Round 4:  Thomas Koller (1k), again a player I knew from the Go Club Zürich. In fact the pairing programs try to avoid getting pair-ups with two people from the same club. However, even though I mainly play at the Go Club Zürich, I’m still a member of the Go Club Winterthur, so I always end up playing the guys from Zürich -_-

Anyway, the game was really enjoyable. For the first time in the tournament I managed to play a decent opening and secure a lead straight from the beginning. However I slacked off in the middlegame, allowing my opponent to secure a large center moyo. By separating 4 of his groups in the center and killing 2 of them, the game got relatively close again.  The endgame was well played by Thomas and I didn’t get to secure too many spots. I won by 1.5 points.

Round 5: This is where things started to get really ugly. At this time I was at 2-2, so this game would determine whether  my wins or losses would prevail. I was a little shocked when I found out my opponent was Brian Kleiner (3d). It’s a bad habit, but I kind of get intimidated by people that outrank me by over 2 ranks. Again I tried to make a decent opening. However I was too hasty and greedy, which led to a fight that spread all over the board, or rather a dragon of mine being chased, trying to get a second eye. If it lived, the gme was mine. If not, I was screwed. Sink or swim. Basically I was completely in the my opponents sphere of influence and tried out every cutting point and every ko in order to somehow enable the dragon to live. After having lost 2 semeais and 2 large groups, there was no way I could have as far as even thought about winning anymore. Eventually I resigned.

Despite only having won 2 games, the tournament was great fun and the location was well chosen. I didn’t attend the prize-ceremony as I had business to do, but to my great pleasure Stefan Lange (4d) had won the tournament, followed by Lorenz Trippel (1d), Josef Renner (2d) and Sébastien Koch (2d). Unfortunately I only managed to come in 12th. I’ll make sure to post the table with the final results as soon as it has been uploaded to swissgo.

After having catched my train at 11.30 am I gave Thomas (the organiser of the tournament) a call to make sure I was on the list in case i didn’t find the location in time. The first round was scheduled at 1.00 pm, so I panicked a little when I (at 1.05 pm) arrived in Wollishofen and the Jugi (location where the tournament is being held) was nowhere to be seen. Later a friendly old lady showed me the way, still I was 15 mintues late. Once I had arrived, the thing that first caught my eye was that nobody was playing. I wondered what was going on and asked Lorenz, who replied that the printer didn’t work and they didn’t have internet access to fix the problem. So the first round pairings were written by hand.

Round 1: My first opponent was Norman Frenzel (2k) from Basel. I hadn’t played any tournaments in nearly a year, so the atmosphere was kind of intimidating at first. The opening went well, as well as the middlepart of the game. I felt i was in control and was confident to manage a good result in this game… that was right before I made a rash decision which led to one group being killed ^^ Still, the game was close and I decided to keep on playing. After counting it appeared that I had won by 6.5 points.  So after having written down and handed over the results, I went outside to get some fresh air. A couple of minutes later my opponent comes out and asks me to have a look at the game as he had miscalculated my territory and I had in fact 10 points less. I was like

Basically I had now lost by 3.5 points… counting is a bitch -_-  So much for round one

Round 2: This one was against an opponent I knew well, Dan Burkolter (2k) from Zürich. I used to play him quite frequently back when I visited the Go club every week. However since my 6 month break he had become considerably stronger and  I didn’t feel very confident, additionaly I was still frustrated from the strange pseudo-loss I had experienced in the first round. So I decided to play blitz ^^ The opening was a mess, I let him secure a huge top, while I barely had any points to begin with. This changed when he decided to invade one of my positions. His group died, leaving my positions strengthened and ready to attack. Eventually he resigned, basically I just got lucky in this one.

The next round wasn’t played until 8.00 pm, so I had a little more than 2 hours to waste.  I guessed getting some food would be a good idea, so I searched for a decent restaurant nearby. The only one I found was a Pizzeria which I could have only barely afforded, so I grabed the next streetcar and was on my way to McDonalds… then however I thought Burger King might be better… or should I go to the Spaghetti Factory? To cut a long story short, I ended up in:

Chicken Strips with Curly Fries and hot sauce, nothing wrong with that   Stuffed and content as I were, I then returned to the tournament location (a 20 minutes ride) where Josef lectured me on good cuisine and expressed his reluctance towards certain other restaurants ^^.

Round 3: Sad, so sad. My opponent this time was Jonas Jermann (1d) from Zürich. I don’t like to admit it, but he’s kind of like my black sheep. I can’t seem to figure out a decent strategy to counter his go and the games always end up in a total mess. In this game it wasn’t any different. You can’t really say there was much of a Fuseki as move 15 already started a huge fight that spread out all over the board, not in my favor though. I lost two big groups and staked out a huge shaky moyo in order to maintain something like a territorial balance. The good news was that I even managed to transform most of it into territory, it even became close. However the initial loss was too big and it was too late to turn the tables, so I ended up with another loss.

