few cases where his invasions were connected by knight's moves, which I could cut through, or in one case where I could split his stones with a hane into a one space jump. His western side was enormous, and I really thought I had lost at the end of the game, but it turns out I was actually ahead.

Overall I had a lot of fun--it probably helped that I had nothing on the line--and fought some very strong opponents. It was great to play so many people around my strength in person, rather than just online. The intensity is different and I think it was good for my play.