Not much to say here, just:

And now I’ll try to catch some sleep in order not to suck too bad tomorrow. Wish me luck

3 days aren’t nearly enough time to study new stuff that will actually be settled in your memory and completely understood until the day of the tournament. So I’ve come to the following conclusion. I will play a best-out-of-10. So if i manage to win at least 6 out of 10 games, I will participate at the tournament. If on the other hand my win-loss-ratio happens to be worse than that, I will focus on my studies instead. Additionally I’ll try to review as many as possible out of the played games. If you have any hints or comments, they’re appreciated ^^

Current status: 2 W – 0 L

Anyway here’s the first game!

The second game almost ended in a disaster. I was lucky to pull out a win on this one.

UPDATE: Alright, just got home. The evening was really memorable and a lot of fun. Li Yues teaching style is easily comprehendible, especially as she states and illustrates very clearly why certain moves are good or bad. I’ve tried to include most of the information she gave in the SGF and I think I recorded pretty much all major variations.

Unfortunately I had to leave pretty early and didn’t get to see the results of all of the simultaneous games. However there was one situation that caught my eye. In one of the games the following situation appeared on the board. How does White deal with the situation after the marked black stone has been played?

On 9th September there will be a workshop with Li Yue at the Go club Zürich. In addition she will be playing simultaneous games after the workshop,  don’t miss it. Especially as the whole event is free!

The Workshop starts at 19:00
The Simultanous games at 20:00

Admittedly not much has changed. Still the same old players, still the same old servers and still the same old rules apply. Even though I must admit that skills are not what they used to be, fortunately they can be brought back into shape by playing and studying extensively ^^. And what better way to this is there than by participating at numerous tournaments and learning from the best that the country has to offer. At the moment three “major” Swiss tournaments have been announced.

Zürcher Turnier 2009 [19. - 20.9.2009]

The Zürich Go Tournament is an annual competition that is probably one of the best visited Go-events in Switzerland. Usually a pro or at least a strong amateur will attend the tournament and give lectures and advise players.  You can find more information on the official homeapge.

Tournoi de Veyrier 2009 [10 - 11.10.2009]

Another big tournament, mostly visited by players from the french part of Switzerland. It has an excellent reputation and can be looked forward to! Also check their website.

Winterthurer Go Turnier 2009 [14.11.09]

This tournament is a little special. The time-limits are a bit shorter and only four rounds are played. However this way the tournament can be held on one single day which makes it less time consuming and doesn’t swallow the whole weekend. Usually 15 – 20 players attend the tournament. More information on the website.

Tournaments are always great fun, so please stop by and enjoy an afternoon of fierce battles ^^

Yeah, well… what can I say? I was kind of busy. University and stuff is taking up a lot of time. They tend to urge you to do projects and homeworks and stuff, basically things that’ll either shorten your lifespan considerably or at very least take away most of your Go-time.

Anyway, Cho Seok-Bin’s workshop is over and thanks to my cramped schedule I couldn’t attend even one of the lectures he gave *sob*. However the guys from the Zürich Go Club were nice enough to transcribe all lessons and make them accessible in PDF. Remember, if you intend to participate at the Swiss Go Championship in 2 weeks, I suggest you better study all of this thoroughly (Josef will shatter you otherwise ). I’ll try to get my hands on the original SGF’s or create own ones to upload to the “Reviews & Lectures”-section. Until then, enjoy the PDF’s.

Guess what, there’s even more! Heretix published a video of commented pro-game with English subtitles on GoDiscussions.com. Here’s what he writes about it.

After many hours of hard work, i’ve finally finished my first video project for the Go community. I’ve added English subtitles to a video of a Chinese professional (Hua Yi Gang 8-dan) commenting on the 6th LG semi-final match between Lee Chang Ho and Cho Hun Hyun, played in 2002.

[...]

Comments and feedback for the video much appreciated.

Its my hope that this will kickstart a fansubbing community for Go videos, similar to the ones we have for anime now. There’s a treasure trove of Go videos all over the Internet, just waiting to be translated and brought to an even bigger audience!

If you’re willing to help, please contact me by sending me a PM here, or looking for me on KGS.

Edit: Making one video like this takes me days of work, and its unlikely that I can do it again unless I get some help.

The duration of the video is about 25 minutes and it’s really worth watching. It can be downloaded on Google-Videos (MP4-file) or viewed online on youtube (part 1, 2, 3)… or you can just watch them here ^^

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Cho Seok-Bin 7d

Anyway, today and on friday Seok-Bin will play simultaneous games at the Go-Club in Zürich. Apart from that, there’ll be 2 more courses at the weekend. If you have time and live nearby, you should really attend them, from what I’ve seen so far they really are valuable and you can learn a lot. I’ll try to post the SGF’s of the course as soon as possible. There are some old ones available on my former Blog.

I’m almost ashamed to say this, but I’ve never been to any youth-championship even though it draws more players to it than any other Swiss tournament (except for the Swiss Open Championship maybe). No less than 60 players not only from Switzerland, but also from Germany and France gathered at the youth-hostel to attend this years tournament. The organizers have really done a great job. Apart from the excellent lodging, the center offered a decent playing room with a nice view. I didn’t really expect it, but even the food was awesome!

Sébastien discussing the game with Qi

As the name of the championship already suggests, many young players participated. Some youngsters even got the veterans in a cold sweat. There were five rounds played, three on Saturday, two on Sunday. On my trip to Solothurn I was accomanied by Tanja, Josef and Lucien (you guys rock). The trainride was great fun, we got to play a couple of games and talked lots of nonsense. The atmosphere at the tournament itself was no worse. Even though you could feel the nervosity rising before the first round, everyone was being really kind and you would see the Swiss top-players explaining openings, tsumego and joseki to beginners and advanced players alike.

My game with Dominik

As for me, it was a great feeling to see so many players and friends gathered in one place. My last tournament was somewhen in August last year and hadn’t studied Go for months, so I was pretty unsure about how the tournament would turn out for me. The first round went quite well even though the game was close until the end. The second one was against Qi Huanxin and boy I didn’t know what hit me. He seemed to erase every problem I dealt him with with one hand. Not only that, but those hands also gave ME a headache, I had to resign pretty quickly. My third opponent played rather fast and I kind of had trouble with the opening… well, just replace the words “had trouble with” with “lost over 60 points in” and you’ll get my point. I stubbornly continued to play and narrowed the gap to around 10 points but eventually had no way to gain any more territory and gave up. That was on the first day. I have to admit it felt kind of depressing to start off on Sunday with 2 losses and only 1 win. My fourth opponent turned out to be a player I knew pretty well. The game was close until the chuban but he miscalculated the status of a group and the difference in points stayed until the end, so it was 2-2. My fifth and last opponent was a 3k. Admittedly I was surprised to see a 3k at the top-table. So I guessed he would be rather strong – I wasn’t wrong. After him laying out a big moyo at the beginning of the game it became really difficult to catch up. That I misread a corner and formed a seki in gote instead of gaining 8 points by sacrificing a stone didn’t make it any easier. Considering that he played very solid I decided it wouldn’t be any good to try neck-breaking maneuvers. The only option left was reducing. I still can’t believe I was actually able to pull off a win after the the horrible middle-game situation. 3-2 (I even won a book, pure awesomeness)! To sum it up: The tournament was a great and well organised event with great people attending it!

Enclosed you find the Top 5 from both Youth champions (own category) and general tournament winners with their respecitive win-loss-ratio.

General Tournament

1. Qi Huanxin [2d] 4-1
2. Roberto Morrison [2d] 4-1
3. Sebastien Koch [2d] 4-1
4. Josef Renner [3d] 3-2
5. Stjepan Lukac [1k] 3-2

Youth Tournament

1. Maurice Amon [1k] 1-4
2. Zürcher Samuel [3k] 2-3
3. Metral Yuki [4k] 3-2
4. Marcille Gabriel [4k] 2-3
   
5. Hostetmann Samuel [4k] 1-4

• TOURNAMENT RESULTS (COMPLETE LIST)

You can view all the photos in the SwissGo-galleries and a short movie of the event will be available soon. You’ll find it on Uchihamadara’s YouTube-channel (it already has some Go-related movies in it, check them out if you’re interested).

UPDATE: There seems to be a problem with Youtube and the audiotrack of the vid. Anyway, it’s available on Veoh now, enjoy ^^

Li Ang with the members of the club

It has been a while since I’ve played a game in the local Go-club. So entering the familiar building and hearing the clacking of stones and Go related chatter kind of made me feel nostalgic. I found out that the Go Club Zürich now offers a course every week (presented by Lorenz Trippel [1d], Thomas Frech [2d] and Josef Renner [3d]). The range of topics covers game reviews, opening-theory and other things too.

Reviewed opening (click on the picture to download the SGF)

Obviously I didn’t attend the first couple of courses but I might be able to obtain the SGF’s and publish them on the blog. I’ll let you guys know as soon as I’ve spoken to the organizers. However another course (presented by Li Ang [5p] took place a couple of days ago. The Chinese pro gave the participants some insight on various openings. Josef was so kind to record the lessons on both days (SGF’s originally published on Zuerigo.org). I’ve translated the first SGF to english, there is another one but I didn’t have the time so far to translate that one too. But rest assured that you’ll find it on the blog in foreseeable future. If you’re interested in Live-Go-Workshops by famous Pros you should also check out the Go Master Course 09 that will take place in Vienna and Paris from march to april and will be held by Takemiya Masaki [9p].

Reviewed opening 2 (click on the picture to download the SGF)

As promised here’s the second part of the workshop. This one was about the small chinese opening (again recorded by Josef Renner).

Opening Reviews © by Ang Yue Go-School.